(Prudat’s wallpaper wednesday pic this wk–ck out Wallpaper Wed’s at Cardinal Empire.)

“He’s trying to get somewhere, and we’re all trying to go with him. ”
Andre McGee on David Padgett.

Here’s another good story on DP with some different, worthwhile insights: http://www.velocityweekly.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080319/VELOCITY01/803190613

And for those (like me) that love this little windmill:

Never Restin’ Preston http://www.kentucky.com/277/story/351995.html

It’s truly Christmas for me, and I think most Card fans, at this time of year.

I savor opening each present (game) one by one.

Mike at the blog Card Chronicle posted a story his Dad wrote in 1987, describing much the same feeling. Definitely ck it out.

Tips on Tickets: Even after word came down that Tennessee and Louisville and South Alabama were playing in Birmingham, about 2,000 upper level tickets remain unsold for the smallest arena (16,063 capacity) among the eight sites.

If ticket books remain available, $51 single-session tickets will be sold beginning Thursday at 8 a.m. for each of the three sessions in Birmingham. If made available, those tickets could be bought at the BJCC box office, www.secsports.com, or by calling 1-800-732-4849.

http://www.al.com/sports/birminghamnews/index.ssf?/base/sports/120584067222031.xml&coll=2

Also, Boise St. fans are not exactly responding in droves. Their ticket office is selling to the general public now (208 )426-4737.

Tips for your brackets….courtesy of the blog, Ditchball, Rick Pitino weighs in on his upset picks:

Another interesting method of bracket picking. For the last 15 years, the Cards as a team has performed well above what its seeding has predicted. The Cards have high performance against seeding expectations (PASE).

And, Pitino has “off the charts” PASE, as a coach.

The system below averages the PASE’s of both the team and their coach. Last year this combined PASE approach was in the 90th percentile of ESPN’s Tournament Challenge.

This year, guess who wins all the marbles…

Long shot bettors take note of the predicted upsets!

ESPN INsider : Zero No. 1 seeds in the Final Four? It’s possible
By Peter Tiernan (excerpts from the story)

“I added each coach’s PASE (performance against seed expectations) to the team’s PASE and averaged the two figures, then I added the conference PASE and averaged those two numbers. What resulted was an overall overachievement or underachievement value based on historical performance.

In all toss-up games (matchups with a seed difference of less than four), I went with the team that had the higher combined PASE value. In upset games, I picked only the underdog when the differences in PASE value were one-half game (0.5) or more.

• 5 vs. 12 — Only two No. 5 seeds prevailed — Michigan State and Drake. Notre Dame was upended by George Mason and Clemson lost to Villanova.
• 8 vs. 9 — No. 8 seeds UNLV and Mississippi State won; No. 9 seeds Arkansas and Texas A&M won

In the second round

Wisconsin (3) defeated USC (3)

• George Mason (12) shocked Washington State (4)

• Michigan State (5) upended Pittsburgh (4)
• Marquette (6) surprised Stanford (3)

In the Sweet 16, ….the only No. 2 seed not to prevail was Tennessee, which was upset by Louisville and Rick Pitino’s gaudy +.740 coaching PASE. The Elite Eight saw four close matchups, with Louisville (+.365 PASE overall) downing North Carolina (+.205), whose chief failing was Roy Williams’ +.107 PASE versus Pitino’s +.740.

Georgetown (+.317) knocked off Kansas (-.024), primarily because Bill Self is a slight underachiever (-.006), as is the Big 12 (-.134). Texas (-.102) edged Memphis (-.127) in a battle of historical underachievers. And, finally, Duke (+.363) defeated UCLA (+.129), largely because of the Pac-10′s PASE (-.129) versus the ACC’s (+.185).

In the Final Four, Louisville’s PASE (+.365) trumps Georgetown’s (a solid +.317). Meanwhile, Duke has no trouble with the underachieving Longhorns. And that sets up a Blue Devils-Cardinals championship match-up that Louisville wins by a scant .002 in terms of PASE value.

A side tidbit: A worthwhile story from the opponent’s viewpoint… from the Boise Idaho Statesman: http://www.idahostatesman.com/bsubasketball/story/326636.html

Finally, Michael at Ditchball today was dreaming of a possible ultimate showdown with hated (hated!) arch-rival Memphis. It reminded me of a post I made early this season.

But, first, and strangely, we’ll hear from Tiger coach John Calipari touting U of L in the NCAA tourney.

Now, a post I made in February about my vision of needing to beat Memphis on the Big Stage: Goin’ Down to Memphis.

http://hellinthehall.wordpress.com/2008/02/26/goin-down-to-memphis/

“We’re excited to be in the NCAA Tournament as a #3 seed in the East,” U of L head coach Rick Pitino said in a statement released to the media on Sunday night. “I think it’s a great compliment to us having played the sixth-toughest schedule in the nation and competing in the nation’s toughest conference. For our fans, it’s a wonderful journey because Birmingham is just a short trip away.”

***********************************************************************

Finally some respect by The Committee: a #3 seed with the launching pad nearby.

The Card will face the Boise State Broncos who defeated New Mexico State (and former Pitino asst coach Marvin Menzies) in triple-overtime to claim the WAC Tournament title and the league’s automatic berth. Think Rick might give Marvin a call?

Louisville will play Boise on Friday, March 21 in Birmingham, Ala at approx. 9:40 pm. Should the Cardinals advance, that second round game would be played at 5pm on Sunday, March 23–against likely a #6 seed, Oklahoma .

