Card Chronicle

Card Chronicle http://www.cardchronicle.com An Unofficial Louisville Cardinals Blog Copyright 2000 - My Site Sat, 17 May 2008 01:27:36 -0400 Sat, 17 May 2008 01:27:36 -0400 Card Chronicle<info@cardchronicle.com> Card Chronicle<info@cardchronicle.com> George Stripling dismissed http://www.cardchronicle.com/story/2008/5/16/123836/471 Football. Seriously. Come on. Your ability to correlate bad news with basketball's good news is simply uncanny. Help yourself out here and just throw us something, anything, positive. Give me a solid day in the weight room, someone playing a clever, but still lighthearted and harmless practical joke, some special teams guy is secretly a really good chef, anything. Anyway, Kragthorpe announced today that running back George Stripling has been dismissed from the team for a violation of team rules. Stripling had been suspended for all of spring practice. The good news (it's a start) is that if the Cards could afford to lose a player at any position, it'd be running back. With the return of Bilal Powell and Brock Bolen, as well as the spring emergence of Vic Anderson and the eligibility of Dale Martin, touches were likely going to be hard to come by for Stripling in his senior season anyway. We all had pretty high hopes for George after the shows he put on at the end of blowouts when he was a freshman and the stellar first half of his sophomore season, but he was never the same player after Petrino punished him for losing the ball a couple of times against Kansas State and Middle Tennessee State in 2006. He didn't play at all in the monumental win over West Virginia, and carried just twice a week later against Rutgers. He appeared far less quick and far more unsure of himself throughout his junior season, and ran for only 258 yards as U of L's third-string tailback. We'll always have Miami, George...and your highly overrated self on NCAA Football 2008.   I will miss the dreads. <img width="350" src="http://cache.daylife.com/imageserve/0g9J9IJbJAgRk/610x.jpg"> Mike <info@cardchronicle.com> Fri, 16 May 2008 17:38:36 GMT Peyton Siva commits to Louisville http://www.cardchronicle.com/story/2008/5/16/12050/1482 Oh. Snap. <a href="http://www.courier-journal.com/blogs/demling/2008/05/siva-to-u-of-l.html">Jody Demling</a>: <div class="blockquote">Peyton Siva, one of the top 20 players nationally in the Class of 2009, has given a verbal commitment to the University of Louisville. The 5-foot-11 Siva is considered one of the top point guards in the nation and was one of the top targets for the U of L coaching staff in the '09 class. Siva is from Seattle (Wash.) Franklin and plays for the same Seattle Rotary Select AAU team that produced current U of L star Terrence Williams. He picked U of L over Kansas, Arizona and Washington.</div> Siva is billed as a do-it-all point guard with both the quickness and the outside shot to be a floor general in the Big East. With Andre McGee heading into his senior season and Edgar Sosa graduating in 2010, Rick Pitino knew landing a blue chip ball handler was paramount, and now he's landed the one he was after. Already having a player on the roster from Seattle didn't hurt. "(T-Will) said he likes it a lot and it's his second home," Siva told Scout.com's Evan Daniels. "I thought it was a great place. He obviously loves it because he's going back for another year." Siva - who averaged 19 points and five assists as a junior at Franklin High School in Seattle - joins Rakeem Buckles and Mike Marra as members of Pitino's 2009 recruiting class. Meet your future point guard: <object width="425" height="355"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/CoiiGh0fFrI&hl=en"></param><param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/CoiiGh0fFrI&hl=en" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="355"></embed></object> Mike <info@cardchronicle.com> Fri, 16 May 2008 17:00:50 GMT Samardo Samuels is a Slam All-American http://www.cardchronicle.com/story/2008/5/16/104126/426 USA Today National Player of the Year Samardo Samuels got to see his name in print again this week when Slam Magazine named him as one of the five members of its <a href="http://slamonline.com/online/2008/05/08-hs-aa-1st-team/">High School All-American</a> team. <div class="blockquote">Samardo Samuels, St. Benedict's Prep, Newark, NJ: We feel really, really badly for anyone who has to try and check `Mardo in college next season, because this kid's a beast. After dominating the Jersey prep ranks for a minute, the burly, 6-9 Samuels will be down in Louisville next fall, where he figures to give Rick Pitino the sort of no-joke post presence he's been lacking in recent years. He's a bad man.