Thursday afternoon Cardinal news and notes

—Spread check: Miami by 6.5.

—Louisville’s offensive line was a huge question mark entering the year. The CJ’s Cameron Teague writes that the line is now a strength and added depth has allowed it to get better as games go on.

—The Louisville men’s soccer team bowed out in the first round of the ACC tournament with a 2-0 loss to Virginia Tech on Wednesday. The 8-7-2 Cards will find out their NCAA tournament fate when the bracket is revealed on Monday, Nov. 18.

—Love seeing the vets on this year’s team going out of their way to hype up the freshmen.

—College football has been celebrating its 150th anniversary all year long, even though the game colleges were playing 150 years ago doesn’t remotely resemble football.

—The NBA2Lou movement is launching a new ambassador program for anyone hoping to get involved with the effort to bring an NBA team to Louisville.

The new NBA2Lou Ambassador Club is now accepting members! Show the NBA that Kentucky is passionate about, and committed to, bringing professional basketball back to the Bluegrass.

By joining, you’ll get perks like invitations to exclusive NBA2Lou events, free NBA2Lou gear, and the NBA2Lou newsletter with updates on our efforts and the NBA’s expansion plans, among other things.

And, the first 250 people to join our Ambassador Club - at ANY level - will receive access to NBA2Lou’s invitation-only Ambassador Launch Party on Wednesday, December 4th. You may even get to meet some Hall-of-Famers!

You can join up here.

—Taylor Swift will be playing the free Final Four concert in Atlanta (the one Ludacris played back in 2013) this April. I’m going to guess the demand is going to be slightly larger, especially considering this is currently set to be her only concert in the United States in 2020.

—If someone doesn’t fix Teddy’s bike then we need to just hang it up as a nation.

—Big news for Bellarmine basketball: Starting Friday they will be selling beer during home games at Knights Hall. Should make what was already a fantastic basketball experience even better.

—The 6th-ranked U of L field hockey team is geared up for the ACC tournament.

—The U of L volleyball team is headed South to take on Miami and Florida State.

—These videos are back and I couldn’t be happier.

—Cole Anthony set a new ACC freshman debut scoring record by dropping 34 points in North Carolina’s win over Notre Dame. He, uh, he looked pretty good.

—Other ACC scores from Wednesday night:

No. 11 Virginia 48, Syracuse 34 (seriously)

Pittsburgh 63, Florida State 61

Boston College 77, Wake Forest 70

So NC State and Florida State, the two teams that pretty much everyone thought would be right below the top tier of four, start their seasons with losses to Georgia Tech and Pitt, respectively. Gonna be a wild conference season ... when it starts back up again in like 27 weeks.

—Jim Boeheim thinks opening the season with conference games is bullshit.

—Seems pretty good.

—Louisville sophomore Elizabeth Balogun is a member of the Naismith Trophy watch list.

—A study from WalletHub says Louisville is the 7th-best city in America for Thanksgiving.

—A look at the NFL teams that screwed up the most by not drafting Lamar Jackson in 2018.

—Congrats to Louisville coaching legend Greg Paulus.

—We are 100 days away from the start of Louisville baseball, and now the team’s complete 2020 schedule has been released.

—Bleacher Report looks at what we learned from the Champions Classic.

—After what seems like an unforgivable mistake, one half of the Brotha to Brotha team of diehard Louisville Cardinal fans is in need of some medical assistance. Help him out if you have the means.

—Congrats to our dude, Lefkoe. He’s come a long way from dropping a “Screech’s robot Kevin” reference during a WHAS segment because he was bored and I told him to.

—State of The U previews Louisville vs. Miami. They also serve up a solid film preview here.

—College basketball fans will find a lot of familiar faces playing key roles for the Golden State Warriors these days, including Damion Lee.

—Bill Polian has admitted that he was wrong about Lamar Jackson’s future in the NFL being at wide receiver. I didn’t know you were allowed to do such things in 2019.

—Eric Bledsoe blacked out and thought he was playing pickup for a second Wednesday night.

—Marlon Character is realizing his potential and becoming a force for the Louisville defense.

—U of L announced Wednesday that it will host an exhibition game against the USA Basketball Women’s National Team, which is in pursuit of a seventh consecutive Olympic gold medal, on Sunday, Feb. 2. The game will tip off at 2 p.m. at the KFC Yum! Center. Team USA is also playing an exhibition at UConn.

—I need this show to be super dark. Mighty Ducks meets True Detective. Gordon Bombay is the new Jack Reilly. Charlie Conway is battling back from a coke problem. Goldberg’s in jail for murder.

—Westgate’s updated future spreads has Kentucky as a 1.5-point favorite over Louisville in this year’s Battle for the Governor’s Cup.

—I went on the Fundamentally Sound podcast Wednesday night to talk about Louisville’s season-opener being pre-empted by soccer and other nonsense.

—Angel McCoughtry has been cleared to return to the court.

—ESPN ranks Louisville’s Elizabeth Balogun as the 23rd-best player in the country for the 2019-20 season.

23. Elizabeth Balogun, Louisville, G, 6-foot-1, sophomore

2018-19: 14.6 PPG, 5.1 RPG, 1.6 APG

In her one season at Georgia Tech, Balogun won ACC Freshman of the Year, yet somehow played largely under the national radar. That isn’t likely to happen at Louisville. She instantly becomes one of the stars in a program that reached an Elite Eight and Final Four the past two seasons. One of the prize recruits in MaChelle Joseph’s 16-year tenure with the Yellow Jackets, Balogun decided to transfer amidst the turmoil surrounding Joseph’s dismissal and was given immediate eligibility. Twice Balogun scored more than 30 points as a freshman, and she averaged 1.6 SPG. She is the kind of two-way player who should fit well into Jeff Walz’s system as the Cardinals attempt to replace three starters, including Asia Durr, the program’s second-all-time leading scorer.

—Her teammates and coaches have already fallen in love with U of L freshman Norika Konno.

—More evidence:

—Montrezl Harrell moved into the starting lineup for the Clippers on Wednesday night and promptly responded with a career-high 34 points.

—Greg Cote of the Miami Herald writes that the Miami crowd Tuesday night was more disappointing than the play of the Hurricanes.

—Jay Williams had some extremely kind words for the Louisville basketball team on Wednesday.

—Jordan Nwora currently has the second-best national Player of the Year odds on SportsBetting.ag.

—Danielle Lerner of The Athletic writes about what we learned from Louisville’s opening night throttling of Miami.

—This kid is the future of comedy.

—Saturday will be Louisville’s first game without Blanton Creque, a valuable piece the Cards need to replace adequately.

—Cameron Teague of the CJ lays out how the Cards can beat the Canes on Saturday.

—Sam Williamson highlights from Tuesday:

—After a solid performance last Saturday against Florida State, Jarren Williams is looking to keep the positive momentum rolling this weekend against U of L.

—And finally, Scott Satterfield will join R&R this afternoon to talk about the bye week and preview Saturday’s game against The U. You can stream the show here or listen live on 790-KRD.