Oddly, the last time the Broncos made it to the Big Dance was 1994 when their deja vu-like opponent was …us. Here’s a reminder of how La Bradford and the guys did (courtesy of the mighty Jerb videos and the blog Card Chronicle):

The Cards and Broncos both sport similar won-lost records. But… our RPI is 6 vs Boise’s 87.

Vegas is liking the Cards by13.

In this game, we MUST play better D than in the last two games– when each opponent shot over 50% in the second half.

Worrisome stat: Boise is #2 in the nation in field goal shooting. They hit 51% of their shots this season, which is a ridiculously good clip, even if the average defense Boise faced was nothing compared to what the Cardinals can bring on D.

They also shoot 40% from 3 land as a team,  4 0f their 5 starters shoot the 3 well, and they throw up 20 3′s per game.

It’s no surprise with that kind of shooting that the Broncs average 81 points a game, which is Top 12 in scoring. Defense is quite lacking though, as they give up 75 points a game, which is getting close to the bottom in the nation. I’ll take an up and down match up with our depth over a slow it down team, though.

They have no dominant low post presence/center, but have three forwards that carry the team. Their best player is 6-6 forward Reggie Larry, who averages 20 pts per game and 10 boards. Their other two forwards each average double digits in scoring.

Boise starts four seniors. “They’re a veteran ballclub, the toughest first-round matchup I’ve had since I’ve been coaching,” Pitino said.

Break down of the teams in the East Region:

http://www.sportingnews.com/yourturn/viewtopic.php?t=385010

Pitino press conference: http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2008/03/18/sports/BKC-NCAA-Louisville.php

In-depth scouting report on the Broncos:http://louisville.scout.com/2/738019.html

The Boise web site- click on the TV buttons to see them in action: http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2008/03/18/sports/BKC-NCAA-Louisville.http://www.broncosports.com/SportSelect.dbml?DB_OEM_ID=9900&KEY=&SPID=4076&SPSID=48526

Your printable bracket:

http://www.sportsline.com/collegebasketball/mayhem/brackets/printable_men

For tickets: http://www.southtix.com/sec/ncaa-tickets.html

Reader Neptunetownship: “Do you remember early in the season, when Coach P discussed this team’s “fragile psyche”? Well, that’s not much of a problem when your winning nine straight, but when you get hit in the mouth a couple of times, it can really come back to the forefront.

Crawford was on to it this morning when he wrote that McGee appeared to jump sideways on a couple of shots. They were open shots within the offense that he needed to take, but in a game like this, he only needs to make one of the three, not all of them. It’s the fragile psyche that causes all 3 to miss. It’s the fragile psyche that causes Sosa to drive nowhere in particular, or, as noticed by the game commentators; to stare blankly when he should be focused. It’s the fragile psyche that causes T-Will to drive when he should shoot and shoot when he should pass. A less obvious but more crtical question is does a fragile psyche affect Jerry Smith’s confidence?

At least Smith continues to rebound and defend. If I’m coach P, the 3 guards better show their A games early on, or their minutes should go to Preston Knowles.”

Had a bad feeling all yesterday about this game–maybe it was the way they handled us in the second half at Pitt and almost won. I remembered Blair all too well.

Maybe it was that we are, like, 0-83 at Madison Square Garden or in any arena close to New York state

Let’s see…the overall stats were remarkably even–except for our incredibly poor outside shooting. The rebounds, TO’s , assists were about even. Our Bigs shot >50%; the guards and T Will =15% !!!! (and that includes Preston’s 1 for 2!)

Like last game, we missed A LOT of open shots. But, sadly…Sosa and T Will and even Andre got regressively wild at times this game.We have been challenged all year to beat teams from the outside–and when we lose, that’s where it happens (in the big pic statistically).

But…my eyes also told me after 5 min…Pitt wanted this game far more. They were a step faster. They made us very uncomfortable with their D–we shot worse (33%) in the second half when the chips were down. Although both O and D rebounds were even, they seemed to get the important rebounds and putbacks.

The step faster got them to the 14 more free throw attempts– they got 11 more points than us right there at the line. (I refuse to whine about crummy refs.)

It’s simply shooting. Our guards and T can’t shoot 15% and expect to win…against ANY quality opponent.

And because shooting is such a mental thing, it’s tough to “fix.” And this frustrates everyone and everything the team tries to do. And tempts them to regressive wildness/street ball.

Very disappointing loss. Not totally unexpected by me–just VERY disappointing. Even more so because these last two games now show we’re not ready for a big NCAA run– unless we just get “hot” from the outside again.

Yes, if we’re hot, we can beat ANY team. And, we can play even with just about any team even when our shooting is somewhat off, because of our sheer quantity of talent and our D.

But we won’t BEAT a top 10 team until we shoot a decent % from outside (40%).

Here are some true rays of hope:

We were on a tremendous hot streak, and were shooting well. We can go on another streak, if we have a one good shooting game. We have to shoot our way out of a slump.

We just barely lost to two hot teams in their own backyard. When we really didn’t play well. 

And we sure won’t be worn out now….We’ll have time to rest and heal– and I think David particularly can use that.

We’re likely a #4 seed–maybe a three with the upsets that have occurred. We should be able to handle round 1, and use that game as a springboard, toward a new run. Hopefully.

Summation: We’ll go as far as our outside shooting and David’s shaky knees will take us –and that’s been the bottom line all season really.

Yes, we CAN… but it’s mainly a roll of the mental dice now.

Let us all now bow our heads and pray…