Friday evening Cardinal news and notes

—NET Rankings Update: No. 8.

—Streaking the Lawn previews Saturday’s game in Charlottesville.

—Chris Mack’s prognosis on Malik Williams’ status is more encouraging than the one we got from Dino Gaudio yesterday.

“He’s doing great,” UofL head coach Chris Mack said on “Inside the Cards,” his weekly coaches show on WAVE 3 News. “It’s going to be a game time decision, but he’s come a long way since he twisted it at Florida State. It was a grapefruit the next day after we played and so he’s gotten the swelling out, the pain has gone down dramatically. We’re gonna make the best decision that we can. We want him for the short term, but we’ve got to be smart too, the long term is the most important thing. We’ll see how he feels come game time.”

Bold prediction is Williams plays tomorrow, but the minutes are minor.

—The U of L women’s team had no trouble rolling its way into the semis. Dios mio, man.

—Keith Oddo mania has taken this city over.

—Bart Torvik’s latest consensus bracket has Louisville as the top 4-seed.

—Virginia hasn’t lost since the last time it faced Louisville, which is why the second meeting between the two teams comes with both teams having a shot at the ACC regular season title.

“I think, sometimes, teams that play Virginia they talk so much about tempo and pace and going to the electric chair,” Mack said. “We don’t worry about any of that. Our guys know that Virginia’s gonna walk the ball up. They’re gonna put you in the half court when they have the ball on offense. You’re not gonna speed them up, so we don’t worry about that.”

The Cardinals didn’t worry about tempo in the first meeting and put up 80 points in front of a raucous home crowd.

They hope they can replicate that type of result again on the road, where they’ve lost their past three games. Two of those losses came to teams in Clemson and Georgia Tech that likely aren’t headed toward the NCAA Tournament. The other came to Florida State.

“If the game ends up 7-6 at the end and we win, that’s all we’re concerned about,” Mack said. “If the game’s 105-102, which unless it goes 15 overtimes I doubt that’s the score, we don’t worry about that either. We just worry about trying to get really good shots, which is difficult to do against Virginia.”

With a win keeping ACC regular-season title possibilities alive for both teams, style points aren’t on anyone’s mind.

—Congrats to Fresh Kimble, Ryan McMahon, Jordan Nwora, Darius Perry and Samuell Williamson on being named to the ACC’s All-Academic Team. This is the third straight year Nwora and Perry have earned the honor.

—Some highlights from the U of L women’s ACC tournament quarterfinal romp over Syracuse Friday afternoon.

The Cards take on Florida State in the semifinals, which means that on back-to-back days they’ll get a chance to exact some revenge on the only two ACC teams to beat them this season.

Rachel is in Greensboro and will be recapping the action all weekend.

—This is about what you’d expect from the four teams that have been the class of the league since U of L joined in 2014-15.

—Louisville is a 4-seed in The Athletic’s latest Bracket Watch feature.

—Rick Bozich writes about the high stakes in Charlottesville tomorrow.

—Chris Mack spent his Thursday night visiting with Matthew Cleveland, a top 15 prospect in the 2021 class.

—The U of L softball team dropped a 2-1 decision to Illinois Friday afternoon.

—The Daily Orange has three takeaways from Louisville’s blowout win on Friday.

—The Louisville lacrosse team fell to top-ranked North Carolina on Thursday.

—Of course it was Lexington.

This is how UK finally kills me.

—Eric Crawford shares his thoughts one the U of L women’s team’s dominant postseason opener.

—The Tampa Bay Times already has a quick preview on tomorrow’s Louisville-FSU tilt.

—Jeff Walz was on one during his postgame press conference today.

—Walz’s comments have already made their way back to Eugene.

—The Louisville men’s golf team is dominating the ACC rankings.

—Bleacher Report has Louisville as the fourth-best college football program that has never won a national title. Wisconsin was No. 1.

—Friday Irrelevance:

—Dez Fitzpatrick talks about his decision to put the NFL Draft on hold and return to Louisville for his senior season.

—The simplest way to understand what’s at stake for Louisville tomorrow as far as ACC tournament seeding is concerned is that if they lose, they’re definitely the 3-seed, and if they win, they’re almost definitely the 2-seed.

—A multibillion dollar deal could totally reshape things for both WAVE-TV and WHAS-TV.

—The Oscar Meyer Wienermobile is in town, which definitely means we’re going to beat Virginia tomorrow and the women are winning the ACC tournament on Sunday. Don’t ask me about the logic behind that, just accept it.

—Benetti is the best.

—WWE fans rejoice, after a decade away, Monday Night Raw is returning to Louisville.

—Kentucky fans are claiming that the Cards are playing the Cats in this commercial, but I’m pretty sure it’s actually DePaul.

—The LEO has five things to do in Louisville this weekend.

—The Roanoke Times has a video preview of Louisville-Virginia.

—These handshakes are already so bad.

—Cardinals Authority has a summary of all of Louisville’s current Bracketology projections.

—The latest episode of the CC pod dropped this afternoon.

—And finally, beat Florida State, and beat Virginia.