Wednesday afternoon Cardinal news and notes

—Spread check (basketball): Tennessee by 8.

—Spread check (football): Kentucky by 17.

—A guide to surviving Thanksgiving, physically.

—The Game Day GIF is back.

—Tennessee is No. 3 in Gary Parrish’s daily top 25 and one rankings.

—The Cards will be in black this evening.

—Tennessee will be sporting throwbacks for the game.

—This film study from The Baltimore Sun does a good job of breaking down Lamar Jackson’s first start and explaining why John Harbaugh can’t limit Jackson’s carries.

—Tennessee’s Grant Williams says (podcast) this season is all about toughness for the Vols.

—Happy three-year anniversary to this John Calipari quote:

Weird.

—Four NFL linemen share their Thanksgiving tips, tricks and recipes.

—Jordan Nwora earned the coveted gold jersey this week.

—The happiest of birthdays to Kenny Klein.

Forever the best. Here’s hoping you get a W in New York to celebrate.

—Each member of the staff over at A Sea of Blue likes Kentucky to handle Louisville with relative ease. But, you know, it’s a rivalry game, so you can toss out the records.

—The Lexington Herald-Leader’s Jennifer Smith says — this is not a joke — that you need to throw the records out when Louisville and Kentucky get together.

—A Wildcat victory would give UK a 9-win season for the first time since 1983.

—Oh, but if they were Sean John sweatpants it would have been fine.

—The Chattanooga Times Free Press lays out the tale of the tape between Tennessee and Louisville.

—SoutheastHoops.com likes the Vols by nine.

—Lou City has announced its initial roster moves for the 2019 season.

—Josh Nickelberry dropped a mere 26 points last night, the first time he’s been held under 30 this season.

—The first-year coaches in the ACC are all off to a solid start in 2018-19.

—Ricky O’Donnell ranks the seven best prospects in the 2019 NBA Draft at the moment.

—Your ultimate Thanksgiving viewing guide from Andy Katz.

—The Russ Smith/Ken Pomeroy bromance will never die.

“People say I’m not efficient and I won the efficiency award last year. I just play basketball and I make people’s lists sometimes. I am efficient. I can’t become efficient in their opinion because they probably never played basketball before. If you win the efficiency of the year award, then you’re efficient. I mean, two-plus-two is four.” —Russ Smith

—The Maui Invitational final has been moved up this year, which is absolute bullshit and also means that No. 1 Duke vs. No. 3 Gonzaga will be going on at the same time as Louisville-Tennessee.

Chaminade would have never stood for this.

—Tread lightly tomorrow, kids.

—The New York Post has a story on how bettors can use the NIT Season Tip-Off to assess March Madness potential.

—Big Red Louie’s Presley Meyer tells the story of how Louisville’s miracle comeback against Tennessee in 2001 made him a Cardinal fan forever.

—Tennessee could face Kansas in a top five showdown on Friday, but the Vols aren’t looking past Louisville.

The possibility of a top-5 match-up between the two on Friday exists, but Tennessee coach Rick Barnes knows better than to assume they will meet.

“It’s not going to happen unless Tennessee and Kansas play good basketball because Marquette and Louisville are certainly capable of winning this tournament,” the fourth-year UT coach said. “The team that wins it is going to have to win it. There are no gimmes, and it doesn’t matter if you have a number in front of you or not you have to go play basketball games.”

A year ago, the Vols went to The Bahamas to participate in the Battle 4 Atlantis, which had the potential to feature a semifinal between No. 5 Villanova and No. 18 Purdue.

It never happened because UT knocked Purdue off to open the tournament, a memory the No. 5 Vols are keeping in mind as they prepare for their opening game in the NIT Season Tip-Off against Louisville today (TV: ESPN2, 5 p.m.).

“When you watch Louisville and you go back and think about Chris Mack teams (at Xavier), they’re tough and they play hard,” Barnes said. “The field is very good, but we have to worry about that first game and then you go from there.”

—The CJ looks at the matchup between the Louisville offense and the Kentucky defense.

—Rocky Top Talk previews Louisville-Tennessee.

—This is a deep cut.

—Lipscomb, which will play at Louisville on Dec. 12, went on the road and took down No. 18 TCU last night. The Bisons also won at SMU earlier this week.

—Big News Network says that Louisville and Kentucky are “putting their records aside” heading into their annual rivalry game. Is there another way to say that?

—No R&R today because the pregame show for Louisville-Tennessee will be on, but we’ll be back from 3-6 on Friday.

—And finally, beat Tennessee.