Category Archives: Basketball

Hoopaholic’s Gazette: Cardinal Update & Updata +

I forget a lot of things as I too rapidly approach the onus of octogenariasm.

Like what I had for breakfast just a few hours ago.

OK, not that really, as a man of habitual rhythm, that meal has been the same since whenever.

But, as much as I do recall about Louisville Cardinal basketball, there’s more I’ve forgotten. And, mea culpa, stuff I didn’t realize.

So, credit to Eric Crawford whom I hereby plagiarize after reading his game story, there’s an astounding perspective of this joyful ever surprising bunch of Cards.

In a hallowed history that includes three nattys, an NIT, an NAIA, ten FFs (Think that’s right, counted on my fingers?),  status as the Team of the 70s, home to two HoF coaches with a third in place, this revivalist put together gang has done something hard to comprehend that no U of L contingent ever did before.

Five 20+ point victories on foe’s home courts.

My mouth’s agape.

The gifts keep on a comin’.

 * * * * *

James Scott is a gamer. Continue reading Hoopaholic’s Gazette: Cardinal Update & Updata +

U of L CardFile: NC State

A house plant in the TV room was acting funky, so I rang up my pal, an international gardening guru. A guy who knows some flora.

Also a truly fine writer, he’d just posted a piece in a magazine of note devoted to green thumbery where he riffed on the word “truculent.” No matter why. Though not to worry, he wasn’t describing my commentariat, apropos as it might be.

Anyhow, I mentioned as how I’d recently invoked the rarely used “ameliorate.”

Which is why I kept attempting to conjure a college board word to describe the deceptively ho hum  91-66  U of L beatdown of woeful NC State in Raleigh.

Moribund is what came to mind.

Lacking in vigor or vitality.

Too many unforced turnovers.

Way way way too many. 17.

Allowing  14 offensive boards.

Any number of slo mo possessions when the patented Kelsey movement wasn’t to be seen.

So, here we are on the cusp of Valentine’s Day 2025 , picking nits at a 25 point victory in the league on the road.

Seedy, shame on ya.

Here’s the tried and true nature of these mature, fascinating, Metro energizing Cardinals. Continue reading U of L CardFile: NC State

Hoopaholic’s Gazette: ’05 Begat ’25

For sure I’m enamored with the ’05 Cardinals.

Not just because they got us back, back in, back in the FiFiFinal Four.

Self Indulgences:

That January the Film Babe, another couple and I visited The Professor and his bride, who took to wintering in Sydney. Where it was summer. The dates of which holiday were aligned so we’d be back for a big game against Marquette on the 26th.*

*A return journey that had us spending a second sleepless Saturday night (International Dateline and all) on cots in a baggage claim area at O’Hare when we missed our connecting flight home. While some workers were jackhammering the sidewalk right outside. Why four allegedly intelligent people would fly through Chicago in dead of winter remains unexplained.

2005 was before we schlepped a laptop with us everywhere we went. At least my old school krewe.

So The Prof and I would stroll a block away to the closest internet cafe for Cardinal results. When on separate computers we simultaneously discovered Louisville had surprisingly won at Cincy, we turned and started whoopin’ and hollerin’ and high fivin’ to the confusion of the others present, cricket fans all.

That was the year U of L opened its tourney journey in Nashville. In the elevator of my hotel upon arrival I ran into (Name Drop Alert) Micheal Wilbon, whom I of course engaged, regaling him with factoids about my team.

I ran into him again right after the Cardinals had hammered Georgia Tech in Round 2. Remembering our previous conversation, he smiled, rolled his eyes and said, “They’re legit. A contender.” Continue reading Hoopaholic’s Gazette: ’05 Begat ’25

U of L CardFile: Miami (Fla)

The way my mind works, I had a lede prepped, should Chucky Hepburn be MIA Saturday afternoon, and should the Cardinals prevail nonetheless.

No Chucky. No problem.

That I would have written, a fellow who has considered CH the singular indispensable cog in the Cardinals’ wheel on fire rollin’ down the road.

He was not available.

The Cardinals prevailed. (And, I guess you could say I wrote it anyway.)

Louisville 88, pesky Miami 78.

But that lede really would have only played in Snarkadelphia. Anybody with a hint of hoops sense knows any successes are short term until U of L’s ace is back running the show.

Yes, U of L is +27 in his absence. Over two tilts.

But there was a blessing in scheduling. The two foes are ACC bottom feeders, BC and Miami. The latter, losers of 15 of their last 17, being coached on Saturday by the assistant to the assistant who replaced the head guy who on Boxing Day said “No Mas.”

 * * * * *

Which journey for an opening morphed to Ray Charles when rapidly improving, increasingly essential pivot James Scott went down and out with 11:14 to play in the 1st.

Scrambling on the floor for the orange, a Hurricane accidentally fell on his head. Continue reading U of L CardFile: Miami (Fla)

Hoopaholic’s Gazette: Tracking the Bracket

Forty Days and Forty Nights.

Until Selection Sunday.

Actually it’s a few days less than that — 37, 38, 39? — something like that.

