Wednesday afternoon Cardinal news and notes

—Jerry Smith and his Team Challenge ALS defeated Scarlet & Gray in double overtime last night and will face Overseas Elite in Thursday night’s championship game of The Basketball Tournament.

Jerry’s towel game is still 100.

—Brendan McKay launched the second home run of his professional career Tuesday night. You can see it here.

—I’m gonna level with you, ESPN; I do not agree.

Absurd.

—Western Kentucky has given Mitchell Robinson a release to transfer, but that doesn’t mean he’ll be playing college basketball this season. I try to explain every angle of the bizarre summer story here.

—Took home third place in the Press Box Classic Monday at U of L Golf Club thanks primarily to the talents of 2013 Final Four MOP Luke Hancock. Still looking for that second title. Maybe next year.

—Rick Pitino is very excited about UConn transfer Steven Enoch.

"We really liked him a whole lot," Pitino told Cardinal Authority.

But after Enoch worked out with the team this summer and Pitino spent some time on the recruiting trail looking at 2018 post player prospects he noted that Enoch was a "much bigger addition" than he anticipated.

"The senior class just doesn't have a ton of post player prospects," Pitino said. "We felt like a transfer was the best way to go and we were right. I've seen things consistently from him so far that he would play for us a lot this season and we're going to be strong up front."

The 6-foot-11 Enoch played sparingly for UConn in his two seasons in Storrs, Conn., with his averages only 3.4 points and 2.3 rebounds as a sophomore. He'll sit out this season and have two years to play at U of L.

Pitino said he's seen flashes that had him puzzled as to why Enoch didn't play at UConn.

"We worked Steven out and right away anytime you say a kid was a top-40 player in high school, didn't play at UConn and he's a great person, something just didn't make sense," Pitino said. "We were blown away by his aggressiveness and shooting ability.

"We came away with the conclusion that UConn just went with almost like if we had Mangok (Mathiang) and Anas (Mahmoud) and we went with Anas even though we knew Mangok was a good player. So they went with a defensive guy and not the offensive guy."

—Here’s what Mike Summers and a pair of Cardinals had to say after the second day of fall camp.

I always feel weird about referring to a period of time that exists completely in the month of August as “fall,” but I’m not making the rules here.

—Big summer for Anfernee Simons. Huge.

—Butler High basketball star Molly Lockhart has committed to play for Jeff Walz at U of L.

—Despite all the numbers and the Heisman Trophy, respect still seems low for Lamar Jackson heading into his junior year.

—I am a major fan of “coaches talk anonymously about other teams in their conference” pieces like this one from Athlon. Here’s what anonymous ACC coaches had to say about Louisville:

“It’s always hard to project Louisville because they’re kind of a hodgepodge collection of people and they go get four or five juco kids nobody knows about, but it all goes back to Lamar (Jackson)."

"I think the thing that really showed up is people initially thought, ‘We can’t blitz Lamar because of his feet,’ but at the end of the day the blitz is what wrecked his world. I think you go back and look very closely at what Todd Orlando did for Houston against them on that Thursday night, it just absolutely blew them up."

"They had issues up front, and people finally figured out how you had to play them. Recipe-wise, if you sit back and play zone and you just worry about rush lanes, that’s just playing right into his hands. People will play them differently out of the gates this year, and it’s going to put a lot of stress on their offensive line to protect him better."

"Tempo really hurt them on defense, so we’ll see how they adjust. (New defensive coordinator Peter) Sirmon is from that Justin Wilcox tree, but he really got blasted by a couple guys in the SEC (while at Mississippi State) that I didn’t think were very good on offense.”

This from the Clemson section is also noteworthy:

"Now they’ll steal your signals. People don’t want to talk about it, but the teams that gave them fits were NC State and Pitt because they huddled. I don’t think that’s a coincidence. It’s not a very well-kept secret, but it didn’t matter. They could have told us what was coming on every play and they would have whipped us."

"They’re alright in the secondary, but they grab better than anyone else.”

