Friday afternoon Cardinal news and notes

—ESPN serves up its preview of all eight College World Series teams.

—The Commercial Dispatch breaks down Louisville’s half of the CWS bracket.

—U of L closer Michael McAvene is talking publicly about his ejection during the regional tournament and the national reaction.

He did say, “That’s horrible,” after not getting a strike call on a 3-1 pitch against Indiana in a tight game. There’s no denying that, and McAvene doesn’t deny it. He said it, though, he says, not as a statement to the umpire but a very costly case of thinking out loud. Either way, home plate umpire Ken Langford didn’t like it, and ejected McAvene.

“Right away, I was completely in shock,” McAvene said. “I didn’t think I had said anything directed at him that would have warranted something like that. I don’t know if he thought I had said something differently, but it completely caught me by surprise in the moment, especially where we were in the game.”

On top of that, the ejection carried a four-game suspension. NCAA rules stipulate that McAvene couldn’t even be in the stadium for those four games, so he had to watch from deep in the Louisville clubhouse, or upstairs through a window in the building that houses the clubhouse, which doubles as a medical facility. One game, he watched from a parking lot with his family, though he could see very little of the game because of media tents erected for the tournament.

What he could see was the support that flowed to him, from social media, from a “Free Mike” sign a Louisville student hung on the overpass that overlooks center field in Jim Patterson Stadium, from the “That’s horrible” T-shirts that sprang up.

“It’s awesome. You know, the media world, it can be a good and a bad thing,” McAvene said. “But to have that support and see people behind me in that situation, it’s humbling, to say the least.”

—Louisville recruit Jay Scrubb is ready for his shot with USA Basketball.

—The three of you reading this who also read “The Card Report” way back in the day might remember that I spent a summer during college working for a newspaper in a small Iowa town. The town is actually the same one Toronto Raptors head coach Nick Nurse grew up in, and The Ringer has a great story on a reporter from that same paper, the Carroll Times Herald, who has been covering Nurse for years and drove 14 hours to Toronto for the Finals.

—Reid Detmers garners most of the headlines, but Bobby Miller has emerged as a force on the Cardinal pitching staff.

—Damion Lee makes an appearance in his brother in law’s Oracle Arena goodbye photo.

—Terry Bowden is officially a Clemson football intern, which feels like the break the rest of the ACC has been waiting for.

—The Wall Street Journal’s Ben Cohen writes that Golden State’s era of invincibility has come to a close.

—Terry Rozier would like the world to know that he didn’t actually say this.

—The Charleston Post Courier writes about how The Citadel produced 25 percent of this year’s College World Series coaches.

—I just love that pornhub has a press team.

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—U of L’s pitching staff is heading into Omaha with as much confidence as they’ve had all season.

—The Sun Sentinel covers Henry Bryant’s commitment to U of L.

—Peyton Siva highlights from his 2018-19 season in Berlin:

—V.J. King is working out for the Washington Wizards today.

—Clemson quarterback Trevor Lawrence could be even more dangerous as a sophomore.

—I’ve never related to Kawhi Leonard more.

—The ACC Network has announced its TV schedule for the upcoming U of L men’s soccer season.

—Jeff Greer tells the story of Rob Butsch, the man who was the flying Cardinal bird at Freedom Hall.

As his ex-wife Denise Butsch tells it, the school was reticent to let a student be the Flying Cardinal Bird. Word from his college students got to Butsch, who they thought would make a good candidate for the job.

“He came home and said, ‘I’m just going to fall from the ceiling at U of L games,’” Denise says. “I was like, What?”

Butsch had that adventurer in him. He liked traveling out West to climb and hike and camp. He owned property near Red River Gorge, east of Lexington, and planned to build a cabin there so he could stay overnight after climbing. He would’ve scaled the tall buildings in downtown Louisville if he were allowed to, Denise says. But the Flying Cardinal Bird role? That was a little different.

“It wasn’t just a drop,” Denise says, with a laugh. “I thought he’d just drop down — he’d be tied up and lower down to the floor. It was not that at all. It was a swing from one end of that place to the other end of that place. It was massive. I remember looking up and he was right over us and our son was like, ‘Oh my God, there’s dad!’”

—The All-America honors continue to pour in for Reid Detmers.

—For whatever reason, Brendan McKay has been swinging the stick better in Triple-A than he was in Double-A.

—Top 35 class of 2020 prospect Jaemyn Brakefield plans on visiting U of L at some point during his final year of high school.

—Mid-Major Madness has a great draft preview of Ja Morant.

—Friday Irrelevance, triple helping.

—The LEO serves up five things to do in Louisville this weekend.

—”Power soccer” has arrived in Louisville, which is a cool thing.

—The Stephen Foster will highlight a big night of racing at Churchill Downs on Saturday.

—Pretty wild.

—Danielle Lerner’s latest U of L basketball mailbag for the CJ is here.

—And finally, R&R will be live at the Visionworks downtown (100 W. Market St.) where Donovan Mitchell will be signing autographs from 3-4. We’ll also have some Spida brand merchandise to give away. If you can’t make it down, you can listen to the show here.