</div> Samuels was joined on the team by Tyreke Evans (Memphis), Jrue Holiday (UCLA), Brandon Jennings (Arizona) and Greg Monroe (Georgetown). <img width="800" src="http://www.slamonline.com/wallpapers/allamericanswall.jpg"> And that's the story of how I became a Brandon Jennings fan Mike <info@cardchronicle.com> Fri, 16 May 2008 15:41:26 GMT Stadium expansion cut back, new arena club seats on sale http://www.cardchronicle.com/story/2008/5/16/92356/1922 Tom Jurich announced at a press conference yesterday that the planned expansion of Papa John's Cardinal Stadium has been <a href="http://www.courier-journal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080516/SPORTS02/805160489/1002/SPORTS">downsized</a> from an addition of 20,000 seats to an addition of 14,500 seats (for a capacity of 56,500). Jurich blamed the scale back on a one year delay caused by the Kentucky General Assembly's reluctance to approve the project. According to Jurich, the delay caused the overall cost of the project to jump by a minimum of $10 million. <div class="blockquote">"We're going to have to cut some things out because of that budget increase," Jurich said. "By us sitting that one year without approval, it went up a minimum of $10 million. We won't know until those (construction) bids come back on July 17. "We're probably going to have to take the seats down in the upper deck. We're looking at 56,500 maybe. We're hoping that will help suffice." Construction is expected to start in August, and the first game in the expanded stadium would be the 2010 season opener against Kentucky. Jurich stressed that the changes would not affect U of L's goals of increasing the number of suites and adding 2,000 more club seats and a club section.</div> I'm not one to go against or not stalk Tom Jurich, but there's a small, shrill voice in my head that says an extra $10 million would have been produced had last season lived up to expectations and three of the home games not featured mass second half exoduses. But whatever, in '99 the voice also said Josh Heupel would someday be viewed with the same reverence as Montana and Namath. The news was much better for really rich people - presumably unaffected by the decreased expansion (oxymoron!) - as Jurich also announced that the athletic department is now <a href="http://www.courier-journal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080516/SPORTS02/805160493/1002/SPORTS">selling</a> 2,000 premium club seats for the new downtown arena, which is still scheduled to open in November of 2010 (Completely related note: How much are you dreading having to say "twenty eleven" all the time in three years? And it's not like the rest of years in the decade are going to roll off the tongue. I guess the "twenty twenty" decade is the proverbial candy at the end of the sewer...Solomon). Club seat holders will have premium parking privileges, access to an exclusive lounge, the first opportunity to purchase tickets to other arena events, the right to spit on any non-club seat holders, an undisclosed amount of stock in Valero Energy, 10-minute Walter McCarty concerts during halftime, a Frank Zappa CD, and a personal teleporter so they can leave any game early without being heckled. I hate anything I'm not...except puppies...and Bagel Bites. Mike <info@cardchronicle.com> Fri, 16 May 2008 14:23:56 GMT Cards washed out, doubleheader scheduled for today http://www.cardchronicle.com/story/2008/5/16/72010/1382 The scheduled opener for this weekend's series between Louisville and Rutgers was rained out yesterday, forcing the teams to play a pair of games today. Game one's first pitch is slated for 2 p.m., with game two's start set at approximately 5:30 p.m. Louisville's Justin Marks (6-1, 2.19 ERA) will square off against Rutgers' Matt Giannini (3-4, 6.06 ERA) in the opener, and it will be Zack Pitts (5-5, 4.71 ERA) vs. Casey Gaynor (2-5, 4.24 ERA) in the nightcap. Seton Hall throttled Georgetown 18-2 yesterday, moving them a half game ahead of Louisville in the battle for fourth place. Third-place Cincinnati's series opener with West Virginia was also rained out, meaning the Bearcats remained two full games ahead of the Cards in the standings. St. John's - currently ranked 18th in the country - knocked off Villanova to secure at least a share of the regular season championship. And as long as we're chucking around facts, Chris Dominguez is still big and cool. Mike <info@cardchronicle.com> Fri, 16 May 2008 12:20:10 GMT Your least cool person of 2007-2008 http://www.cardchronicle.com/story/2008/5/15/62315/8633 (Nantz voice) They called Tim Taylor "The Toolman," but this Taylor's just a tool. Larry is your least cool person of 2007-2008. <img