Friday evening Cardinal news and notes

—NET Rankings Update: No. 11.

—Louisville-Clemson is the game of the weekend in the ACC.

—The Louisville baseball team was on the field for its first official day of practice today. The Cards open their much anticipated season on Valentine’s Day at Ole Miss.

—Highlights from Jeff Walz’s 250th career win:

—A tough break for our guy David Levitch, whose star player at North Oldham, Justin Powell, is out for the season after having surgery for a sports hernia. Powell has signed on to play for Bruce Pearl at Auburn next season.

—Virginia is tracking to become lowest-scoring and worst three-point shooting team in the history of ACC basketball. Seems bad.

—I hate to take the side of the enemy here, but this is embarrassing.

A program that is one of the seven best all-time giving this much attention to a regular season win from eight years ago over a team that beat them in the Sweet 16 THAT SAME SEASON is just not the best look in the world. Let it go.

Also, big win for IU over Michigan State last night.

—Sam Vecenie’s new NBA Draft Big Board for The Athletic has Jordan Nwora at No. 36 and Dwayne Sutton at No. 94.

—Four-star wide receiver Kaden Prather has picked up a Louisville offer.

—Congrats to John Calipari for winning the Card Chronicle Lie of the Week for the week of Jan. 24.

—For the first time in almost two decades, college basketball could have a first-time champion in back-to-back seasons. Here are the six teams who seem most capable of breaking through for the first time in 2002.

—In what feels like very odd timing, Kahlil Whitney announced Friday morning that he’s leaving the Kentucky basketball team.

—Here’s another case where I’m going to let you guys pick your own snarky joke.

—The Cardinal track and field squad is set for the Notre Dame Invitational this weekend.

—After a 14-0 start, the top-ranked Bellarmine Knights have now lost consecutive games.

—Friday Irrelevance is throwing it back to the old Louisville Redbirds:

—U of L will be the host of a major esports tournament.

—Indiana is now having to recruit against its own fan base.

—It will be very cool to see the team that many people believe should have been Louisville’s first national title squad honored inside the Yum Center Saturday afternoon.

—It’s another large recruiting weekend for U of L football.

—Here’s your standard Louisville-Clemson preview from Field Level Media.

—Big Red Louie makes three bold predictions for Saturday’s Louisville-Clemson game.

—The Mekhi Becton hype continues to grow.

—Paul Rogers is the guest on the latest episode of the WDRB Sports Pod.

—Rush the Court goes inside the numbers in the ACC, where road teams are performing surprisingly well in conference play so far.

—Fairly solid company for Donovan here:

—Episode 8 of the Card Chronicle Podcast is now available.

—Richard Johnson has an entire Marshon Ford appreciation thread on Twitter that starts here.

—The Tacoma News Tribune recaps Louisville’s win over Virginia Thursday night.

—Clemson’s Aamir Simms has become something of a matchup nightmare for ACC teams this season, which could make Malik Williams’ potential unavailability even more important on Saturday.

—Shakin’ the Southland previews tomorrow afternoon’s game inside the KFC Yum Center.

—And finally, beat Clemson.