Given the innate resiliency of this band of Cardinals, I have taken to keeping a new stat.

An interactive one.

That is as objective as Tony Reali’s scoring methods on Around The Horn.

I call them Answers.

The Cards will be ahead. A foe will have a run. May be small. May be extended. But in my mind, it puts the Cards advantage or chance of winning in doubt. U of L can be up double digits, but if I get worried and a Cardinal stops the bleeding, it’s an answer.

Also, of course, during a back and forth affair, when the teams are trading blows.

There are no definitive metrics. Only the level of disturbance in my gastrointestinal tract.

Louisville registered a half dozen or so against the Seminoles. At least when I wasn’t too stressed to jot them down.

Or so it seemed to me.

Good guys jumped out quickly. Treys on first two possessions. 8 zed lead. Might this be a laugher from the start?

No. State ran off 5 consecutive, the last deuce an uncontested dunk. 10-7.

Answer: Chucky draws a foul. 2 FTs. 12-7.

Unperturbed, visitors immediately counter.

Answer: Hadley from distance. 15-9.

Yo, Leonard, pesky won’t be enough.

Up 14 at the break, Louisville commits a couple giveaways early when play resumes. State appears energized.

Answer: Smith from Down Under. 50-35. Stop. Two FTS from Fat. 52-37.

That’s right, you guys keep comin’, we keep you at bay.

Cards turn it over. State drains a long ball to cut lead under ten. Reyne clanks one off the glass. TE follow. 54-44. Answer.

What I’ll write in the margins of my game notes nervously during games in peril. “MAKE FTs WIN GAME.” Yes, all caps. Mostly.

What helped U of L tremendously Saturday was the best at the line took most of the shots. CH 85% on the season. TE 78%. JH 77%. RS 94%.

So, when sometime tweedly at the stripe Kader Traore converted a couple to push the lead back to double digits at 62-51, it was designated Answer.

Now here’s the reality and resulting inconsistency with this “statistic.” At some point in sphincter tighteners like this one, I get so nervous I can’t even read my writing. So, adding to the scribbles makes no sense.

Thus, observant readers might have offered other answers for consideration. From this point in the ever tight game on. I get it. Not an exact data compilation.

That said, when J’Vonne canned a deuce when the lead had just been whittled to 66-60, it was not only an Answer, but I also invoked a sort of football terminology. It was a Professor Big Play. 68-60.

Next Answer was the sequence that followed to push the lead to 74-61. Which with a couple ticks over six left made it at least moderately apparent the fading Cards wouldn’t be denied.

Florida State kept a comin’, at one point running off 7 straight in a minute and a half.

Thus Edwards J for an 81-73 lead at 1:15 was designated Answer.

Answers? At 21-6, Louisville appears to have ’em.

A silly way to deal with in-game nervousness, I got one.

 * * * * *

Many are those living in Kelsey Kountry who have decried Saturday’s officiating.

As Cardinal teams did under The Rick’s regime, Florida State stayed pushy, handsy, grabby as much as they could get away with. As PK mentioned in his postgame, acclimating to how the game is being called is a key component of in game adjustment.

In the end it worked out.

As it happens, State was whistled for 25 transgressions, 11 more than U of L’s 14.

30/34 (88%) at the line was the difference. Just about. State only canned 13.

Games like these in a year when zebras are “letting them play” become more prevalent in February.

If teams are tired, and they most certainly are, refs are even more so.

The good ones, even some not so good, call way too many games. Take 59 year old Roger Ayers, always considered among the elite of the biz, and a guy who has called a lot of Louisville games. I believe I read that so far he’s done 88 games in 26 different states.

Actually that game count seems low.

In the first month of the season he did 29 games in 15 states over 31 days, traveling 26,000 miles. Connections. Airport food. Hotels maybe. Sleeping by Gate 87 at O’Hare possibly. Day after day after day.

He’s tired. His brethren are tired.

Missed calls. Bad calls. Loss of focus. All are inevitable. And manifest themselves this time of the season.

It is up to teams and coaches to adjust to what happens because of this reality.

 * * * * *

While watching the replay of Pat Kelsey’s presser after the W, one thing became obvious.

As if it hadn’t already.

The guy gets it.

Before talking about the game, he offered condolences to the family of a young media fellow who passed away, and talked of the flooding devastation around the Commonwealth. He even mentioned how U of L had posted a link where people could give aid.

When finally addressing the game itself, the first two players he talked up were Traore and Rooths. Who together combined for a grand total of 31 minutes, 11 points and 8 rebounds.

When asked about the buzz of CoY consideration, he responded by giving credit to student managers, and talking about the “power of the unit.”

The guy can coach. The guy can motivate. The guy can energize. The guy can win.

The Ameliorator is a blessing for the Cardinal Nation.

— c d kaplan