BAD NEWS:NBA just suspended three (3) prayers from Louisville Cardinals men basketball Today due to the………..READ MORE
If you buy something from an SB Nation link, Vox Media may earn a commission. See our ethics statement.
ESPN has Terrence Edwards at No. 12 in its list of the best transfer portal players of the 2024 offseason.
—Brandon Huntley-Hatfield is headed to NC State for his 2024-25 season.
—Louisville is among the schools that has reached out to Mississippi State transfer Shakeel Moore.
—The Athletic’s Sam Vecenie gives a quick scouting report on new Cardinal Terrence Edwards Jr.
Edwards exploded onto the national stage this season for one of the country’s best mid-major teams.
He was the primary creator for the Dukes, playing largely as a big wing initiator next to shooters Noah Freidel and Xavier Brown in the backcourt. Typically, one of the guards brought the ball up the court before getting it to Edwards to begin their sets. Coach Mark Byington had Edwards play out of ball screens for the most part, and Edwards thrived in those settings as a sort of super-charged Swiss army knife who could see over his man and read the defense before making the right play. He throws terrific passes off a live dribble from multiple angles before fully taking over late in games. He can dynamically spin to either side and get to his shots, or he can drive all the way to the rim.
One thing worth tracking is that he wasn’t a particularly good finisher this year, making just 49 percent of his shots at the rim, per Synergy. But with T.J. Bickerstaff and Jaylen Carey taking up space inside, Edwards did have to deal with at least one help man waiting to slide over at the rim.
Throw in Edwards’ solid (though not necessarily elite) defense, and he has all the makings of a top-quality high-major wing.
—State of Louisville has a great look at some of the guys in the transfer portal that Pat Kelsey has his eye on.
—Hailey Van Lith is back in the transfer portal. USA Today lists Louisville as one of five potential spots for where she could be headed next.
—Also back in the portal: Roosevelt Wheeler and Fabio Basili. Neither saw much of the court at their new schools in 2023-24.
—Make this man Grand Marshal of the Pegasus Parade.
Walking the streets at the final 4 and I’m being stopped every 10th step. They all want a picture and an answer to a question. “Did a Louisville fan really send you a check? “. Yes, that is a true story. How much? More than enough my friend, More then enough
— Greg Kampe (@KampeOU) April 5, 2024
—Skyy Clark will play for Mick Cronin next season at UCLA.
—U of L softball will host No. 12 Florida State this weekend.
—Matt Norlander of CBS looks at the four moments that made NC State’s miracle March run. Two of them feature Louisville.
They clung to the No. 10 seed in the conference bracket, which meant last-place Louisville was on the menu. Amid this, concern was widespread about whether Keatts was coaching for his job. To be clear: Keatts was coaching for his job.
“Let’s be honest,” Justus said. “Kids read the internet. They’re not dumb.”
The day before playing Louisville, NC State held practice at Episcopal High School in Alexandria, Virginia. It was a terrible few hours.
“I walked out of that shootaround/walkthrough and I was speechless,” Justus told CBS Sports. “It was such a bad walkthrough. Our guys were nervous. You could cut the tension in that room.”
Part of it was DJ Horne’s leg injury. He missed the season finale at Pitt and was off the table vs. Louisville. Keatts told me he felt the “nervous energy” and “that first game is always the toughest one.”
Without its leading scorer, and with a lot of uncertainty attached to the program, Keatts also admitted the couple of days leading into the Louisville game “did something to our psyche as well.”
One of Justus’ friends, Jim Fitzpatrick, is the coach at Episcopal High. Fitzpatrick watched. He was vexed. And he didn’t like what he saw.
“It was like, ‘Are you guys OK?’” Justus remembered Fitzpatrick asking him. “I’m getting chill bumps just telling this story, because I haven’t really talked about this.”
Tension had risen, and on that Monday-into-Tuesday, no one could really do much about it. It felt like a hex was hovering. Four losses in a row, and now Louisville? The swirl of a season potentially about to end hung heavy over everyone. Without Horne available, who was going to step up?
“I can say this — and I think anyone in our program would cosign on this — we were as tight and as nervous as a team I’ve ever been around in my 20 years of coaching on the day of the game that we played Louisville,” Justus said.
