Wednesday evening Cardinal news and notes

—Spread check: Syracuse by 2.

—The Louisville baseball team kicked off a 14-game homestand with a 5-1 win over Eastern Kentucky on Tuesday.

—Our guy CardinalStrong did a Q&A ahead of tonight’s game with Troy Nunes is an Absolute Magician.

—No travel issues for the Cards this time.

—Duke and North Carolina play on ESPN after Louisville-Syracuse tonight. I wrote about it because I was forced to.

—All four of the writers over at Troy Nunes is an Absolute Magician like Syracuse to beat Louisville tonight.

—Bryan Brown should be mic’d up for everything.

—The Shutdown Fullcast thinks Louisville needs an AAF franchise.

—Rutgers is the latest program to follow Louisville’s lead and start selling beer at home football games.

—Dakich then went full Nantz and gave Adam his tie for his tremendous fan performance.

—With Lamar Jackson at the helm, the Ravens say they’re “pretty much re-imagining” their offense.

—Scotty Davenport and the Bellarmine Knights are up to No. 9 in the latest NABC D-II top 25 poll. The Knights are hosting a White Out Thursday night for the 8 p.m. game against an Indianapolis squad that upset them earlier in the season.

—Darius Perry and Jordan Nwora both make the cut for the top five ACC plays of the past week.

—Louisville’s up a spot from No. 17 to No. 16 in today’s updated NET rankings. Syracuse, for what it’s worth, is No. 48. That makes tonight a Quad 1 game for both teams.

—Your game day GIF.

—Heavy.com is rolling with the Cards tonight, but thinks it’s going to be a tight one.

—The Daily Orange hones in on how Rick Pitino grew as a coach under the tutelage of Jim Boeheim.

—Louisville is No. 6 in Tar Heel Blog’s latest ACC power rankings.

—Cards are in the house.

—The paper of note in Buffalo focuses on Buffalo native Jordan Nwora returning to the area for Wednesday night’s game.

—Mike Waters of the Syracuse Post-Standard gives us 10 things to watch for tonight.

The defense can’t rest

Syracuse ranks 20th in the country in field goal percentage defense, holding teams to 39.7 percent shooting.

The Orange ranks 24th in scoring defense, holding teams to an average of 64.3 points per game.

And SU ranks 21st in blocked shots, turning away 4.9 of its opponents’ shots each game.

But Syracuse’s defense fell apart against N.C. State. In the second half of the 73-58 win, the Wolfpack scored 43 points on 63 percent shooting. And it wasn’t because of some hot shooting from way outside, either. N.C. State went 2-for-6 from 3-point range in that second half.

While most fans focus on SU’s offensive struggles, the Orange’s success is still going to be predicated on its defense.

—Syracuse blog The Juice likes Louisville by five tonight.

—Shoutout to the fans who braved the cold weather to watch Louisville baseball win its home opener on Tuesday.

—And finally, beat Syracuse.