I think we now have a new name for the stupid three goggles celebration: Loose Butthole Monocle. Just another thing to add to the many ways for us to make fun of UK fans, since they are the only team I've seen that actually have shirts about this stupid antic.

And yes Mike Marra, you are looking through a loose butthole:

Major props to Mark Titus from Grantland for the new name. Probably the funniest college basketball writer behind Mike. Although he's got Mike beat in the former college walk-on department.

From UofLSports:

University of Louisville junior forward Rakeem Buckles suffered a torn anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) in his left knee during the Cardinals' game at Marquette on Monday and will miss the remainder of season and all of next season with his second career knee injury.

"I don't think any of us could imagine this happening to such a fine young man," said U of L Coach Rick Pitino. "All of us are just crushed. We had thought he had just hyperextended the knee when he had turned for a simple block out and it turned out to be terribly wrong. We will stay close to Rakeem so we can keep his spirits high."

"Coming back from a second major knee surgery, Rakeem's recovery is expected to take well over a year," said UofL Men's Basketball Trainer Fred Hina. "We will work with him closely on his recovery and will apply for a fifth year for him to play his final season as a Cardinal."

I'm sure a lot of you have heard about the UofL sports facebook page doing give-aways everyday leading up to Christmas. I have one thing to say about todays, if one of us from CC does not win, this site will be considered a failure.

On the tenth day of Cardinal Christmas my true love gave to me...10 Lords a Leaping...or maybe just 1 Doctor Dunking!

Today, we are giving away an official retro Darrell Griffith Louisville basketball jersey!

The Cards have a great history of nicknames with Never Nervous Pervis and Dr. Dunkenstein, so to win today's contest you'll have to continue this tradition. Head over to Twitter, mention LouietheCard in a tweet and include a new nickname for one of our current men's or women's basketball players. The fan who submits the best nickname for a current Cardinal basketball player will be selected as our winner.

The winner will be announced tomorrow morning. Good luck and Go Cards!

West Virginia alleges, "The Big East Conference and its commissioner, through their actions, breached their contract to WVU and nullified and voided the bylaws."

The reason the Big East breached its contract? West Virginia alleges that nothing was done to protect the remaining six football playing schools once Pitt, Syracuse and TCU left. That created such instability, that the lawsuit alleges Cincinnati, Rutgers and UConn engaged in discussions with the ACC, SEC, Big 12 and Big Ten.

West Virginia alleges Marinatto failed to take proactive measures to "maintain, let alone enhance the quality of competition in the league" and the school had no choice but to accept an invitation to the Big 12.

West Virginia also believes the Big East will lose its position as an automatic BCS-qualifying conference.

West Virginia also alleges, "The denigration of the Big East Conference is a direct and proximate result of ineffective leadership and breach of fiduciary duties to the football schools by the Big East Conference and its commissioner."

The school is asking for a court injunction to declare the current 27-month waiting period void or count the $2.5 million payment the conference already received from the school as a way to waive the waiting period. West Virginia also is seeking damages for the breach of contract.

The school is asking for a court injunction to declare the current 27-month waiting period void or count the $2.5 million payment the conference already received from the school as a way to waive the waiting period. West Virginia also is seeking damages for the breach of contract.

 

Are you fucking kidding me? Yes, I completely agree with what they are alleging, I just don't see how it would be violating the contract. Kinda doubt that is explicitly stated in the contract. I think you could argue the Big East was still in ok shape until WVU bailed. Just seems they will try anything to get out of the conference early. I hope we pound the shit out of them Saturday.

STORY

Actual Filing (pdf)

And it looks like we are still a candidate, although it appears to be a broader list than the last few I've seen. At least Katz didn't single Louisville out this time. 

Once the remaining nine schools sign off on the grant in rights then the league will begin pursuing expansion. An expansion committee is scheduled to discuss possible teams. The Big 12 originally had a list of Arkansas, BYU, Pitt, Louisville and West Virginia when Texas A&M left before Oklahoma president David Boren said the Sooners would look at other options. The Sooners' main option was snuffed out when the Pac-12 decided it would not expand.

Arkansas has said it would remain in the SEC. Pitt is now off to the ACC in 2012 or '13. For the Big 12 expansion pool, that leaves BYU, an independent in football with all other sports in the WCC; Big East teams Louisville, West Virginia and possibly Cincinnati and South Florida; Boise State and Air Force out of the Mountain West; and TCU, now in the MWC but bound for the Big East in 2012.

