Thanks to Rick Bozich's column in this morning's Courier, we now know the following non-conference games have been scheduled for the 2008-2009 Louisville basketball season:
Nov. 22: Morehead State
Nov. 23: South Alabama
Nov. 29: Western Kentucky (in Nashville)
Dec. 18: Mississippi (in Cincinnati)
Dec. 20: Minnesota (in Phoenix)
Dec. 27: UAB
Dec. 31: UNLV
Jan. 4: Kentucky
This schedule - as it stands - strikes me as deceptively difficult, which is generally the second worst kind (undeniably, hideously difficult being the worst).
Morehead State shouldn't pose any more of a threat than they did this past season, and South Alabama and Western Kentucky are both going to be down, but those other five teams are all more than capable of springing what would likely be an upset.
Ole Miss returns a trio of highly talented young guards from a team that started last season 13-0. Minnesota improved immensely in its first season of Tubby ball and is bringing in a solid group of players, plus we'll apparently be playing that game on one day of rest and after a flight from Cincinnati to Phoenix. UAB should be a tournament team, and any squad with a shooter as lethal as Robert Vaden has the potential to beat anyone. UNLV returns its two best players - Wink Adams and Joe Darger - from a team that won a game in the tournament and hung with the eventual national champions for a while in the second round. And then the Kentucky game is the Kentucky game.
At least the Big East is only going to have one or two decent teams.