Friday afternoon Cardinal news and notes

—Spread check: No line as of 2:15 p.m.

—Tar Heel Blog has three things to watch for Louisville-UNC tomorrow.

—UCLA staged a historic comeback, Ja Morant continued to do incredibly cool stuff, and a bunch of games went to overtime and ended on buzzer-beaters. Here’s my recap from a surprisingly exciting Thursday night in college hoops.

—The obvious MVP from last night’s game in South Bend.

—Sanity has finally prevailed in Alabama, where Maori Davenport is going to be allowed to play tonight.

—Scary Terry now has a new Rick & Morty-themed shoe.

—Billy Reed writes that Howard Schnellenberger’s College Football Hall of Fame omission is embarrassing.

—An important PSA from Sam Fuehring.

—Bracketologist Chris Dobbertean looks at which conferences did the best work in November and December.

—Louisville fans in South Florida, there will be a game watch tomorrow at the Dave and Busters located in the Oakwood Plaza off of I-95 at 3000 Oakwood Drive in Hollywood, FL.

—Has to be tapas and diet cocaine.

—Louisville is a No. 9 seed in Joe Lunardi’s latest Bracketology.

—WDRB’s Tom Lane writes about David Padgett staying involved in basketball in different ways.

—U of L swim and dive swept Missouri on Thursday.

—The Cards take their latest shot in Chapel Hill tomorrow.

—Here’s Eric Crawford’s write-up from the Louisville women’s team’s disappointing night in South Bend.

—U of L volleyball has landed a transfer from TCU, and she just so happens to be the daughter of Trent Dilfer.

—Jeff Greer answers mailbag questions for ... The Athletic.

We’ve seen Louisville look good and really rough. Before the season expectations for this team were lower as Chris Mack was a new coach employing a new system. After the first part of the season, and a few good wins, exceptions rose and we saw articles that said the Cards were ahead of schedule. That was followed by a bad outing against Kentucky and one good half/one bad half outings against Miami and Pitt. So, fill in the blank: Expectations for Louisville fans for the rest of the year should be _____. — Bobby D.

My best advice: Don’t have any expectations. Louisville is an inconsistent team in a variety of ways, from effort and defense to reliable offense. The margin for error is relatively slim. There will be a few more performances like the Miami and Pitt games. There might be a few Michigan State performances. There might be some Kentucky performances. The bottom line is, Louisville started the season looking like a team that could just as easily go 13-18 as it could go 19-12 or 20-11, and while I’d lean toward something like 18-13, the Pitt game showed how an off night can tilt the scales just enough.

The schedule is so tough and so many things could go right or wrong in any given game. Beating Michigan State and Seton Hall a week after strong showings against Tennessee and Marquette did give a sense the Cardinals were further along than expected, and that’s still the case, because they went 9-4 against a brutal nonconference schedule that a lot of people thought would produce something like a 7-6 record. But being further along doesn’t mean they are out of the woods when it comes to consistency and production or that there wouldn’t be bumps in the road and growing pains.

Strap in, because the next 16 games have rollercoaster potential.

—Oklahoma backup quarterback Austin Kendall is now in the transfer portal.

—Five things to do in Louisville this weekend.

—Louisville signee and Trinity standout David Johnson is hoping to return to the court soon, potentially tonight.

—Deadspin is as blown away as all of us by the flagrant foul call on Louisville near the end of last night’s game at Notre Dame.

—The CJ looks at how Louisville can pull off an upset in Chapel Hill tomorrow.

—The latest addition to the U of L football staff is Cortney Braswell.

—U of L football commit Ty Young is visiting North Carolina this weekend.

—One of the best bets in 2018 college football was on Louisville being bad.

—Cardinal signee Quinn Slazinski will be in town this weekend.

—Slap the Sign recaps Notre Dame’s win over Louisville.

—Cardiac Hill relives Trey McGowens’ freshman school-record 33-point performance against the Cards.

—Friday Irrelevance:

And here’s a second helping since last week’s Friday Irrelevance was a fake Friday Irrelevance:

—Rush the Court previews the weekend ahead in ACC basketball.

—Grant Brisbee has a hilarious and in-depth look at how much WAR he would be worth if he got to play Little League again.

—Always love to see stuff like this.

—And finally, we’ve got Scott Satterfield on to kick off this afternoon’s radio show. I plan to only ask him questions about the officiating last night in South Bend.