That's right. I did it.

And you either did it, or you wanted to.

My pants are off.

My pants are on the ground.

Why? Because Louisville is in the Final Four.

Because that really happened.

Because Peyton Siva is adorable.

Because C5 scores 11 points before breakfast every morning.

Because "We Found Love In a Gorgui Place."

Because Babies Love Behannan.

Because KSTK.

Because of Swoptasticness.

Because Wayne likes milk.

Because Hendo is my favorite cigar.

Because Kevin Ware reads Card Chronicle.

Because the "World's Hottest Male Athlete" is on our team. And so is an Angel.

Because of the Zach Price special.

Because Mike, Rock, and SVT style in the house.

Because Luke's waiting in the wings.

Because every day....I'm Russelin'

Because Coach ain't done yet.

And like me, your legs should be slightly cold.

So go ahead.

You know you want to.

More importantly, you know you should.

Because this doesn't happen every year.

Go CARDS!

Beat UK.

So, had I known this, I would have been even more stroke induced before and after the game than I was:

Barely two weeks ago, West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin, in a statement dripping with congressional condescension, was extolling the selection of WVU to the Big 12 Conference “on the merits” and advising via West Virginia radio, “You know what, Louisville, go back and toughen up a little bit.”

Given this I thought it would be appropriate to start a post with some witty words for our friend the Senator.  Unfortunately, I have a 2 year old that is eating my brain via sleep deprivation so clever likes to stay a few zip codes away from me.  I will, however, try and kick it off, and hope that my fellow Chroniclers can chime in with better:

1)  Dear Senator. Your wife called, and also asked that you harden up.  She also wished you were Charlie Strong, or at least smelled like him.

2)  Dear Senator, was that hard enough for you?  Perhaps now you can focus on getting the Democratic Party to take your advice.  (full disclosure, I'm a registered Democrat, but couldn't resist.)

3)  Dear Senator, see the game yesterday.  Also, please let me share equally good advice for your state:  nothing good can come from f*ing your sister.

’m a lifelong Cards fan, but it was only this year that I took the plunge and bought season tickets, after having lived out of town and far away for a very long time.   With great excitement I also finally sprung for tix to a bowl game. 

I had grand visions of blogging directly from St. Pete’s onto Card Chronicle…but there was no signal for my phone.

Then I was going to do a great write up after the game – but caught a bad head cold.

Then Christmas.  Then New Years.

Blah, blah, and now I’ve procrastinated almost a month. 

But a few thoughts and moments from the game are still rattling around in my head and I feel compelled to share them.  And as we’re teetering between the letdown of Villanova and the anticipation of Marquette (somebody – anybody - grab a damn rebound, please) this is as good a time as any to share.

• After parking I found myself next to a couple of students.  They were doing the whole black and red body paint thing.  My first bowl, so….what the hell.  Pulled out the ‘L Raiser’ crazy hair and told them to have at it.  Left side of face red, right side of face black.

I just turned 40 and now I’m painted up and have insane hair for my first Cards bowl game.  Sweet!

• Which brings me to the following observation:  Red Sweaters – hello!  The school appreciates your money.  We all appreciate your loyalty. You are the reliable mass that travels well and makes us an attractive bowl school.  We thank you for that.

But for the love of God, please stand up and make some noise once in a while.  When you are the only one standing in a section of Cardinal fans – and you have paint caked on your face, and are wearing the hair of a 1980s troll – you want some fan spirit when you are leading the C A R D S cheer.  If you can’t make actual noise at the game, or at the very least stand (I’m talking to you, ‘Mr. Please Sit Down I Can’t See’) then at least sit in the upper rows and leave the sideline to those under the age of 117. 

Thank you.

• A quick note on the stadium.  It was really very nice, though it was disorienting to be watching a football game in a domed baseball field.  Best part:  the manta ray pool on the mezzanine.  Nice touch for the kids.

Speaking of the stadium, it would be nice if the YUM! Center had painted concrete floors like Tropicana.  The bare concrete feels too much like the old Freedom Hall ramps, and is depressing in a ‘Prison Break’ sort of way.  If you’re going to build state of the art, go all the way.