width="415" src="http://i225.photobucket.com/albums/dd172/armchairqb448/Whatexactlydoeshesee-1.png"> <img width="415" src="http://blog.syracuse.com/orangefootball/2007/10/large_UConn.jpg"> <object width="425" height="355"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/rbRdZZ1kfag&hl=en"></param><param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/rbRdZZ1kfag&hl=en" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="355"></embed></object> Thanks to everyone who voted throughout the tournament, and congratulations to our champion. Mike <info@cardchronicle.com> Thu, 15 May 2008 11:23:15 GMT Least Cool Person of 2007-2008 championship: 1) Larry Taylor vs. 2) Mitch Barnhart http://www.cardchronicle.com/story/2008/5/14/94040/4998 Abundance always carries with it a considerable price tag, and the media over saturation present in the world of modern sports is certainly no exception. There is a price to be paid for unlimited highlights, statistics and analysis available at the press of a button or the click of a mouse, and perhaps the most significant sacrifice the modern fan has had to make is their ability to be blown away. Amazing isn't amazing anymore. An individual performance that wows the nation is as foreign to this decade as an elaborate touchdown celebration was to the 1950s, or a steroid scandal was to the 1980s. It is a privilege to be floored in this day and age, and today we celebrate the work of two men who gave us that privilege this season. Larry Taylor signaling for a fair catch and then returning the punt 70 yards for a game-changing touchdown was Joe Namath guaranteeing victory before Super Bowl III. Him saying after the game that he didn't signal for the fair catch and then later saying that the move was premeditated, well that was Broadway Joe backing up his mouth. When I watched Mitch Barnhart talk about turning down ESPN's offer to air the Louisville/Kentucky game on Labor Day night, I couldn't help but see Babe Ruth calling his shot in the '32 World Series. When he claimed that playing the game would make the Wildcats more susceptible to an upset five days later against Norfolk State, the vivid image of The Sultan of Swat blasting Charlie Root's curveball over the center field fence at Wrigley was undeniable. Both of these men exist as superstars this morning, but when they're drinking their coffee this time tomorrow, only one will be a legend. It's time. 1) LARRY TAYLOR - Punt Returner, Connecticut <img width="415" src="http://i225.photobucket.com/albums/dd172/armchairqb448/Whatexactlydoeshesee-1.png"> Rap Sheet: --Blatantly called for a fair catch before returning the ball 70-yards for a touchdown when the officials didn't blow the play dead. --Made the following statement immediately after the game: "That wasn't no fair catch, that was a fair play out there. The referee didn't call anything, he said it was a fair play. I felt I didn't fair catch it anyway." --Play very well may have cost Louisville the game, and ultimately a bowl bid. --Had the nerve to claim that he had planned the act beforehand, and had made the official aware of his intentions. --Attempted to repeat the maneuver multiple times in subsequent games, getting away with it twice against Cincinnati. Redeeming Qualities: --Plays for the relatively harmless and respectable Connecticut football program. <center>VS.</center> 2) MITCH BARNHART - Director of Athletics, Kentucky <img width="510" src="http://www.cardchronicle.com/images/admin/ul_ukcopy.jpg"> Rap Sheet: --Put spite ahead of the well-being of his own program when he declined ESPN's offer to air the Louisville/Kentucky football game on Labor Day evening, presumably because it was what Tom Jurich wanted. --When turning down the offer to have his team play in the time slot previously reserved for the Miami/Florida State rivalry, Barnhart used the excuse that playing on Monday would make Kentucky vulnerable for the following Saturday's home game against Norfolk State. Tennessee and UCLA ultimately accepted an offer to play the Labor Day evening game. --Once again refused to sobbingly beg for forgiveness for his "we will own this state" remark when he took the Kentucky AD job in 2002. --Looks goofy in pictures. Redeeming Qualities: --I thought he handled the multitude of Tubby/Gillispie situations well (the ones that stretched into this academic year). It's all on you now. Who was the least cool person of the 2007-2008 Louisville sports season: Larry Taylor or Mitch Barnhart? A champion will be crowned at midnight. Mike <info@cardchronicle.com> Wed, 14 May 2008 14:40:40 GMT Search Card Chronicle Use the text box to search Card Chronicle string http://www.cardchronicle.com/search/