Louisville pitchers Justin Amlung and Jared Ruxer headlined a record 10 Louisville baseball players who received All-Big East honors Tuesday night. Amlung, a junior right-hander, was named the league's Pitcher of the Year, while Ruxer, a freshman righty, took home Rookie of the Year honors.

Here's a chunk of the release from U of L:

Amlung (Louisville, Ky./St. Xavier) was 8-3 with a 2.16 ERA and 94 strikeouts in 96.0 innings pitched as the Cardinals' Friday night ace throughout the season. U of L's only First Team All-BIG EAST selection in 2012, he was twice selected as the BIG EAST Pitcher of the Week this season and finished with eight or more strikeouts in six of his 14 starts. He went 5-1 with a 1.63 earned-run average and 63 strikeouts in 60.2 innings in league play. He is the fourth Louisville player to be named BIG EAST Pitcher of the Year in the last six seasons joining Thomas Royse (2010), Justin Marks (2009) and Zack Pitts (2007).

Ruxer (Indianapolis, Ind./Lawrence Central HS) finished his first collegiate regular season with an 8-1 record and a 2.61 ERA in 69.0 innings pitched and 12 starts. He becomes the second Louisville player to earn the BIG EAST Rookie of the Year award joining Marks in 2007. A Third Team All-BIG EAST selection, Ruxer was 3-1 with a 2.64 ERA in five BIG EAST starts and enters the postseason ranked second in the BIG EAST in wins and fifth in ERA.

Louisville had five players named Second Team All-BIG EAST on Tuesday - senior first baseman Stewart Ijames, sophomore outfielder Adam Engel, sophomore designated hitter Jeff Gardner, sophomore outfielder Cole Sturgeon and sophomore right-hander Jeff Thompson. Joining Ruxer as a Third Team All-BIG EAST selection were senior righty reliever Derek Self, junior second baseman Nick Ratajczak and sophomore third baseman Ty Young.

The top-seeded Cards open Big East Tournament play tomorrow evening at 5 p.m. against Pitt.

We haven't even hit the summer months yet, but the first college football preview magazine is on the shelves. Lindy's released its college football preview for 2012 today, and the publication has high hopes for the beloved and venerated fighting Cardinals of the University of Louisville.

Lindy's has Louisville slotted at No. 23 in its preseason top 25 rankings, and predicts that the Cardinals will win the Big East and square off against Florida State in the 2013 Orange Bowl.

I wouldn't hate it.

The father of former Virginia Tech signee Montrezl Harrell told Scout Focus today that his son's current top four is Louisville, Florida, Cincinnati and Alabama.

Noticeably absent from that list is Kentucky, the place many expected Harrell to wind up after he finally received his release from VT. It's an interesting development considering that most national media members as well as those close to UK agreed that the Wildcats needed Harrell to serve as a backup to Kyle Wiltjer at the four.

Thanks in large part to his relationship with current Louisville assistant and former Hargrave Military head coach Kevin Keatts, plenty of people have pegged U of L as the front-runner to land Harrell's services. Now, I don't think there's any question.

Harrell will take his first visit to U of L on the weekend of May 31-June 2.

UPDATE: The same source says U of L has informed the Harrell family that its scholarship situation has been resolved, and that they have a spot for Montrezl for next season.

Andrew Stosberg keeping things professional here on a business Tuesday. I can respect that. It can't always be partying and babies and dressed up animals and recruits with fantastic names; sometimes you gotta buckle down and get ish done...at midcourt, baby.

Big 12 guru Chip Brown hit the radio today to talk Care Bears films and conference realignment. On the latter issue, he stated that the conference is unlikely to make any move until the playoff situation is set and that Texas would like to see Notre Dame join up.

Later in the program he mentioned that the Big 12 took an exhaustive look at what adding Louisville would entail, and that the results did not turn out favorably.

It certainly doesn't sound good, but when things have sounded good in the past is when they've ultimately turned sour. This might mean that next week we'll be invited to the SEC and that they'll also want us to carry around the previously non-existant title of "conference king."

The major news out of the second day of Big East meetings is that the basketball coaches in attendance have reiterated their desire to have all teams included in the conference tournament. Huge news for the future of "The DePaul"...and DePaul.

If all 18 teams were to be included in the tournament, there would have to be two "play-in" games on campus sites on the Monday of tournament week. Six wins in seven days to claim a conference championship is insanity.

A quick issuing of congrats to the Louisville softball team, which fell short of its goal of advancing to the Super Regionals for the first time in program history, but still produced the best season in school history at 55-5. Congrats, ladies.

U of L baseball getting in some morning BP in Clearwater.

The top-seeded Cards open postseason play at 5 p.m. tomorrow against Pitt.

It was a big weekend for Trinity star and Louisville recruit James Quick, who set a state record in the 200m (20.94), and actually ran the fastest 200 ever recorded at U of L. To put that in perspective (via Jody Demling), Quick's time was just off the 20.75 provisional "B" qualifying standard for Olympic Trials.

A nice take on the death of former West Virginia football coach Bill Stewart from ESPN's Brian Bennett.

