Rarely in my six decades of loving, living and dying with the fortunes of the U of L Cardinals have I turned away from watching.
Oh, I’m sure it’s happened now and again, when things got too grizzly — perhaps that Towson State debacle during the Nate Johnson Era — or when Louisville was so far ahead of some schlepper it was no fun to watch.
But, frankly, I can’t tell you when. with any specificity.
Until last night.
When U of L’s “A Team” appeared as if they’d slipped through that black hole in the Bermuda Triangle. Cue Mojo Nixon: “Elvis needs Cardinals.”
I don’t recall the exact moment of the “competition” when I took to surfing the web, grabbing a snack, instead of experiencing the Cards’ meltdown at the hands of the shorthanded Puerto Rican MNT, which rolled despite the absence of four top players .
I took my leave sometime during the first half.
I checked back later.1
But couldn’t bear to watch.
The final tally of the evisceration was U of L 62, Puerto Rico 96.
Rick Pitino commented on U of L’s performance in the game.
“It was horseshit.”
Hmmm, what a pungent public proclamation. Sure to help his team’s attitude, about which he’s been boasting.
* * * * *
The archipelago of Puerto Rico is a United State territory. A government entity, which has recently defaulted on repayment of loans it owes.
Which gives me pause to wonder if this idea of The Rick’s to take his squad with “the best attitude ever” to play 9 games in six days against hungry ballers with something to prove on their island in their house was such a good idea.2
What I did see last night was a disheveled group of Cardinals, their coach on the opponent’s bench, losing their poise, pride and “best attitude ever” with each tick of the clock.
Of course, it is just the middle of August. The regular season is months away.
Of course, this is a young team, for the most part just learning how to play at the collegiate level, led by two elder one-and-done newcomers.
But what I observed were fractured psyches and ebbing confidence. Losing is contagious.
Other than that, I have no further observations about last night.
My prayer is that it was but an aberration, that Pitino’s plan will have positive benefits when the real season begins.
* * * * *
The televised aspect of the affair was no better last night.
There was some good news, which I’ll pass on to those still watching. You can get rid of the double soundtrack by muting the sound at the icon in the lower left hand corner of the feed screen. Then you only get Paul Rogers and Jody Demling once. Though still out of sync, especially when the video freezes, but the audio continues, and thus the lag expands before our eyes and ears..
And I forgot to mention, though you might have figured it out yourselves, you can go full screen by clicking on the diagonal arrows in the lower right hand corner, then hitting Esc to get back to normal.
The bad news. After I signed off midway through the first half, I couldn’t log in again on my main iMac. The site was frozen. I have no idea why?
Yet I was able to get it on my laptop.
But, when I tuned in there, the scoreboard read: Louisville 29, Puerto Rico 56.
Life’s too short.I watched no more.
— Seedy K
Last season we had 4 consistent double figure scorers (Harrell, Blackshear, Rozier and Jones) Based upon what Ive seen so far, next year we have 2 (Lee and Lewis, and Lewis is only based upon reputation, not anything he’s done in these two games. I’m not one who runs around saying that the sky is falling, but …
Is the Rick at that place that our previous coach got about six years before he “retired?”