says it all. if there has been a more disappointing loss, all things considered, as a louisville basketball fan, i’m either forgetting it or wasn’t born.

why, oh why, couldn’t we have drawn oklahoma or duke? or even memphis? i was afraid of this matchup, but this was way worse than i anticipated.

make no mistake, however. we will be back. we had a great season, and the 06-type letdowns are behind us. nobody knew what we were going to do without francisco in a cards uniform, either, don’t forget. this one is gonna hurt for awhile but keep your heads up, cards fans, and ignore the vermin coming out of the woodwork to criticize our team. they are going to be silenced sooner than later.

felt like taking pics at a funeral. I felt weird

I had to hold back the tears. These guys made it a memorable year. I see major upswing with the boys coming back (except Edgar). It was a phenomenal year fellas!!! I already miss Jerry and Edgar.

that is one of the saddest pictures I have ever seen. It still hasnt completely set in for me, but that picture may have been the nail in the coffin.

Sam34Gtr – you’re a brave soul for taking those pictures.

if it would have been better to have limped along like we were back when we were 8-3 and just a pretty good team instead of bordering on greatness like they were. I don’t mean I’d give back the BE titles, but just talking about avoiding how I feel since we lost. My hopes had been steadily rising over the past couple months, and it made this loss so much more crushing to me as a fan. I know most of you will rip me a new one for this, but I honestly cannot say that I wouldn’t take a less stellar year overall if it meant not having this utterly bleak feeling I can’t seem to shake. Selfish, I know, but that’s how I feel. Man, it is tough to be so into my beloved Cardinals. Maybe tomorrow some perspective will return, but for now all I can do is try to sleep. I hate this more than I can say.

Sucked hard. This one will take awhile to get over.

Last year, we got beat by a better team. We could have played a great game last year and beat UNC, but they were just better. But today’s game, we got beat by a worse team. We play them 10 times we beat them 7. I just can’t believe our season ended with us playing like that. Stupid Big Ten. Give them credit, ya, but still. I can’t believe this amazing season ended…..like that!

For a few moments after the game, I started thinking about next year and saying that, you know, we’ll probably be down a little next year, T-Will and Earl are irreplaceable, after getting so close this year, regular season games with Providence and Austin Peay just won’t be that big of a deal, I probably won’t organize my entire life from January – March around UofL basketball, etc, etc. etc. etc.

And I thought, I mean it this time.

Likely not though. See everyone for the Georgetown College exhibition live blog.

the sadest day for me as a cards fan. I felt that this was our year and that it was destiny for us to win it all…again the Cards always seem to disappoint us and kick us straight in the balls.

I know the day for me to see the Cards win a championship will be here…as I am only 20 years old…but this lost is just a tough one to swallow.

I am pulling for ’Nova since they are the underdog…GO CARDS!!!

Hey everyone, I was not going to speak or become a member but in light of these people ripping you I felt compelled to.

My name’s Jim and I’m a senior at Notre Dame, and an Irish fan through and through. I watched my team’s season theoretically end live in NYC when we lost to West Virginia in the second round of the BE Tourney (though we’re actually in the NIT final four now). After that, I kept watching the tournament of course, because I love basketball. I came out of that tournament fairly impressed with Louisville, and because of it I picked them to win it all in my bracket this year. However, I wanted to learn more about this team, so I found this site. I have to say that I now love this team. While they sometimes do a little bit of showboating, you can see how much fun this team has playing the game and as a Long Island boy I have long loved Pitino. They also play some pretty sick defense, which let’s be honest is not my team’s forte. What I came away most impressed with was the fans here. You all love your team and it shows, and it impressed me and made me even more confident with my pick. I thought this team really was gonna take it.

That was a tough, tough loss. MSU played better than I’ve ever seen them play and they gutted out a tough game. However you guys finish at 31-6 (i think) with both regular season and tournament BE titles, which is a hell of a season. You guys are a program to be respected, and its where I want my Irish to eventually be, and I have faith we’ll get there. But now to my main reason I wrote this in the first place.

Lute and others trashing this team on this site, what you are doing is wrong. You are kicking a fanbase that just suffered a bonecrushing loss and taking glee in it? That’s sick, man. I felt this way in 2005 when ND lost to USC in football, and when we lost to ’Nova in early March this year to kill our at-large hopes. It is a painful feeling and to have someone rub in your face makes you want to come to blows (which I might have done in their place if I knew who you were). I probably have right to be furious with this team, as our OT loss to them triggered a 7 game spiral we never recovered from. But you have to realize how much people have invested in these games, and this, this HURTS. Bad. So enjoy your Final Four, fly the Big East flag proudly, but back off for now man. You are obviously entitled to your own opinions, here is not the right place for them.

Anyway, thank you, Louisville Basketball team, for a great tournament. And thank you to the fans on this site that made me fall in love with them. You have become my #2 team in our conference and I wish you guys the best in the future. Just not when you play us, of course (go irish).

Oh and the site? Awesome. Sorry I took so long, and now I’m done, promise.

Hey guys,

My name is Chris and I am an MSU fan and alum. I’m going to try to clear the air a little bit after some of the “messy” comments that were made by some Spartan fans.

