As we begin the long summer (and final exams), still stinging from the NCAA Tournament and 0-2 mark against UK in baseball, I’d like to provide an early top-ten wishlist for the athletics-palooza of Cardinal sports awaiting us this year and next. I’d also like to vent about the basketball off-season (but in a way different from, ahem, that former player in LA).

1. I want Zach Price, in a Cardinal uniform, to wear a pair of ‘jorts’ over his warm-ups this season. And then I want him to RIP THEM IN HALF during the pre-game announcements. I then want them doused in bourbon and set ablaze. Then I want them flown from the soon-to-be victorious Belle of Louisville. (Okay, maybe the last bits are overkill).
2. On a related Belle of Louisville note, I want a cannon installed on the Belle that will launch the accursed Louisville gnome into the stratosphere. My other idea was to strap it to fireworks and give it a send-off during Thunder of Louisville (too late).
3. I want Charlie Strong and the University of Louisville football team to defeat Kentucky, and, collectively, hit them so hard on the field that Morehead State feels it. No, really, I mean I want Kenneth Faried to have an inexplicable migraine on September 17, 2011.
4. I want Charlie Strong named as an honorary assistant coach for all basketball games.
5. Ditto Peyton Siva’s Dad for all football games.
6. I want TJ to place well on the draft boards, and if he doesn’t, I’d like to see him in a Cardinals uniform next year.
7. I want the King to stay the King.
8. I want Gorgui to learn another language, you know, to give the announcers something to talk about.
9. I want Central Florida to never, ever, join the Big East.
10. Louisville Cardinals: Big East Football Champions and a Final Four. Make it Happen.

Items just missing the cut: for George Goode to keep smilin’, Elisha Justice to bring home the title (you know the one), Hendo smoking a victory cigar after torching UK in the late minutes at Rupp, and Shoni Schimmel to go off for 50.

Note that I said nothing about recruiting. Why? Recruiting. Is. Creepy.