Thursday afternoon Cardinal news and notes

—We’ll start today’s news and notes with a shoutout to my guy Bill Eubank, who is pictured in the cover photo.

Bill had a double lung transplant in September. The surgery was at Duke, and went very well, but Bill has said that the hardest part for him is having to stay in the land of Coach K for two months while he rehabs. He gets to return home a week from today.

Until then, here he is crushing a walking path in Durham a few days ago:

Get well soon, Bill. Go Cards. Duke sucks.

—The folks over at Streaking the Lawn react to Louisville-Virginia being pushed back to Nov. 14.

—ESPN’s Andrea Adelson has more on the postponement of Saturday’s game.

—Matt Norlander’s annual preseason ranking of every team in college basketball has Louisville at No. 26.

26. Louisville: U of L loses as many important players from a season ago as any non-Kentucky or -Duke team in the top 40, but Chris Mack is set up with enough talent to prevent Louisville from slipping out of relevancy this season. I’ll be interested to see how Louisville adjusts without a typical offseason, but look for David Johnson to improve to one of the 10 best players in the ACC, while Samuell Williamson carries the breakout-player tag on this roster. Those two are sophomores who had humble stats a season ago but should spike; the other player who will be tasked with a lot is grad transfer Carlik Jones, who is going to try to go from averaging 20 points at Radford to something close to that at Louisville. They love him there.

—The latest episode of the Card Chronicle podcast is here.

—Western Kentucky is the preseason pick to win Conference USA. The Hilltoppers placed both Charles Bassey and Taveion Hollingsworth on the preseason All C-USA First Team. Louisville faces WKU on Dec. 1.

—Louisville’s basketball uniforms will incorporate the words “unity” and “united as one” this season.

—A movement is underway in horse racing to clean up the sport by enacting mandatory, uniform safety standards for everyone in the industry.

—The ACC field hockey tournament gets underway today in Chapel Hill. Top-seeded Louisville won’t play its first game until tomorrow’s semifinals.

—Jordan Nwora is going to carve a niche for himself in a league that is prioritizing knockdown, spot-up shooters more now than it ever has before.

—Louisville has offered class of 2022 QB Jayden Maiava from Honolulu.

—Here’s a list of all the possible players Racing Louisville FC can draft in its upcoming expansion draft.

—Charles Minlend says Louisville has spent its first few weeks of full practice crafting chemistry.

“We have a lot of unique players, and figuring out how those attributes work well together has been something that we’re still trying to figure out,” he said. “We have a lot of young guys who haven’t really played that much, and guys coming in like me and Carlik (Jones).”

Minlend notes that roles are not “straightforward” yet, but many guys have stepped up and stood out over the course of the preseason practice period. He is especially impressed over the performance of fellow grad transfer Carlik Jones, who came over from Radford University and is the reigning Big South Player of the Year.

“He’s an extremely talented player,” Minlend said. “He does a lot of really good things, he’s a really smart player too. He knows how to take advantage of what the defense gives him.”

Chemistry might be a work in progress, but drive & competition most certainly is not. Minlend says that practice has been extremely competitive since it started last month, and that the players are working hard to silence any existing doubt regarding their capabilities.

“People have different opinions about how we’re going to be this year, and we just want to prove everybody wrong and be the best team we can be,” he said.

—The Louisville men’s soccer team wraps up its fall regular season on Friday at Notre Dame, a place where the Cardinals are 0-0-9 all-time.

—Vince Tyra explains what went into the decision to postpone Saturday’s football game.

—And finally, GoCards.com has the major takeaways from Thursday’s Dana Evans/Kianna Smith press conference.