FIrst of all, congrats to the Cards and your fan base on a great season. You guys won the BET and were the regular season champs and #1 overall seed. You guys should not hang your heads low. Pitino is a great coach. Just hope that the Cards can learn and grow from this loss and be a better team next year.

Secondly, I have to admit that I am somewhat embarassed on the behavior and comments that I’ve read hear from the Spartan fans. Lute and buchner, why are you kicking a team after a loss?? Are you pissed that this team wants to celebrate a little after a win. I understand the exclamation dunk at the end of the Arizona game shouldn’t have happened, but their young kids who are enjoying a win! Sometimes kids get caught up in the moment like Sosa did in front of the camera of the Cards-U of A game. And Lute, where in the hell do you classify that the Louisville basketball team as “bad people”? That is an assinine and ignorant comment that should be left off this forum. Show some class and respect becuase you are becoming a hypocrite with your comments. I appreciate the Spartan support, but don’t let your “vomit form the mouth” affect the rest of us fans. Comment on here like an adult(?) and not act like your shoe size.

It was a great season and we accomplished alot and should be proud, but we just didn’t have the maturity to take it to the next level. I try and look on the bright side after our loses and the only thing I can think of is: “It could be worse. We could be little blue brother to the east and not have a coach and no one outside of Travis Ford who wants the job.”

I don’t know. I can’t decide this morning whether we let a potential national championship slip away or whether we overachieved all season long. Regardless, we really laid an egg in our last game. And someone can probably make the case that both players and coaches were responsible for producing that egg. Izzo is terrifice, of course; so is Pitino. But we only scored back-to-back one time, early in the second half. Michigan State put it away by scoring on 11 straight possessions.

We were not ourselves. It’ll take some discerning to discover whether our players were at fault or whether Michigan State was simply much the better team. I know this much, I thought we would compete harder — and yes, I’m talking about our freshman centers and T-Will. And heck, their guards outplayed our guards, too. It’s all just so discouraging.

Because I can’t find the posts by “Lute” and whomever that were so upsetting to so many. That’s probably just as well.

The 3.5 hour drive up and the nearly 5 hours trek back didn’t help either.

75% of the crowd was ours, coming off the best game of the year, and then to just revert back to everything else. It certainly makes you appreciate the less talented ‘05 team. Less talented, but they had……it. And we’ll have a team that has it again, it just wasn’t this year. I think Kuric, Delk, and Swop will be better next year as they get more time to develop. Smardo will probably play more 4, and sosa and smith are gonig to have to lead this team. We need a PG who can run the offense and won’t get rattled, and I hope to god Sosa can be that guy for a year.

And hopefully next year they leave the hot doggin at home and bring the killer instinct instead.

I was devastated yesterday after the game. Tom Izzo is a class act, but loses like this always sting.

However, I think we overcame some major deficiencies and losses early in the season to have one hell of a season. Can’t ever complain about back to back Elite 8s. We’re still on the rise, getting some great recruits, and we’ll back in the hunt sooner rather than later.

Sucks to lose the seniors and E-5, but I’m feeling a little better about our future. Losses like this will help us, especially with playing against Big 10 teams (which have owned us). Sosa, TJ, Sam-Sam, Reggie, Jerry…all of these guys have improved and will form a hellacious core for next year.

You can’t hot dog your way to the final four, and here’s hoping that Coach Pitino puts an end to that stuff. By the way, Eric Crawford’s blog today — posted at about 1 a.m. this morning — is worth a read. He notes that Coach P was so upset that he three his clipboard to the floor and that was when the score was just 4-2. He saw what was happening; too bad he and the guys couldn’t stop it.

But that doesn’t really help us a bit today, does it? Still, congratulations to the young man. Wish him well and hope he has a long and profitable career.

Seriously guys, this will be hard for me to get over. Might take till next season, maybe longer. I’ve never been so involved in Louisville basketball. This was my favorite team ever. They are the most exciting team I’ve ever watched, and that in itself would be enough, but they WIN. They always find a way to win. Plus, they have so much character with Twill, Dre, Jerry, all those guys. I’m going to miss them greatly.

I don’t know, maybe I’m insane, but I probably yelled at every single field goal and free throw scored against Louisville this season. My roommates thought I was crazy, my girlfriend thought I was crazy, everyone at work also…thought I was crazy. You all are probably the only ones who don’t think I’m crazy. But something about the way UL finally went down, from the VERY top to the very bottom killed something inside me. Twill didn’t do anything. The whole friggin team didn’t look like they had any energy. They were completely outcoached, otherwise they would have been more prepared for this boring, 1978-style basketball.

This is why I am conflicted: I don’t know whether to be upset with Twill for not showing energy, at RP for not preparing the team for this style of basketball, or at MSU for being ridiculously lucky at the right time in combination with playing a style of basketball that was more boring than watching paint dry. The way MSU plays basketball goes against everything I like about the sport. They friggin KILL the fun, the excitement, the fervor of the game. MSU being rewarded for playing such crappy basketball is what really gets me. But you know, that’s just how it goes sometimes.

Right now I’m totally disgusted with UL, but I hope to god that changes before next season starts.