Tuesday afternoon Cardinal news and notes

—NET Rankings Update: No. 11.

—The sample size is admittedly small, but Lucas Aulbach of the CJ discovers that Louisville’s three-point shooting over its current six-game winning streak would be the best in the country over the course of a full season.

—Louisville is a No. 1 seed in the latest ESPN women’s Bracketology.

—U of L football signee Josh Minkins out of Ballard is fairly athletic.

—Episode 9 of the CC podcast dropped this morning.

—I guess I shouldn’t be shocked given the voter pool, but Lynn Bowden topping Lamar Jackson (and Ja Morant for that matter) for Kentucky Sports Figure of the Year seems pretty silly.

For what it’s worth (nothing), here was my ballot:

1. Lamar Jackson

2. Ja Morant

3. Lynn Bowden

4. Dan McDonnell

5. Scott Satterfield

6. Mallory Comerford

7. Morgan Hentz

8. Carlos Dixon

9. Adam Eberhard

10. Asia Durr

—Nic Cardwell is leaving Louisville to re-join the staff at Appalachian State. Someone one the Cardinal staff is going to have to pick up the intensity level in 2020.

—On his latest podcast, Andy Katz predicts an NC State upset of Louisville on Saturday.

—Wisconsin cheap shot artist Brad Davison must be stopped.

—The latest NFL mock draft from SB Nation has Mekhi Beckton going 10th overall to Cleveland.

10. Cleveland Browns: Mekhi Becton, OT, Louisville

After nearly a month, the Cleveland Browns finally have a new general manager: Andrew Berry. Now the question becomes whether or not he’ll hold at No. 10 or trade back. Regardless, the Browns need to come out of the first round with an offensive tackle. Becton is a hot name who could help bolster Cleveland’s rushing attack.

—Fresh Bracketology from SB Nation’s Chris Dobbertean, where Louisville and UC-Irvine play a first round rematch and Stephen F. Austin gets a shot at beating Duke and Kentucky in the same year.

—Louisville PG recruit Zion Harmon talks about each of the six schools currently on his list.

—This is the one that really got me.

—Chris Mack also shared some thoughts on Kobe Monday night.

—Eastern High School defensive tackle Ryker Matthews has committed to Louisville as a preferred walk-on.

—D1Baseball.com ranks the top 150 pitchers in college baseball for 2020, and Reid Detmers tops the list.

—The kid is a different breed of superstar for sure.

—The latest development in Michigan’s second half tailspin is a suspension to senior point guard Zavier Simpson.

—Louisville is No. 2 in the ACCSports.com power rankings for this week.

No. 2 Louisville

Last week was an interesting one for Louisville — with two games near the banks of the Ohio River. First, Louisville survived a scare against Georgia Tech; as Jordan Nwora struggled (1-of-7 2PA), the Cards nearly blew an 11-point lead with five minutes to play. The Yellow Jackets — with less than 90 seconds to play — even got within a point, after a James Banks dunk.

However, all’s well that ends well as Steven Enoch and Malik Williams combined for 26 points, 16 free throw attempts and six offensive rebounds. Enoch and Williams are both shooting over 55 percent on put-back attempts after an offensive rebound this season, per Synergy Sports.

Over the weekend, though, Louisville took care of business against Clemson with a little more ease: 80-62. Led by Aamir Simms, Clemson entered Saturday relatively hot on offense; the Tigers had scored over one point per possession in four of their previous five games. But Louisville’s defense was up to the task — bothering Simms and hitting its assignments. (This was a seriously excellent performance when it comes to help defense.

—Could Frederick Douglass WR Dekel Crowdus be the next TuTu Atwell?

—Cole Anthony says he’s still having some pain and wants to be “110 percent” before returning to the court for North Carolina. His Tar Heels upset NC State Monday night to win their second straight after losing six in a row.

—Eamonn Brennan’s bubble watch has three teams from the ACC safely in the field and only three as even on the bubble.

N.C. State (14-7, 5-5; NET: 50, SOS: 87): Monday was not a good night. Granted, we’re not an N.C. State fan, so we can’t speak for what it felt like to have that opportunity to beat UNC go by the wayside in such a manner, but we did see the vast swathes of seats that emptied well before the final buzzer and we have met and interacted with plenty of N.C. State fans in our time and we know a thing or two about how much those folks hate Carolina and … yeah. Monday was not a good night. To add injury to insult, North Carolina’s NET rating (104) registers the defeat in Quadrant 3. It was the kind of defeat that could genuinely damage the Wolfpack’s chances of making the NCAA Tournament. What a disaster.

Virginia Tech (14-6, 5-4; NET: 52, SOS: 170): If before the season started you’d told us Virginia Tech will have roughly as good a chance of dancing as the defending national champions, we would have called Bubble Watch security personnel and had them forcefully see you off the premises. Yet here we are. The Hokies took a major blow Saturday at Boston College, which dealt the same blow to UVa on Jan. 7, for what it’s worth, but they held on in double OT against North Carolina last Wednesday and remain in the mix for now.

Virginia (13-6, 5-4; NET: 59, SOS: 75): For all their flaws — many of them fully on display in Sunday’s extremely ugly overtime win at Wake Forest — the Cavaliers did push Florida State to the wire in Tallahassee just two weeks ago. The idea that they can do the same thing again Tuesday night, this time at home, and finish the job, is one of the great reasons for optimism about keeping the Cavaliers on the Bubble Watch page this week. Otherwise, it’s all looking pretty shaky. We’ll find out soon enough.

I think you have to at lest have Syracuse on the radar at this point given the way the Orange have played the last couple of weeks.

—Class of 2021 cornerback Mario Love has received an offer from Louisville, which he calls his “dream offer.”

—Why did the Pac-12 recently partner with a streaming company you probably haven’t heard of? The answer might be that the league is trying to reach an entirely new demographic: One without bank accounts.

—ACC hoops on tap for tonight:

No. 5 Florida State at Virginia (7 p.m./ESPN)

Syracuse at Clemson (7 p.m./ACC Network Extra)

Morehouse College at Georgia Tech (7:30 p.m./ACC Network Extra)

Virginia Tech at Miami (8 p.m./ACC Network)

Pittsburgh at No. 9 Duke (9 p.m./ESPN)

—Less than a week ago, John Calipari stated publicly that he wouldn’t be complaining about the NCAA Tournament Selection Committee this year. On Monday, John Calipari complained about the NCAATournament Selection Committee.

—JaQuan Lyle is still playing college basketball and still making the wrong types of headlines.

—The Biebs is coming to both Louisville and Lexington this summer.

—Five U of L women’s soccer players have earned All-ACC Academic honors.

—Louisville’s gonna be represented inside Carnegie Hall very shortly.

—Louisville is the new current betting favorite to win the ACC.

—And finally, Darius Perry opened up the third hour of the Packer and Durham show this morning. You can listen to his interview here.