Monday afternoon Cardinal news and notes

—Northwestern’s Jim Phillips will be the next commissioner of the ACC.

—Louisville men’s and women’s basketball posters are now available at area Kroger locations.

—The U of L women’s basketball team’s scheduled game against Florida State on Thursday has officially been postponed.

—The “Choose Your Own Adventure Bowl.”

But that is certainly interesting information.

—With Boston College, Pitt and Virginia all announcing they will not play in a bowl game even if they’re invited, Louisville has begun to pop up in some bowl projections, despite its 4-7 record.

CBS has the Cards playing Tulsa in the Military Bowl, and both ESPN writers have Louisville vs. Navy in the Military Bowl.

—David Johnson is your current practice MVP.

—Washington doesn’t have enough scholarship players to play in the Pac-12 title game, so Oregon will play USC in place of the Huskies.

Typing that sentence didn’t feel bizarre at all, and I’m guessing that reading it felt about the same. That says pretty much all you need to know about where we are mentally at the end of this year.

—Good stuff here from David Hale on the progression of the Louisville defense.

—Kentucky is 1-4.

—The Louisville women’s basketball team remains at No. 2 in this week’s AP poll, sitting behind only Stanford. The Cards received one first-place vote.

—The first set of these are always hilariously strange. I can’t imagine how off the wall they’re going to be this year.

—Andy Katz keeps Louisville at No. 32 in his Power 36 rankings.

—Your week 14 ACC touchdown remix is here (video).

—The two most annoying things about the “Louisville only won a title in 2013 because they cheated to get players” narrative are that: 1) If you read the book (and my God I only did because I had to) you’d know that even Powell herself didn’t allege that she had any contact with any of the players on the 2012 or 2013 teams before they were already Cardinals. And 2) The collective recruiting rankings of the 2012-13 Cards put them among the lowest of any recent national champion.

Where does recruiting factor in?

As one might expect, teams that bring back more experience aren’t as reliant on bringing in talented recruits as those with a roster that could use a little seasoning. Using the 247 Composite Team Rankings, there is a negative correlation between recruiting class ranking and Experience rank.

Granted, one specific recruiting class does not make or break a team, and it often takes years of sustained success on the recruiting trail to build a winning program. Here’s a shocking observation though: teams that recruit well do well in March.

Of the 13 champions during the one-and-done era, seven had an incoming recruiting class ranked in the top 25. Both 2012 Kentucky and 2015 Duke had the top overall classes, because duh, and only 2013 Louisville (79th) and 2019 Virginia (65th) ranked outside of the top 50.

—Kentucky has removed Kyra Elzy’s interim tag. She’s now officially the new head coach of the UK women’s basketball program.

—The Trinity football team is No. 11 in this week’s MaxPreps national high school football top 25, and No. 17 in the HSFA rankings. The Shamrocks will face Male in the 6A state title game on Saturday night.

Here’s the full schedule of state title games this weekend at Kroger Field in Lexington, which includes KCD going for its first state title on Friday:

—On Wednesday of last week, Austin Collins was Louisville’s fourth-string center. Three days later he played every snap for the Cards at the position and was “incredible.”

—Class of ‘22 QB AJ Duffy still has Louisville among his top choices.

—Very cool:

—Former Cardinal PG Tony Hicks has signed a deal to play a second straight season with the Surrey Scorchers in Germany.

—Cardinal Authority is out with its weekly Louisville football notebook.

—Backing the Pack reacts to this week’s Louisville-NC State game being postponed.

—Congrats to the 11U Louisville Chargers on capturing their second straight youth football national championship.

—The Crunch Zone has a photo gallery from Saturday’s win over Wake Forest.

—The latest episode of the Cardinal Sports Zone podcast is here.

—The Dez Fitzpatrick love was deservedly strong on Saturday.

—Eric Crawford writes about Louisville sending its seniors out on top.

—Big Red Louie has three takeaways from the win over Wake.

—Tae Davis is coming.

—Blogger So Dear says that Louisville “clowned” Wake Forest on Saturday.

—When Louisville takes the floor against Wisconsin on Saturday, it will end the Cards’ longest in-season stretch without a game in 65 years.

—DeVante rules.

—Bucky’s 5th Quarter reacts to Louisville-Wisconsin being back on.

—And finally, RIP to Lewis “Sonny” Bass, a former Cardinal athlete and noted U of L donor. He passed away on Friday at the age of 99.