fantastic tribute to freedom hall and our all-time great players and coaches. i hope they sell this separately, definitely worth framing. they only had 21 tickets for printing, so there were some interesting omissions (no dean, but there is one with garcia, no dwayne morton, no marques maybin, etc.) would love to hear your opinions on who should've made this coveted sheet. okay, this thing has to be nine more words. there.

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Yes, I was among the Cards fans last night engaged in a little jig as the two green-clad mid-majors, Siena and Cleveland State, both won, seemingly paving the way for a relatively easy road to the regional final for our boys. I am thrilled, I repeat, THRILLED, to not have to play Ohio State in Dayton, regardless of how bad they looked, and equally excited not to have to play Wake Forest, a team that often played well against good opponents this year. On paper, we needed three results last night, and we got all three.

With this in mind, however, I want to point out the following statistic, which may or may not be relevant for tomorrow (and hopefully next Friday's) game: in the Pitino era, when playing in the tournament, we have played a team that wasn't supposed to play us (by this I mean a seed who advanced further than it was supposed to, numericallly speaking) twice. The first time was in 2003, the second time in 2005. The first time we lost to Butler in the second round, the second time we needed everything we had to beat West Virginia to make the FInal Four. I am fully aware that not a single player on this roster played in either of those games, I'm only reminding everyone that nobody should assume it's going to be a cake walk. We should absolutely win tomorrow, having snatched up several thousand putrid Buckeye fans and playing a team that seems to play into our hands based on tempo (a crappier Providence?), and we should win our game on Friday, considering that the two potential opponents would either a.) be playing a million miles from campus (Arizona) and b.) have less people in their entire fanbase than we'd have in Indy.

Hopefully we crush them and the game isn't even in doubt by halftime, but I'm just reminding everyone that there's a damn good chance this team is going to show up tomorrow and give us a game. Let's hope we are mature enough to handle their scrappiness and put them away. Sorry if you feel I've stated the obvious.

Yo Chronicloids, long-time reader, first-time poster here. We're all too familiar with the early season missteps our boys have had under Pitino, but I did a little research and found the following mind-boggling stat: in the 8 years he's been on our bench, we have gotten out of November without a loss only once. Let that sink in for a minute. 7 out of 8 years in the Pitino era, we have not made it out of NOVEMBER without a loss. The only year this didn't happen? 05-06, when we were promptly waxed by UK and failed to make the tourney off the Fina Four apperance.

At first I thought we just had to avoid Big Ten teams (looking at you, Purdue and Iowa). Then I thought we should just stop scheduling Dayton (you go to hell, Brian Roberts). But losing to a Sun Belt team on a neutral court, a team that lost to Murray (present) State by 29? This wasn't a game I was afraid of, by any means. I always get a good laugh out of the early pessimists on certain UofL message boards, and I'm sure they're out in full force already. We all know this team will be fine, we all know that no one will want to play them in March. That being said, the fact remains that we just can't bring it against inferior competition, year in and year out, before New Year's.