Thursday morning Cardinal news and notes

—It’s an insider link, but Ray Spalding makes a second round appearance in the latest NBA mock draft from ESPN’s Draft Express. Nice to see that Ray’s strong combine showing is finally getting him some buzz.

—Athlon names its preseason All-ACC football teams and has a grand total of zero Louisville players on its first team offense, defense or special teams units.

—Chris Mack hosted a gathering of former Louisville players last weekend, and it looked pretty awesome.

—Awful news for former Cardinal/current Denver Bronco Deiontrez Mount, who is already lost for the 2018 season because of a torn achilles.

—U of L’s Olivia Cason begins competition at the U.S. Women’s Open in Alabama on Thursday.

—Four-star Memphis (Tenn.) Whitehaven athlete Keveon Mullins has decommitted from Memphis and now plans on visiting South Carolina, Georgia, Louisville, Ole Miss and Florida State.

Louisville

”They’re telling me the same thing (that) South Carolina is telling me: They think they can use me all over. (Wide receivers coach Lonnie Galloway) is telling me I remind (him) of the receivers they have now like Devante (Peete). Jaden Johnson has been trying to get me to commit. He’s from here in Memphis and he’s going there. That’s my boy; we’re close. So I’m going to give them a look and see what he’s talking about.”

—Myisha Hines-Allen is dominating the glass early on in her Washington Mystics career.

—Angel back.

—Samari Curtis has decommitted from Xavier. Chris Mack used to coach at Xavier. These are merely two factual sentences.

—U of L men’s golf has announced its team awards for the 2017-18 season.

—Bobby Petrino and company are hosting some big-time visitors on campus today.

—Louisville has made the first cut for five-star class of 2019 power forward Isaiah Stewart.

—Former U of L pitcher Josh Rogers held the Louisville Bats scoreless over seven innings Tuesday night at Slugger Field. He then got a curtain call from the “home” crowd.

—Louisville track and field athletes Kassidy Manning and Joe Delgado have both been named to the 2018 Google Cloud Academic All-District Track & Field/Cross Country Teams.

—DiCaprio said the same thing. They’re both liars.

—Steven Godfrey spent five years working on this remarkable report about college football corruption and players being paid in the state of Mississippi.

—There’s also a four-episode documentary series that accompanies the story. I’m only two episodes in, but it’s pretty tremendous.

And yet, college basketball is somehow the only American sport in need of “saving.”

—The Cards were back on the court on Wednesday.

—Nevada is leaving Nike and joining the Adidas family.

—After being the top dog in last week’s MAC tournament, Kent State is relishing being back in the underdog role.

Now the Flashes will flip roles on Friday at 7 p.m., when they open play in the NCAA Lubbock (Texas) Regional as the third seed against a juggernaut No. 2 seed Louisville squad that’s captured five regional titles in a row and qualified for the College World Series three times in the last five years.

“In all honesty, I think the toughest part for us is over, as far as getting through the MAC Tournament and having that target off your back. Now we can just go play and really enjoy this,” said KSU coach Jeff Duncan. “This is the fun time of the year. We’ve got nothing to lose. We play Louisville in game one, and all the media has them going to the College World Series again. This is a good opportunity for us. I think it’s going to be a great game.

“Hopefully we go play good baseball and shock the world.”

The Flashes sent shockwaves through the college baseball nation just six years ago, when they advanced to the CWS for the first time in program history by knocking off Big Ten champion Purdue, No. 12 Kentucky (twice) and No. 10 Oregon (twice). Kent State then eliminated No. 1-ranked Florida at the 2012 CWS in Omaha.

A similar lineup of stellar foes awaits the Flashes (39-16) in 2018, starting with a Cardinals squad (43-17) that’s won 14 of its last 17 games. When Kent State last advanced to the NCAA Regional in 2014 it opened with a 5-0 loss to host Louisville.

—Notable final NBA Draft decisions from yesterday:

P.J. Washington (Kentucky) — Coming back

Tyus Battle (Syracuse) — Coming back

Juwan Morgan (Indiana) — Coming back

Jarred Vanderbilt (Kentucky) — Staying in draft

Wenyen Gabriel (Kentucky) — Staying in draft

Donte DiVincenzo, Villanova — Staying in draft

Omari Spellman, Villanova — Staying in draft

Bryant Crawford, Wake Forest — Staying in draft

Josh Okogie, Georgia Tech — Staying in draft

Ky Bowman, Boston College — Coming back

Marcquise Reed and Shelton Mitchell, Clemson — Coming back

—Brian Bowen is also staying in the draft, but only because he got word from the NCAA that he wouldn’t be able to play in 2018-19.

—Total Packers says Jaire Alexander has the potential to mature into an NFL star.

—And finally, U of L football announced Wednesday that linebacker Isaac Stewart and redshirt defensive back Lyn Strange have been given their release from the program. Stewart, a redshirt senior, played in 33 games and had 57 tackles over the last three seasons.