Corrected and edited 2/13, 5:18 pm.

So, is there reason you may ask, why I revisit my take on the Miami game?

Yeah, because I stupidly and inadvertently deleted the entirety of my original astutely-observed, elegantly penned version of the recap. Don’t ask, the reason is too embarrassing to shae.

Since it was already way past my bedtime, what I then knocked out and posted was a condensed take.

There are a few other matters peripheral to the game I wanted to share. So I do.

Like, as you can tell by the photo above of my very own Wes Unseld throwback, how much I love love love the throwback unis adidas provided for the game.

More please.

I really dislike a lot of the garb our shoe sponsor has thrust upon U of L in recent years. Especially the font.

There were those hideous orange t-shirt monstrosities the Cards had to wear while scrapping their way surprisingly to the ’12 Final Four. U of L is not the Jerry Sloan-era Evansville Purple Aces.

Or those absurd t-shirt tops the Cardinals were forced to wear on the way to beating Michigan for the ’13 NCAA title. U of L is not the Elgin Baylor Seattle squad that got hosed by the refs in the ’58 title game in Freedom Hall against the Fiddlin’ Five.

But every once in awhile, maybe the law of averages, the look is the right look.

More Dunking Cardinal, s’il vous plait.

 * * * * *

Brandon Huntley-Hatfield was back on the bench, in his uniform, without a boot.

Couldn’t tell if Fabio Basili made the trip or not?

Though I have no definitive info about the freshman PG, what I’ve been advised about his behind the scenes issues, tells me it’s 50-50 whether he’ll compete again for the Cards or not. Just a guess.

It’s a shame. The kid’s got talent. But he is immature and apparently pretty hard-headed.

 * * * * *

Saturday afternoon, I watched the #1 Alabama/ Auburn game which took place in front of a raucous, sold out crowd on the Plains. With ESPN’s A team on the call.

My mind went back to viewing the SEC Saturday Afternoon Game of the Week back in the day.

John Ferguson and iconic Joe Dean on the call.

Unless UK was playing, or Pistol Pete, the arenas would be a quarter full, and somnambulant.

Oh how things have changed in the Land o’ Where They Just Care More. Even for hoops.

Which musings took me to the Friday night before the ’82 national semis in New Orleans. I was dining with my krewe at a long departed restaurant Morton’s. (Not to be confused with national steakhouse chain.)

When I went to the restroom, at the same time as a couple of other Cardinal fans I recognized from undergrad, Joe Dean is standing at a urinal taking care of biz.

At which point, the three of us, all a smidge in our cups, surround Mr. String Music, and implore him with obvious good nature to leave the SEC and start calling Metro tilts.

Dean took it all in good humor, laughing along with us.

Which memory took me further down the rabbit hole to the next day’s game. U of L lost to Patrick Ewing and Georgetown, 50-46, in easily to most intense defensive battle I’ve ever witnessed. Neither team could run anything they wanted to.

And, that remembrance, sigh, jetted me forward to today. When the Hoyas are looking up at the rest of the Big East from the cellar with a lone league W. The Cards stand similarly situated.

—  c d kaplan