Thursday evening Cardinal news and notes

—NET Rankings Update: No. 7 (zero change in the top 10 after a Wednesday for the first time since they started releasing the rankings)

—U of L has announced that it will honor the 1980 national championship team at halftime of Saturday’s game against Virginia. All members of the squad outside of the late Derek Smith and Jerry Eaves and Wiley Brown (who will be coaching games) are expected to be in attendance.

—It’s a Red Out tonight inside the KFC Yum Center where the fifth-ranked Louisville women’s basketball team will be hosting No. 17 Florida State. Here’s a preview.

—Jay Scrubb: An athletic young man.

Definitely not ready for the NBA though. Nope. Absolutely needs at least one year of experiencing ACC competition.

—Clemson already had the highest-paid assistant in college football in Brent Venables. Now they’ve made Tony Elliott the highest-paid offensive coordinator in the sport.

—On the latest episode of the College Basketball Talk podcast, NBC’s Rob Dauster talks about how the job Chris Mack has done so far at Louisville still isn’t receiving the level of praise it deserves.

—The Rolling Stones are coming to Cardinal Stadium on June 14.

—Oddsmakers still view Louisville as something of a long-shot to earn a No. 1 seed on Selection Sunday.

—Three of the top 12 candidates for Kentucky’s Miss Basketball award are from Louisville.

—The latest Cardinal Sports Zone Podcast episode is out and it features an interview with U of L great Larry O’Bannon.

—Both NCAA.com college baseball writers pick Louisville to make it back to the College World Series, and one takes U of L to win the whole thing.

The case for Louisville: The Cardinals return most of their starting lineup from a year ago to go along with a terrific starting staff headed by ace Reid Detmers, Bobby Miller and Luke Smith. That trio allowed just five runs in 18.1 CWS innings last year, leading Louisville to the national semifinals for the first time in program history. UL could take the next step this year.

The Cards open the 2020 season a week from tomorrow at Ole Miss.

—U of L is No. 5 in Gary Parrish’s daily rankings for CBS.

—2018 Golden Boot winner and two-time USL champion Cameron Lancaster is returning to Lou City for the 2020 season.

—The latest CBS college hoops power rankings from Matt Norlander have Louisville at No. 6.

Previous: No. 7 | Chris Mack’s team is up to 20-3 and has done a wonderful job repairing its mildly tarnished reputation from a little more than a month ago. U of L started the season 9-0, then lost to Texas Tech, Kentucky and Florida State in a two-week span to found itself at 11-3. It’s suffered no losses since then, with an average win margin of 11.0 points. Virginia comes to town on Saturday. U of L rallied after a double-digit deficit against Wake Forest on Wednesday. Moving along!

—Danville High football standout Darian Bell has officially signed with Louisville.

—U of L PG recruit Zion Harmon took his official visit to Kansas earlier this week.

—As fun as shitting on the Duke-Carolina rivalry is, this stat is absurd.

—And now we go back to shitting on it.

Those are horrendous.

—The slow death of Wake Forest basketball has truly been astounding. As this Charlotte Observer story points out, from 1991-2010, Wake trailed only Duke, North Carolina and Maryland (and barely behind Maryland) when it came to ACC wins. From 2011 through now, no ACC team has had a worse conference winning percentage.

—Texas PG (and former Louisville recruit) Andrew Jones writes about beating Leukemia and fighting his way back onto the court this season.

—Reggie Bonnafon showing some love for fellow hometown hero Michael Bush.

—Louisville baseball has landed a big-time commitment from two-way standout Adisyn Coffey.

—Wednesday was a boring National Signing Day for Scott Satterfield and company, who already got all their work on the 2020 class done two months ago.

—Kamar Baldwin hitting a game-winner at the horn to knock off Villanova last night only made me miss March Gus Johnson even more.

—Eric Crawford shares his thoughts on Louisville’s win over Wake.

—WDRB also has more on Blakely Touche, the girl who won a free trip to the Super Bowl by being a flag football star and a Lamar Jackson superfan.

—Wisconsin’s strength coach has resigned after an investigation revealed that he used a racial epithet in the presence of multiple Badger players. This would also explain the in-season departure of second-leading scorer Kobe King.