The question that remains for the Big 12 though, is how many teams to add. That hasn't been answered yet, according to sources. The ideal number is believed to be 10, assuming Missouri stays, with the possibility of going to 12. The TCU question will be an interesting one for Texas since adding TCU would open up the politics for Conference USA members in Texas such as SMU to push for inclusion.

Not sure we're at the top of the list if the expansion stops at 10, but if it goes to 12 I think we'd have a good shot at an invite.

Is conference realignment over yet?

There’s not a lot to report at this point and no one is talking on the record. But I can confirm that Smith is exploring his options on what he would have to do to get a release from the letter-of-intent that he signed on national signing day with Central Florida.

As of early Monday morning, Smith has not "officially" filed anything to get his release. He will have to file with Central Florida and the NCAA and likely will hear about his situation within a month or so of the filing.

One thing is certain, Smith wants out of his letter and he wants a full release.

LINK

I don't know about you guys, but occasionally I like to reminisce on the past glories of Louisville Football and Basketball. Unfortunately, having yet to hit my 9th prime numbered birthday, my recollections only go back about 10-12 years. The earliest game that I can recall vividly is watching the 2000 UK "LIghtning Game" with my grandfather. I remember being annoyed that my dad refused to let me go to the '02 FSU game because of the rain and it being a school night. I remember yelling "No!" a thousand times the moment Reece let fly his deep three against Marquette, then "Yes!" a thousand times when it dropped through the net. I still feel my heart dropping every time Pittsnogle swished a three in '05 Elite Eight, and then my pleading to convince my dad to get tickets and make the short trip to St. Louis.

Once AnVillen started gracing us with his masterpieces, I started wondering: Where can I find full videos of previous glories? The most I've seen of either championship game was when the last few minutes of each were played before the last game at Freedom Hall. Never seen any video of our Fiesta Bowl win, or the '83 Dream Game. I started looking for videos, but unlike Lexington College, UofL doesn't celebrate every semi-historical or exciting game with a T-shirt, DVD, and collectible soda can. Other than the two major bowl games and our national title games, The most I'd ever found was a link to download the last Freedom Hall game from ITV.

Then a couple of weeks ago, Villeslgr posted a fanshot to a website to download torrents of every memorable and exciting game in UofL Football and Basketball history. As you can see from the comments, I was excited. My excitement was tempered quickly though, as this 'Miipoto' was the only one seeding all of these torrents, and they were going quite slow. So I took him up on the offer he made in his ITV post. I contacted him, gave him a hard drive, and got a copy of almost all of his videos. He said he had them all, and wanted to give back to the Cardinal community. He's even started collecting newer games, as he just added Saturday's UConn game to his site.

I feel compelled to do the same. I plan on burning some DVDs so that my dad can watch some of these classic games whenever he gets the itch. And I want to share with my fellow Card Chroniclers. I'm missing some of the bigger files that Miipoto has, but anyone who wants 70 basketball games and 20 football games, shoot me an email at serawl01@gmail.com. 

Many thanks to Miipoto for giving me all the files, and to Villeslgr, who led me to him and his site. Now if you don't mind, I'm going to finish watching the Dream Game.

What are the exact rules on Bowl selection? I understand the order the bowls pick in, but unless I am mistaken, there isn't a rule saying the 3rd Bowl to get a selection has to take the team that finishes 3rd in the league.

I believe our bowl selection depends on how WVU and UConn finish and how it relates to ND taking the Champs Sports Bowl, and how Pitt finishes.

As for ND taking the Champs Sports Bowl, This article talks with the Champs Bowl CEO. He seems more intent on having a good team, regardless of whether or not it's ND. He mentions that they also have 4 years to do this, it doesn't have to be this first year. 

Regardless of the 7-5 rule, though, it really did sound like Hogan wants the best available team. It didn't sound like other bowl presidents I've interviewed that almost drooled over the Irish.

Now, since this article ND has gotten to 7-5 from 5-5, but in this interview Hogan still makes the same points.

"What we're looking for, like I said, is a ranked team if we can, a highly successful team in terms of wins and losses and go from there," Hogan said.

"Notre Dame is every bit in that picture, but I do think there are some teams there in the Big East -- West Virginia mainly at 9-3 if they got there, and maybe an outside look at (South Florida), if they were to beat Connecticut to finish the season to get to 8-4 -- that pool of teams with Notre Dame deserves a good, hard look."

If WVU finishes at 9-3, remains ranked, and UConn goes to the BCS, I think he’d take a ranked WVU team over ND. And then we get the St. Pete bowl with no real issues.