The stealing signals comment is the one that’s getting all the attention, but it’s the second one that is the most accurate thing said in the entire Athlon piece. ESPNU has been running its top five games of 2016 consistently for the last week, and No. 5 and No. 4 both feature the Tigers. If you watch them back-to-back you get five straight hours of Cordrea Tankersley clutching and grabbing on 95 percent of Clemson’s defensive plays.

—Two Ole Miss defensive players were arrested for shoplifting Tuesday night. They’re having a great year down there, though.

—A world record wasn’t a bad way for Mallory Comerford to end here huge summer of 2017.

—I was planning on responding to this, but then I got swept away by one of Louisville’s daily abortion riots.

—Shoutout to my friends Lynsey Trager and Danielle Davis on the launching of their new local PR firm, Lemonade Public Relations.

—A survey of Big 12 players conducted by the Dallas Morning News reveals that West Virginia fans are still pretty much the worst.

1) Which Big 12 school is your least favorite to visit?

West Virginia took home gold, with nine of 24 players - good for 38 percent - choosing the Mountaineers. One even gave them "110 percent" of his vote, he said.

"They are brutal there," one player said. "They say a lot of stuff there. There's no filter on their fans at all. I've heard everything."

"It's intense," another offered. "Their fans are rowdy, fans are loud. The players we fully respect and have no problem with, but some of their fans..."

2) Have you ever been racially or ethnically taunted by opposing players or fans?

Nearly half of respondents, of various races and ethnicities, said yes, they've been racially or ethnically taunted by opposing players or fans.

"Just being called words you don't want to be called," one elaborated. "And you know you can't do anything about it because you're playing football."

West Virginia fans again were cited as the worst offenders. One player clarified he'd only heard from fans, not other players. Another said he'd been taunted but wasn't sure if those taunts would be considered racial/ethnic.

Once again, great choice, Big 12. Tremendous.

—U of L might have the best freshmen soccer players in America on both the men’s and women’s side this fall. They’re also both from the city, which is cool.

—The Courier-Journal has five key stats that could shape Louisville football’s 2017 season.

—Rick Bozich says the Louisville win almost single-handedly raised the victory bar for Kentucky football.

—This is a pretty wild fact.

—Leonard Fournette donated 700 trophies from his childhood to be recycled and turned into weights for the Raines High School football team. Really like that guy.

—Patti Smith’s tribute to Sam Shepard, the actor/writer who passed away in Kentucky earlier this week, is beautifully written.

—Josh Harrelson was awarded more than $1 million following his suit against former UK director of basketball operations Leon Smith.

—Anas is coming for Lamar’s crown.

—Dayton basketball player Sam Miller’s weekend included getting thrown out of a bar, arrested, losing his pants, peeing in his jail cell, and then picking a fight with his cellmate and getting his ass kicked. There’s video.

—Last Chance U is officially headed to Independence Community College for its third season.

—In related news, the defensive coordinator from this season of Last Chance U is basically me as a defensive coordinator.

“You have to tackle the player on the other team with the ball, guys. Preferably close to or behind the line of scrimmage.”

—Kevin Keatts discusses his NC State team’s upcoming trip to Italy.

—”PeteFest,” a music festival that aims to raise funds and awareness for mental health advocacy, is coming to Louisville next month. The event is in honor of Cardinal fan Peter Jones, who passed away last December.

For more information on the event including how to buy tickets, go here.

—The K has already fallen off at the Artist Formerly Known as Commonwealth Stadium.

via @caaluttrell

I will now only be referring to that stadium as Roger.

“It’s always a great week for SEC teams when they know they get to play inside Roger on Saturday.”

“Fans just aren’t coming inside Roger the way Mitch Barnhart was hoping they would.”

“Kentucky hasn’t won a league game at The Rog since its opening.”

Yeah, that’s the stuff.

—Three-star athlete Jamal Anderson decommitted from Louisville last night.

—Jeff Greer talks football with SB Nation’s Bill Connelly in his latest C-J podcast.

—Should have told Eric that he was supposed to be mean mugging.

—North Carolina, Louisville’s week two opponent, is No. 25 in Yahoo’s preseason top 25 countdown.

—The Jacksonville Jaguars have signed former Louisville CB Charles Gaines.

—And finally, here’s your wrap-up of the second day of camp courtesy of U of L.