—Decent stat line here for Cardinal signee JJ Traynor.

—Louisville Bats manager Pat Kelly is happy to be back in The Ville in 2020.

—Baylor, like Texas Tech before it, has adopted the “no middle” defensive philosophy and is now reaping the benefits.

—Lucas Aulbach of the CJ shares his extended thoughts on Louisville’s win over Wake.

—Non-Louisville ACC results from Wednesday night:

Notre Dame 80, Pittsburgh 72

Virginia 51, Clemson 44

NC State 83, Miami 72

—Guy has a decent ticker.

—If you were disappointed in first-place Louisville’s performance against last-place Wake Forest and you’re looking to feel better, look no better than previously unbeaten in the SEC LSU losing to previously winless in the SEC Vanderbilt. The Commodores had lost 26 consecutive SEC games.

—Dates for U of L soccer’s summer camps have been announced.

—A Christian Dawkins documentary is coming to HBO.

The HBO Sports documentary film THE SCHEME telling the revealing, no-holds-barred tale of Christian Dawkins, convicted in federal court in the biggest criminal case in collegiate sports history, debuts TUESDAY, MARCH 31 (9:00-11:00 p.m. ET/PT), exclusively on HBO, it was announced today by Peter Nelson, executive vice president, HBO Sports.

The film will also be available on HBO on Demand, HBO NOW, HBO GO and partners’ streaming platforms.

The Bat Bridge Entertainment feature-length presentation is directed by Pat Kondelis, whose 2017 account of the Baylor University basketball scandal “Disgraced” won the Sports Emmy^® Award for Outstanding Sports Documentary.

“The Christian Dawkins scandal is a tale of alleged inducements, payoffs, NCAA rules violations, federal criminal charges, and convictions,” said Peter Nelson. “Director Pat Kondelis, in an unprecedented look, shines a light on the hidden underworld of big-time basketball recruiting through the eyes of a self-described ‘entrepreneur’ whose childhood big ambitions took him on the wildest ride of his life in a story still unfolding.”

”This story is surprising in every way imaginable and goes far beyond the limits of a college recruiting scandal,” says Pat Kondelis. “I’m extremely proud to partner with HBO Sports to tell the real story for the first time.”

The film chronicles the extensive and unprecedented two-year undercover FBI investigation into college basketball corruption that came to a dramatic climax on September 26, 2017, when Adidas executives and assistant coaches at major college programs were arrested in a pay-for-play scheme. While no head coaches were charged, the federal government alleged that an unassuming and unknown 25-year-old man was part of a criminal enterprise that had infiltrated college basketball and funneled hundreds of thousands of dollars to steer recruits to prominent athletic programs. The man’s name was Christian Dawkins.

Now, in THE SCHEME, Christian Dawkins faces the camera for the first time and explains in fascinating detail how a kid from Saginaw, Michigan ended up in a hotel suite surrounded by FBI agents with a warrant for his arrest.

Through revelation after revelation, viewers will learn how Dawkins was orchestrating massive cash payments to top high school prospects with the help of Adidas, and, unbeknownst to him, undercover FBI agents. Dawkins will disclose not only the facts of the scheme, but the context of the FBI investigation. Ultimately, guilty verdicts on a range of fraud and bribery charges would leave Dawkins with approximately eighteen months of prison time.

THE SCHEME provides a startling account that is the first instance of the federal government attempting to characterize the participation in NCAA rules violations as federal crimes, triggering enormous potential implications.

With interview subjects in addition to Dawkins including his parents; his attorney Steve Haney; journalists Dan Wetzel and Rebecca Davis O’Brien, combined with the use of news archival, video and audio evidence from the case, and a highly stylized presentation, viewers will be immediately drawn into this remarkable story told in a uniquely cinematic style.

Can’t wait.

—Gorgui Dieng has been traded to the Memphis Grizzlies in exchange for James Johnson. Glad to have him closer to home.

—Red hot.

—Could Teddy Bridgewater be headed to New England?

—Pat Forde writes that Saturday’s top 16 seed reveal could be a sign of the chaos to come.

—And finally, beat Florida State.