If however, WVU wins and UConn loses, I can see Champs taking ND over UConn. In that case, that leaves 5 teams for 4 bowls. In this scenario, I see two different possibilities:

1. Pitt loses this weekend and finishes 6-6.
2. Pitt wins to finish 7-5.

In scenario 1, I think we get picked over Pitt. Pitt fan interest would wain due to the disappointment of their season, compounded with the fact that Pitt fans are known to not be great travelers. Louisville on the other hand, has fans that travel well, it avoids the UK game, and our season is considered beyond expectations, with a bowl being a cherry on top. Also, most experts are picking Southern Miss to be the C-USA rep in the St. Pete bowl, and with our history with Southern Miss, I think it's a given we get picked over Pitt.

However, if Pitt wins, it becomes more difficult to pick us over them. Regardless of fan feelings and how they travel, it would come down to St. Pete wanting a team with a winning record, and we are stuck waiting for an at-large bid.

I think we end up at the St. Pete bowl. Pitt will lose, and then the Champs Sports Bowl choice doesn't really matter. We get St. Pete, and Pitt is an at-large selection. 

Bracketology.

Currently he has UofL as a 9 seed in the same bracket as Kentucky. So we could meet in the round of thirty-two. This is interesting. I know Lunardi is good, but i really doubt this becomes a reality. Anyone know what is track record is in putting the teams in the same region and the selection committee?

And the 8 seed is Okla. St. As if we need another reason for Doug Gottlieb to hate us.

http://vault.ncaa.com/

With this, you can watch any Sweet Sixteen, Elite Eight, Final Four, or NC game from 2000 to 2009 online. They even let you skip to any part of the game, to see any memorable shot or play.

More so, engineers have indexed every game with nearly 6,000 combined metadata tags, so fans can easily filter incredible dunks, blocks, buzzer beaters and more. If you prefer, you can also sort by team, year or player.

Wired Magazine

I just started watching the 2005 Elite Eight game between us and WVU.

I'm not getting any work done for the rest of week.

The Big East NEEDS to say something about these blown calls. They can't just deal with it internally anymore, if they even deal with it at all. There have been too many calls made by refs who had no view of the play, too many errant calls, too many inconsistencies in fouls called, and too many times that the refs didn't know the rule book. I understand that refs are humans, and mistakes are going to be made, especially in the middle of a game. However, missed calls that are clearly erroneous, such as the ball off the head and no UofL player body part was anywhere near it, or the refs not knowing the rule book, like them checking the replay to determine possession, is inexcusable.

There were 3 plays within 20 seconds of play time that those refs blew: the ball off the head, the no call on Delk being tackled on the three attempt, and not calling jump ball to determine possession. They missed the Pitt player stepping on the baseline. They also did nothing on the Seton Hall player walking on to the court and trying to inbound.

Now, the explanation that I've heard for the Seton Hall play was an inadvertent whistle. That very well may be the case, and that may have been the case. The Seton hall player didn't seem to think there was a whistle, as he continued to try and inbound it. The WVU player admitted after the game that the ball went off him and out of bounds with 6.7 seconds left. The league and the refs need to address these issues. Continuing to not talk about these issues publicly does nothing but hurt the league. If I made a mistake at my job, and made my boss or my company look stupid, I know I would be held accountable, whether it be a reprimand or even a suspension. Referees need to be held accountable for their actions as well. They should not being affecting the outcome of these games as much as they have been this season. 

http://sports.espn.go.com/ncf/news/story?id=4807719

Can't say I am surprised by this. I remember hearing rumblings the past 2 or 3 seasons that USF wanted to get rid of him, but couldn't because of the size of his buyout, and the fact that he built the program from nothing. Looks like the issue at halftime against us has given USF a way out. I like Leavitt, if only because he looks like Beaker from the Muppets.

New University of Louisville football coach Charlie Strong intends to make Florida cornerbacks coach Vance Bedford his defensive coordinator, according to published reports.

Apparently Bedford was getting looked at for the HC position at Buffalo. He started the turnaround in the secondary that got UF into the top ten in pass efficiency the past couple of seasons. He was DB coach at Michigan for a while under Lloyd Carr and coached Charles Woodson.

HIs DC stint at Oklahoma State is a bit underwhelming, ranked 95th in 2005 and 89th in 2006 in total defense. Pass defense was 53rd overall in 2005 and 84th overall in 2006. But I imagine most defensives suffer when you have to play Oklahoma, Texas Tech and Texas.

Courier Journal article here.