It really does look like they just caught you looking at porn.

The big story in the world of Louisville sports today is Lakewood (Ohio) St. Edward center Zach Price's commitment to the U of L basketball program.

The announcement by Price, the 38th best player in the class of 2011 according to Scout.com, is a major story as is, but he and his family commenting that Rick Pitino was the main reason for the commitment makes the news doubly important.

Price said coach Rick Pitino was "a huge factor" in his making a commitment and said he has also built a strong relationship with assistant coach Steve Masiello."I felt very comfortable there," Price said.

"I was (at the football game on Saturday), and we were tailgating and taking pictures, and coach Pitino said, ‘Come stand next to me, I'm going to be your coach.' My high school coach (Eric Flannery) is like that, and it just kind of rang a bell."

...

Price is the first player to commit to the Cards since Pitino's off-court legal issues became public.

"His personal life is his personal life," said Price's mother, Valerie. "That didn't affect anything with us. You can't be judged by that. It was the right fit for my son.

"What we heard and know is that Coach Pitino gets kids to the next level both on the court and off the court. He cares what the kids do, no matter what. We didn't hear that from other coaches."

A much-needed announcement for the program, and a great sign that this mess is getting harder and harder to make out in the rear-view mirror.

Pitino also made an unexpected (to my knowledge) appearance on 840 WHAS this morning and apparently partook in an extremely optimistic conversation.

A poster on ITV summed up the appearance:

-best chemistry at this point in time that he's had since he's been at Louisville
-seeking a 2011 recruiting class that will be ranked in the top 3 in the nation
-Sosa and Smith are in tremendous shape and have become great leaders
-3 spot is the only question mark--says If Sosa sets up Delk properly that Delk can fill the role well.  Expects that Sosa will do that--had him speak with NBA scouts to get 'pass first' in his head
-Samardo has had a big summer playing for Jamaica's team and TJ is much stronger and will also be improved
-said this year could be 'special'. 

I scoffed at UK for having a television special to unveil their schedule, but I'd totally be overly excited if we did something similar this week.

There may not be a story that better sums up the Steve Kragthorpe era than the ongoing Darius Ashley saga.

It's really got it all: inexplicable lack of playing time, venting via Facebook, silence from the major parties involved and, of course, mom quotes.

When reached at home by The Courier-Journal, his mother, Terri Ashley, said his disappointment was evident after the game.

"I don't understand why would you come and get one of Ohio's top running backs and not use him?" she said in response to a question. "Of course he wasn't happy; he was upset. He had been told he was going to get playing time, and he didn't."

Beat Kentucky!

In a related story, Steve Kragthorpe tweeted the following last night:

Tyler Jessen, Joe Townsend, Nate Nord, L.T. Walker all practiced today. Great to finally have all of them out there

A baby step forward as far as communication goes. Actually, more like a baby's first step forward, because it contains all the same ambiguity as far as how much progress has actually been made and what has been acheived.

The Indiana State program, now proud owner of a 28-game losing streak, is doing just a bit of justified self-congratulating after managing to hang with a once respectable BCS conference opponent.

In a game that the local Louisville media claimed would be a "blowout" or 70-point win, the Cardinals couldn't score a total knockout, even with Muhammad Ali in attendance. While the Cardinals were victorious in their home opener 30-10, the Sycamores were aggressive, truculent and valiant in defeat.

...

"Looking at that scoreboard, we knew we had a chance to win the game," Davis said, who had two interceptions that night. "We knew we had to come out after that and put the nail in the coffin. We had a chance to do that. We showed we can play hard and can compete; we just didn't finish the job."

...

"We had visions of winning this game," junior running back Darrius Gates said. "We showed great character after coming off the loss last week. This game gave us confidence and showed we can compete with the highest level. We have some mistakes to keep at a minimum, but we will work on that."

When you read statements like that from a team whose head coach openly admitted before the game that he didn't want his players to suffer the inevitable humiliation the contest would result in, yeah, it's probably a good sign that our  boys didn't give their best performance. 

Brian Bennett submits his week two Big East power rankings and places Louisville in front of nobody.