• True story:  I was 20 feet back from Jeremy Wright and yelled to no one in particular ‘He’s going to break this one and take it to the house!’  just before he actually did.

It’s also true that I yelled that just about every time Jeremy or Doug Beaumont got the kick off, but that time it actually worked.

• Picture in my head:  Charlie Strong, on the dug out, as the crowd chanted ‘Char – lie, Char – lie, Char – lie.’ 

A city bows Wayne like before you, HCCS, and proclaims their lack of worthiness.

• Marching out of the stadium with the marching band after the first bowl victory in 4 years:  priceless

• Random useful fact:  if you can’t get 840 at night in far away states, try 1530, the Cincinnati affiliate broadcast station.  I spent an hour after the game driving around listening to the postgame, and got decent reception as long as the car was pointed west.  I don’t pretend to understand the physics of skip signals, it just works.

• Art Carmody, if I’m in the car listening to the post game and you are in need of a ride, I’m there.  Always.  End of story.

You can also have my lunch money, because that would be cool, too.

• Best for last.  I was on the right field end of the stadium, which put me about 200 feet away from the crowd of players celebrating at home plate.  I was hoping they’d line up to slap hands with the crowd on their way out but they went in the other direction.  No big deal, I wouldn’t have run all the way over to the other side of the stadium either, so I turned to go…

Then one player did run over.  He stopped, looked up at the crowd and waved. 

Doug Beaumont.

I was in the front row, and he looked at me (still painted, with ‘L Rasier’ hair’) and saw that I had his jersey on.  He looked specifically at me and said ‘Thank you!’

Which was kinda awesome.

Doug.

Beaumont.

Class.

Act.

I’m proud to wear his number.

Easy question first.  Has anybody got a link to RP's postgame interview?  I can find Boeheim's online in the Syracuse paper but the CJ isn't showing the same kind of love. 

Second question.  I'm confused about why RP is not using the 'white-black' press more.  I've always heard it was the one he used at UK and seems to be one of the things we hired him to use.  The 2-2-1 doesn't seem as effective at creating mad turnovers and pace.  It made sense to me when we had a short bench, but we go 10 deep these days, so any ideas why it gets used less?

Huge win -- Go Cards!

Fellow Cards fans,

In addition to being a Cards fan, I'm also (cursed) to be a Buffalo Bills fan, an adopted hometown for several years.  Came across this article as I was reading their daily paper, the Buffalo News, and  thought the good folks of Card Chronicle might be interested:

http://www.buffalonews.com/opinion/columns/jerrysullivan/story/896839.html

Jerry Sullivan is their Rick Bozich, only better because he is actually hard hitting and doesn't sugar coat the truth.

                                                           Bumped

Dear Steve,

After reading the last few columns about you in the newspaper, and watching your press conference, I cannot help but put down a few words in reaction to your imminent departure.

I’ve always thought you were a genuinely nice guy.  I don’t believe the people of Louisville even now have any particular animosity to you.  The prevailing feeling is that you took a job that put you in over your head and you didn’t react well.

So while there is happiness that there’s finally going to be some much needed change in the football program, there’s also sadness because nobody likes to watch a person fail -  and their favorite team decline in the process.

At least there WAS some sadness.

Until, this week, as you prepared to head back to that fine and upstanding community of Tulsa, you spoke some final comments.  Comments that make you sound -  and I need to be honest here Steve - just a little wussy. 

Or a similar sounding word for part of the female anatomy.

You see Steve, you cannot take the high road, cannot act the martyr, cannot be the person who picked up his whole family to come East to a coach at a university that desperately wanted him, cannot be the guy who never stopped giving it the ol’ college try, while at the same time making vague insinuations that somehow things weren’t fair, that the odds were just too stacked against you, that people simply weren’t intelligent enough to know what a great asset you were.

You cannot take the high road while insinuating that there were awful issues left to you by a predecessor who went 12-1 and won a BCS bowl, yet not give details. 

You cannot take the high road and complain you were forced to use substandard assistants and staff, yet preside over a revolving door of hires. 

You cannot take the high road and talk about how committed you are to the community yet chase off people who have been with the football programs their whole lives.