But, ya know, a McKinley Morganfield reference seems appropriate at these somewhat stressful times when the Louisville Cardinals are posited to actually punch their Dance card.

The Waters are still a bit Muddy.

So, hoopaholic U of L obsessive that I be, checking on their status daily has become a thing.

The day after the BC beatdown, the answer to the ever so critical injury status of Chucky Hepburn and J’Vonne Hadley blowin’ in the wind, here’s where we’re at:

Bracket Matrix (consensus of all those who deign themselves card carrying members of the bracketologista): 7 Seed.

Their opinionation might not factor in the BC result. Bracketology is rendered irrelevant annually at 7:00 pm Selection Sunday. But seems about right for obsessives who give it store in early February.

Ken Pomeroy: #28.

Bart Torvik: #24.

Evan Miyakawa: #27.

NCAA Net Rankings: #28.

Not that I’m checking in with everybody or anything.

Then there’s that outlier BPI deal at espn.com which has the Cards slotted in the NIT. Or, so it’s reported, I haven’t looked. It’s time for positivitude.

Plus the metrics displayed above are the ones that matter.

Soooooooo, it appears that Louisville is far from Lock status.

But the needle is hovering toward the Should Be In side of the meter, rather than Work To Do.

But, there is work still to do. Continue reading Hoopaholic’s Gazette: Tracking the Bracket

Hoopaholic’s Gazette: February is the Cruellest Month

T.S.E. obviously wasn’t a college hoops fan.

c d k don’t know from dried tubers.

But your incorrigible scribe knows this: February is the Cruellest Month.

It is the Waste Land.

When losers become winners, and winners become losers.

Oops, wrong sport. Sorry, Scott.

 * * * * *

Not so long ago at that new REI out there in the tony shopping plaza on 22 where ladies dress up to purchase a new camisole, I bought a groovy wicking t-shirt.

Kind of mustardy.

The logo is an LP with stick arms and legs. reaching for a wall switch, above which reads, “Turn On.” Over the whole graphic, “Turn Up.”

Turn on. Turn up. Continue reading Hoopaholic’s Gazette: February is the Cruellest Month

U of L CardFile: Georgia Tech

There is only what is and that’s it. What should be is a dirty lie.

Lenny Bruce was a wise man.

The Louisville Cardinals “should” have built on their somewhat deceptive 11 point halftime advantage and “should” have won their 11th in a row.

But there’s only what is and that’s it.

As happened with the Cards last ten game win skein, it died in McCamish.

That game in ’20 ended 59-64 favor of the Ramblin’ Wreck.

Saturday afternoon’s was 70-77 favor of the far more assertive Engineers.

 * * * *  *

What happens in the euphoria of a winning streak, damn the analytics that U of L would be favorites in the rest of their regular season games is you still gotta play better than the other team. And score more points.

The last eight minutes of the Wake Forest game was obviously a harbinger. Continue reading U of L CardFile: Georgia Tech

Hoopaholic’s Gazette: Quadrants ‘r’ Us

At the risk of this seeming a fawning imitation of Glorious Editor, allow me to commence today’s exercise with some metrics. You know, like how he always starts with a point spread or something.

A little thing that will be known from now until Selection Sunday as 3Gs+Net. Referencing the three most respected hoops gurus, Ken Pomeroy, Bart Torkvik and Evan Miyakawa, plus the NCAA’s official rankings.

The Cardinals as of Thursday morning, January 30:

BT: 22.

KP: 25.

EM: 24.

NET: 25. Q1: 5-5, Q2: 3-0, Q3: 4-0, Q4: 4-0.

For comparison, if I counted correctly, there are 20 schools with winning Q1 records, and another dozen or so at .500 like U of L.

Translation: Were the bracket revealed today, U of L would be more than likely on the 5 or 6 line.

Yes, the ACC is down, way down this season. Louisville has not a lot ahead to add gloss to that resumé. Pitt. Stanford? Uh, that’s about it.

Here’s what’ll secure that spot: Just win, baybee. Starting with GT. And winning, as they have during this double digit W streak, by more than the metrics say they “should.”

Then come 7:00 pm on March 16, the Red&Black Nation be goin’ all Nicholas Brothers and Fred & Ginger. Jitterbuggin’. Continue reading Hoopaholic’s Gazette: Quadrants ‘r’ Us

U of L CardFile: Wake Forest

The other evening in a conversation, I used the word “ameliorate.”

What we used to call a “College Board Word.”

Not sure exactly where that resided in the recesses, but there it was. I forget the context. But a listener advised he’d never heard the word, asked what it meant?

Had to backtrack, fumbled about for a bit, and guessed, “It means something like making something less bad, something like that. Hope I’m right.”

Ameliorate: “Make (something bad or unsatisfactory) better.”

Lucked out there.

Thought of the word while watching Louisville storm to another insurmountable halftime advantage, this time against visiting Wake Forest.

The game was a slow starter. Tally stayed static at 6-5 for what seemed an interminable stretch. Then U of L started doing what they’ve done time and again recently.

The margin was 24 at halftime.

45-21.

So, ever needing to find a new way to describe what Pat Kelsey is doing at the University of Louisville, I got this. Continue reading U of L CardFile: Wake Forest