But Stewart lacked an obsessive focus on details that mark most successful coaches at powerhouse schools, and his teams often reflected that. The Mountaineers in the Stewart era lost games to less talented teams because of untimely mistakes, turnovers and penalties. Fans believed his teams underachieved, and their case was only strengthened when Holgorsen won the Orange Bowl with Stewart's players last season.

But if the worst thing you could say about Bill Stewart was that he didn't spend every waking minute breaking down film or yelling at his assistants, so be it. He was a people person, through and through. On one of my first spring visits, we sat in his office talking for more than 90 minutes even though he had to attend a high school coaches' clinic that was underway. He asked me more questions than the other way around. On another visit, I was scheduled to drive back to Pittsburgh at the end of the day. Stewart worried that I would be driving into storms and kept checking the weather reports throughout the day. He asked me to let him know that I got back safely that night. How many BCS conference coaches would do that?

The Cardinal Connect interviews recent U of L grad and recurrent style icon Chris Smith.

Uriah LeMay, a four-star receiver from North Carolina, will announce his college decision on June 1. LeMay has previously stated that his final 10 includes: Louisville, Nebraska, Clemson, Georgia, South Carolina, Virginia Tech, Ohio State, North Carolina and Tennessee.

Georgia is presumed to be in the driver's seat for LeMay, as his brother is a quarterback there.

Daylan Hall, the former St. X star who speared a security guard into a pool on spring break and then was dismissed from the UK football team in Feb., has now been arrested for assaulting a police office.

Just in time for summer, from Big Time Yurts:

Dairy Queen confetti cake blizzard. I'm not even going to add anything.

U of L spotlights senior right-hander Justin Amlung, who is the reigning Big East Pitcher of the Week.

Best news story paragraph of the year:

Yes, it's real, and yes, the reporter has been fired.

In the wake of last year's brawl, Xavier and Cincinnati will play at a neutral site for the first time in 25 years this December. The series may also be called off after a two-year trial period.

Adam Morrison is no longer human.

And finally, the best picture of a dog dressed like two pirates carrying a treasure chest that you're going to see all day.

Only now are you ready to tackle your afternoon.

The news that Louisville was pursuing former Virginia Tech signee Montrezl Harrell raised more than a few eyebrows among Card Nation late last week. A pair of stories from Monday now have even more U of L fans wondering what exactly the scholarship situation is with the team right now.

First came word (via Adam Zagoria) that talented Virginia Tech transfer Dorian Finney-Smith has narrowed his list of schools to six, and that Louisville is among that mix. The rising sophomore is also reportedly looking at Florida, Ohio State, Georgetown, Texas and Marquette.

Now there's the news that Oklahoma City point guard Stephen "Stevie" Clark may reclassify to the class of 2012, and that Louisville is one of the schools which has told him they will take him right away.

As with Finney-Smith, there's not much question over whether or not the addition of Clark would help the team.

Blessed with a lightning quick first step and "open across halfcourt" range, the undersized Clark averaged 25 points and 11 assists this past season. He dropped 40 points in the Oklahoma state title game, and put up 65 - including 52 in the second half - during a game earlier in the year.

According to Clark's mother, he "has the green light" from Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, Florida State, Missouri, Louisville, Arkansas, Memphis, Baylor, Tulsa and Stanford, but is waiting to hear from Connecticut, Ohio State and Kentucky.

If there wasn't legitimate concern about Terry Rozier's eligibility, I think there has to be now.

I know various memebrs of the coaching staff, including Rick Pitino, have repeatedly stated that they're not concerned about Rozier getting eligible, but this is an instance where actions speak louder than words. Assuming Rozier makes the grades, Louisville has zero scholarships available for next season. And yet, it's actively pursuing three players who would demand schollys for the 2012-13 season (Finney-Smith would still use one even though he would be sitting out), including one who plays the same position Rozier does.

We've seen Pitino and company pursue and land one player with no scholarships available before, and then watched the situation ultimately take care of itself. The fact that the staff is reportedly the leader for one player and is now pursuing two more with no scholarships to give, however, leads me to believe that they know something the rest of us don't.

These figure to be an interesting few weeks.

Congrats to Mario Benavides, Teddy Bridgewater and Hakeem Smith on their first team nods.

New York natives Edgar Sosa and Angel Nunez have been spending some time on the court and in the gym together this summer, and apparently it's taking a toll on the rising U of L sophomore.

Sosa tweeted out the following picture accompanied by the text "I'm tellin yah the 2-a-days are killin this kid.. Hope it pays off.. I'm rootin for this dude.." earlier today:

Sosa, who suffered a gruesome leg injury while playing for the Dominican Republic national team in the FIBA Americas Championship last September, has also spent some time working out under the tutelage of former Cardinal and current Fairleigh Dickinson assistant coach Chris Brickley.

The Louisville baseball team claimed its third Big East title over the weekend by taking two of three games at Pittsburgh while St. John's was beaten twice by Seton Hall.

The Cardinals and Red Storm each finished with 18-9 conference records, but U of L will be the No. 1 seed at this week's conference tournament by virtue of it taking the regular season series with the Johnnies (check out video of the Cards celebrating their title on the team bus).

Louisville will begin its quest for a second conference championship on Wednesday at 5 p.m. against a Pitt team it figures to be very familiar with after this past weekend.

The full tournament bracket looks like this:

Louisville has won the tournament twice, in 2008 and 2009.