You cannot take the high road when you come into a program that was consistently Top 25, and nearing being consistently Top 10, yet leave it a smoking crater without a clear explanation of your mistakes for over 3 years.

You cannot take the high road and then, despite your terrible job performance, whine that you should be kept on because you came here to ‘put roots down,’ because your wife is sick and despite this does great charity work, because your kid is in high school here, because you see yourself as a straight shooting nice guy.

You cannot take the high road and then cry that the community never liked you from the beginning, that they facetiously called you a name in front of your wife that you didn’t like, and then bring up that name calling at your last news conference three years later. 

If you are that thin skinned, then perhaps you should take the 6 million dollars you were paid for failing miserably and take some time off to consider a different line of work.

To be clear, I’m sorry your wife is sick, and I hope that she gets the best treatment and a full recovery.  And I’m sorry your son had to endure some teasing in high school, although if you are the starting quarterback of the (private school) state championship team, then see the comment above about being thin skinned. 

But at the end of the day, you are not leaving because some silly fans made sarcastic comments at your first game, or because your quarterback son was teased, or because the people never liked you, or because you ‘just weren't a good fit’ with this mean, irrational, and hard hearted community.

You are not leaving because you walked into an unwinnable situation, or had players without talent. 

You are not leaving because you were treated unfairly. 

You are leaving because you couldn’t recruit, you couldn’t develop winning schemes, you were an incompetent offensive coordinator, you were a poor manager, and you sounded like the football equivalent of Miss South Carolina, presented with a problem that you tried to talk your way through with clichés and platitudes. 

You are leaving because you didn’t use common sense on the field.  You didn’t recruit well in your home state.  You couldn’t show up for coaches association meetings on time. You couldn’t speak without sounding like a mealy mouthed cartoon character.

You are leaving because you didn’t have a plan, didn’t communicate a strategy, and were never clear in what was going wrong or how you were going to fix it. 

You are leaving because you couldn’t do anything without seeming to intimate ‘It’s not my fault,’ despite being the self proclaimed ‘captain of the ship.’

Taking the high road means taking responsibility for the bad work you’ve done, not spraying excuses to anyone who will listen.

So Steve, I’d like to give you some advice: If you’re going to take the high road out of town, it’s best not drop turds of insinuation as you walk.  Because that’s NOT taking the high road.

Don’t the let the door hit you in the ass on the way out.

I love Jerry and Edgar (Edgar has pre-emptively cut off all spoken criticism from me with the Shot Heard Round the Commonwealth), but as I look at last year and the one game this year, it seems to me there is very little from a performance standpoint to indicate they should be the starting backcourt over Siva and Knowles.

Siva's got turnover problems as a freshmen, sure -- but have you seen that kind of passing from a point guard at UofL since, well, the 80s?  Usually we have a converted shooting guard running the point, and have for decades.  I'd rather take the risk of the turnovers and take his 5-10 assists, thanks very much.

And Preston -- his paragraph in today's College Basketball Notebook says it all:  he could start for most teams in the country.  Preston has the statistical edge on Jerry in multiple categories.  He also appears to be able to play defense with other appendages besides his hands.

So -- what is the argument for starting Sosa and Smith?  Experience is great, but actual results would be better and they don't seem to have those on as consistent a basis?

Thoughts?

Honestly just curious, as I've never been to any of the coach's show tapings.  How are the fans at the show -- are there any?  I'm wondering what the vetting process is to ask the coach questions.  I understand they have to limit the negativity so I'd expect some sanitzing, but wonder if he ever gets asked tough but fair questions?  I'm assuming we don't get the whole story on the radio (which I confess I stopped listening to after the first year).

So I have to believe that in his most private moments, Tom asks himself a lot of questions about how football got to where it is.  In particular, I think two questions would be rattling around his mind:

1) How did I make the assessment of Kragthorpe's skills that I did?  How was I so off base?

This is interesting given that he's been so good at picking coaches in all the other sports.  To fail this badly in one of the two sports he can't afford to fail in demands some analysis.

If you assume that Tom is supporting K in order to demonstrate his level of commitment for his NEXT hire, then this question comes to mind:

2)  What do I do to ensure that the next coach I pick doesn't give me the same result?