NC State started slow. Louisville’s Skyy Clark burst onto the scene, scoring 16 points in the first 8 minutes and 32 seconds. It looked bad early.
It was Clark’s 14th, 15th and 16th points that had NC State wobbling before halftime. But what happened next was a near-undetectable flap of a butterfly’s wings that gently tilted fate back in NC State’s favor.
Basically, if they were playing anyone but us, NC State’s season ends on March 12.
You’re welcome, Kevin.
—The U of L volleyball team will face Kentucky in Lexington tonight at 6:30 in a spring match.
—Eric Crawford writes about the 502 Circle’s huge week.
As they discussed a few plans, Furman and Greenwell were surprised to see that Kelsey, with no prompting from them, had posted a quick video to say “Thank you” to Kueber and those who donated just before he boarded a plane for a recruiting visit.
“We are just going over some blocking and tackling type stuff, and my Twitter starts, like, going off. My phone’s buzzing, and Zach’s phone starts buzzing,” Furman said. “And it’s PK putting that video out of him getting on the plane. Totally on him. That’s just how he rolls. I mean, the guy is going to take initiative. He’s going to do whatever he can to make this place successful. So we appreciate the heck out of him for that. We appreciate his staff taking on that challenge and we’re excited to tackle it head on with these guys.”
Furman and collective founder Marc Spiegel expected things to pick up with the hiring of a new coach, whoever it was. But Kelsey’s drive, energy and willingness to engage fans directly in what amounts to an on-the-spot fashion has helped kick their efforts — and donations — into high gear.
Furman said more than 850 people have donated through the initiative initiated by Kueber, and the collective has added more than 450 new members through its 502Circle.com website, which offers varying levels of memberships.
“That’s a crazy number in just a few days,” Furman said. “It’s an exciting opportunity for us and a chance for us to talk with new donors and people who may have never given to this athletic department before. And now they’re giving to 502Circle in a way that they could have never seen possible and they’re directly supporting our athletes. So it’s a really exciting time.”
—Matt McGavic has a notebook of observations from yesterday’s open spring practice.
—The Louisville baseball team will look to finally end its streak of conference series losses when it hosts No. 19 NC State this weekend. Here’s a preview.
—Cool moment last night after a really good NIT championship game.
After Seton Hall wins the NIT Title, Shaheen Holloway quite literally tells Robbie Avila to keep his chin up.
This is respect between two great representatives of college hoops.
This is sportsmanship at the highest level. pic.twitter.com/1LEjmGIjDB
— Ben Stevens (@BenScottStevens) April 5, 2024
—In news that should shock absolutely no one who was following the Louisville coaching search, news broke approximately five minutes after Indiana State’s loss last night that Josh Schertz will be taking the job at Saint Louis.
—Louisville is on the list of schools that have reached out to Florida Atlantic point guard transfer Nick Boyd.
—I will be watching this.
You couldn’t keep the Doctors of Dunk out of the air in 1980 pic.twitter.com/AIoPQYCoVa
— Omaha Productions (@OmahaProd) April 4, 2024
—Class of 2026 QB Darnell Kelly made unofficial visit at Louisville on Wednesday and watched the Cardinals practice.
—This Saturday’s Lou City vs. Indy Eleven match at Lynn Family Stadium will air on CBS, marking the first game in league history to be on network TV. It’s also Kentucky Derby 150 Celebration day, and they’ll have a bunch of Derby activations on site.
Card Chronicle readers can buy discounted tickets for the match here.
—Louisville’s Sydney Taylor will participate in the 2024 Women’s College All-Star Game today on ESPN2. The game will be held at 3:30 p.m. ET at the Wolstein Center on the campus of Cleveland State in downtown Cleveland.
—Is the Louisville/Florida Atlantic rivalry now hotter than the Louisville/Michigan rivalry?
Former FAU player Brandon Weatherspoon weighs in on Pat Kelsey recruiting Johnell Davis
Kelsey and Weatherspoon exchanged words in a matchup between FAU and Charleston this season pic.twitter.com/DdR374vC3t
A lot of people are saying yes.
Malik Williams made his first NBA appearance on Wednesday, getting the start for the Toronto Raptors.
The “entire Louisville team” got three votes in this poll on the biggest trash talkers in women’s college basketball.
