Is there anyone coming to the game who has a couple extra tickets that I may purchase?  Stub-hub has tons of tickets available for Fridays game, and some are less than $10 (I guess it's hard to fill up an NFL stadium).  But here I find myself four days until the game and no tickets (procrastination is my specialty).  Do I trust Stub-hub to deliver any tickets on time?  No.  Do I want to pay full price at the gate to someone wearing green and gold?  Hell no.  Perhaps this is where the community of Chronicloids can assist me.  I would feel better if my money went to a fellow Card fan, plus I would love to legitimately sit in the away-team section for once, surrounded by my fellow Card fans as we watch our guys finally stomp the Bulls in their borrowed house.  GO CARDS!

Now for your enjoyment, a slide show of one my previous trips to Ray-Jay, including a celebrity sighting...

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Hey Guys,

I would hope the coaches have you in a media-deprivation chamber, but in case they don't, and just in case any of you are perusing CardChron, I have something I think you need to hear.

It’s true that there are some "experts" and "analysts" that are high on U of L playing Duke in the second round.  You can even find some that think you’ll go farther.  Don't listen to this crap.  It’s fun for us as fans to find these obscure predictions and rally around them as a way to feel like our team is getting respect, but this is exactly the opposite of what you (even more than past Card teams) need to be hearing. Even if the coaches don’t have you in a media deprivation chamber, I hope they’re filling your heads with the right messages:

1.     Forget what anyone in the media is saying.

2.     Forget Duke. Cal is good, and they’re hungry.

3.     You’re not good enough to coast through any game (See Cincinnati).

4.     You are good enough to beat anyone if you play hungry and know your role (and the shots fall).

5.     Always remember you represent the University of Louisville. Conduct yourself in a manner worthy of that distinction.

6.     This might be your last game as Cardinal for this year, or forever. No holding back.

 

Also, know that the fans love you, and we’re proud of you.

…One last thing: For the love of God, please get a good nap in before this late game.  It’s Jacksonville, there’s nothing fun to do, so don’t even bother looking.

 

 Yours Truly,

 sarasota-card

REALISTICCARDSFAN has posted this kind of thing a couple of times, and I wanted to see how things looked after last nights marathon game.  The guys are ranked from highest efficiency to lowest:

 

	Rebounds	Assists	Steals	Blocks	Points	Turnovers	Time	Eff
Samardo Samuels	6	2	0	2	36	6	45	0.89
Kyle Kuric	1	0	0	0	5	0	8	0.75
Preston Knowles	4	1	1	0	9	1	21	0.67
Jared Swopshire	9	1	0	3	12	1	38	0.63
Edgar Sosa	3	4	0	0	12	1	35	0.51
Rakeem Buckles	4	1	0	0	4	3	12	0.50
Terrence Jennings	2	0	0	0	0	0	4	0.50
Jerry Smith	2	1	2	2	5	0	29	0.41
Mike Marra	1	0	1	0	4	1	18	0.28
Peyton Siva	0	2	1	0	0	0	18	0.17
Reginald Delk	0	0	0	0	4	2	22	0.09

First of all, I think this efficiency formula is certainly not perfect.  It overlooks some of the defensive effort.  Is there a way to get a hold of deflections and altered shot stats?

Second, we already knew SamSam was a BASKETBALL MACHINE last night, but I hadn't realized that "Kyle" had done so much with the eight minutes he was given.

Third, Delk is definitely not at 100%.

Forth,...    Preston!

It all seems so clear now, that fate was trying to send me a clue about the Cards' woes.  What was fate saying? "The refs are dirty."

Friday evening before the game, I actually met the most notorious official in the recent history of basketball, Tim Donaghy.  I didn't recognize him at first when he walked into the meeting room where my Toastmasters club holds their weekly sessions, but then I overheard him introduce himself to one of my clubmates.

"Hi.  My name's Tim.  I was an NBA official, and I just got out of jail for bedding on games."

Hot damn!  I jumped out of my seat to go over and talk to him.  He served 13 months, and he's getting ready to go on a speaking tour to promote the book he just wrote, Personal Foul.  (I'll plug here for Toastmasters, an excellent tool for improving your public speaking abilities).  

via www.obsessedwithsports.com

Apparently, he's sticking to the story that he never fixed a game.  He only bet, and helped the mob place bets, based on his inside knowledge of the game.  But he swears that he called every game fairly, regardless of his stake in the outcome.  Right.

The reason he says he was so successful at picking games, and the bombshell that he reports in his book, is the fact that the refs bias their calls.  Some have vendettas against certain players, and some "company men" will do what they can to get the right teams into the finals to boost the NBA's profits.

Think this can't happen in the college game, too?  I know it can.  I think I saw it happen Saturday (Cardinals vs Mountaineers coverage).  Why would the refs be targeting the Cards?  I can think of one reason.  There are probably a few refs who feel that our Coach needs to get some karma for his past misdeeds.

It all makes since, right?  I meet Tim Donaghy, and then the next day the Cards' get the worst screw job by refs we've ever seen.  It's fate pointing us towards the answer.  Dirty refs.

In an ongoing effort to bring more math to this site, I decided to delve into the coaches salary information that was published in a USA Today article about 2009 NCAA college football contracts (hat tip to Brian Bennett who found it first for his blog).  Unfortunately, there's quite a bit of missing information (there's no data for 9 schools), and a lot of it in the Big East.  But poor data has never stopped a thorough analysis before, so lets go!

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I'm the only Card fan in my office bracket pool, even though we're not that rare here in Florida.  I had to send this email to everyone in the pool today.  I thought I would share it with you:

Dear Competitors,

 

Something horrible happened to my bracket between the time I made my picks and today.  Jason first pointed it out to me, and then I got a call from Brent.  My bracket “The Bracket” has North Carolina winning the National Championship. 

 

If you know me, you know I’m a Louisville Cardinal fan.  I’ve filled out at least one bracket with Louisville winning the whole thing every year.  I’ve been waiting for a year like this, when we might actually have a chance to actually pull it off.  I only did one bracket this year, The Bracket, and I swear to you that I picked Louisville to finish on top.  I don’t know what happened, but I feel sick to my stomach.  Those UNC punks knocked my beloved Cards out of the tournament last year.  There is no way I would pick them to accomplish anything more than getting there baby blue backsides handed to them by The Ville.

 

So if my bracket performs well enough to be in contention at the end, I ask that my final score be modified to show my true prediction.  Even if it means declining the winnings (I won’t want the winnings then anyway, just a tissue).

 

Go Cards

 

Thanks,

-Tim

So what do you think?  Am I a drama queen, or what?

ps:  I erased the exclation points after "Go Cards" just for you, Mike.