Since Tom is not posting on here (to our knowledge), how would y'all answer the above?

Don't follow the national football scene as closely as basketball, but it occurred to me that the Utah coach (Whittingham) might be someone to go after.  They had a great season, were arguably national champion, and got screwed becasue they are not in the BCS.

Seems like we could offer a little better salary range than Utah, plus new facilities, and a hungry fanbase...and oh, yeah, a BCS bid in a conference that could be dominated by a consistent program.

Is this plausible or dreaming?

To be clear, I want to start out by saying I love Rick and the work he's done getting us back on the national scene in the last 7 years.

But....

When I look at the caliber of recruits that go to the UNCs, Kansases, Dukes, etc., feels like we are a notch below.  Even when we have McD All Americans, they don't seem to pan out as spectacularly.  Earl is awesome but no Derrick Rose.  Peyton is great but seemed to be a surprise to make that team.  Samarado is excellent but clearly not a pro-pick yet.

Caracter -- well, the less said the better.

You can argue that Rick was hurt more by early defections to the NBA a few years ago, but I still don't feel like we get the high impact players, the kind that are going to be NBA stars, coming to 'Ville.

Now Calipari shows up and he's got 3 top 10 guys apparently trailing along. 

I could get past this except Rick always says 'talent is what wins.'  Okay -- let's get more talent than the other guys.  Get on that.

And of course, there is always the very depressing (to me) of the what ifs, the kids who wanted to come to UofL but didn't and could have been special.  Rondo.  Lofton.  Even Lorenzo Wade, who transferred at the end of his freshman year, has played himself into the lottery at San Diego State.

I'm all for building up teams and having a mix, but could't we sprinkle in just a few more superstars each year in the classes?

Thoughts?

It wasn't the Arizona game, or the mugging for the camera, or thinking that the press was invincible.

Nothing to do with Bad or Good Edgar.  Not ADMM running out of steam. 

Not even free throws.

It was getting the #1 ranking.

We played a hell of a lot better when there was a chip on the shoulder, when there was no respect, when even after winning the BE regular season the best the pundits gave us was a 2 seed.

For a psychologically frail team, the need to get respect pushed them.

Rick said it himself earlier in the season -- "Please don't move us to #1."

As my dad says, "They got the big head."

And the big head imploded Saturday.

Can't do a post mortem on the season until I get my head around the loss, so...

It was different watching the game in person, and not in Freedom Hall.  Hard to get the feel for the game in the same way as watching it on TV, but the whole time I kept waiting for one of our standard runs.

Which, of course never showed up.  But why?

1.  M. State played darn good man to man defense which...

2.  got our guys flustered because they couldn't score and that...

3.  preyed on their main weakness as a team, immaturity (as it relates to basketball IQ;  or maybe better said, low basketball resilience), and therefore...

4.  they reverted to old habits of going one on one which might have been excusable if not for...

5.  the fact that they let it affect their defense too. 

Give credit to Michigan State -- they got the ball to spaces in our zone and hit the clutch medium range shots, and they were generally good at going over top of our press, much like UNC did last year.

Still...when we lost to UConn I felt that they were the better team, and 8 out of 10 times they would have beaten us. 

Against Michigan State, I felt like they were a good team -- not a great team -- against whom we played a bad game.

Sigh...I had poetic visions of going through UNC and UConn to win it all, and getting payback in the process.

I love our guys -- they were so good, and gave us a great year.  Just wish they could have gotten that Final Four for their memory collection.

Hope Rick decides to go ahead and order them BE champion rings;  they earned them.

Hope he also recruits a pure shooter or two in the interim.

Ticket bought tonight after getting in at 11 PM from a trip to Europe - check.

Cardinal Foam Head - check.

L Raiser Hair - check.

Official Red Wave Towl - check.

White T-shirt with red Francisco Garcia jersey on top - check.

Lucky sweatshirt to change into at halftime, just in case - check.

Ear plugs - check.

Printed picture of Almost Dunking Marques Maybin, to tape to the inside of my windshield  -- double check.

Time to embrace Destiny.  Go Cards!