Friday afternoon Cardinal news and notes

—NET Rankings Update: No. 25 (down 1 spot).

—GoCards.com recaps the U of L women’s basketball team’s 19-point win over Boston College.

—We have EVEN MORE CHANGES to the women’s basketball schedule.

—I cannot believe this was 10 years ago.

Preston forever.

—Joe Lunardi’s latest Bracketology has Louisville as a 4-seed and the automatic qualifier from the ACC.

—Miami, Louisville’s Saturday night opponent, is coming off a performance against Boston College in which it allowed the most three-pointers in program history.

—Louisville offensive coordinator/offensive line coach Dwayne Ledford is reportedly one of three top candidates to fill the head coaching vacancy at Marshall.

Two other candidates to keep an eye on as the search has unfolded are both Power 5 assistants.

Alabama associate head coach Charles Huff is someone we’ve heard really intrigued the Thundering Herd. He was pivotal in the development of Saquon Barkley at Penn State and then Najee Harris in Tuscaloosa and also had Kylin Hill playing at his best when he coached him at Mississippi State. Huff is also the nation’s No. 1 recruiter, according to 247Sports. The 37-year-old Maryland native has been up for several FBS head coaching jobs and is expected to get one before too long.

Louisville offensive coordinator/OL coach Dwayne Ledford, a former NFL player, has also got some support among Marshall brass for the vacancy. The 44-year-old from North Carolina who played at East Carolina has been a strong assistant for Louisville head coach Scott Satterfield.

—Paul Rogers is the guest on the latest episode of Jeff Greer’s podcast.

—Happy birthday to the Louisville Speed Art Museum, which opened its doors for the first time on this day in 1927.

—Louisville-BC highlights from last night:

—State of Louisville’s Presley Meyer has some quick takeaways from the win over Wake Forest.

—The Athletic’s latest bracket watch has Louisville as a 5-seed.

—Louisville remains at No. 1 in the CBS women’s college basketball power rankings.

1. Louisville (10-0)

Jeff Walz has his team atop our rankings again. With the debacle that occurred with conference games postponed, the Cardinals picked up three non-conference games, defeating Northern Kentucky, UT-Martin and Bellarmine, before heading back into ACC play and notching a tight win over Virginia Tech and a convincing win over Clemson. Hailey Van Lith and Dana Evans continue to pace a high-scoring Cardinals team that has been equally as impressive on the defensive end at times this season. Previous: 1

—Matt McGavic of Louisville Report is taking the Cards over The U by seven tomorrow night.

—Purdue beat Indiana for an 8th straight time last night, and now the questions about Archie Miller’s job security are flying around the state at a furious pace.

—Elite rivalrying here.

—With no geographical rules to consider, the 2021 NCAA tournament will be seeded on the classic S-curve (unless changes need to be made in order to keep teams from the same conference from meeting on the first weekend).

—Former Kentucky Mr. Football Wan’Dale Robinson is transferring from Nebraska to UK.

—An “NBA Jam” documentary is coming.

—Friday Irrelevance:

—Eric Wood is excited about the Saturday night matchup between his former team, the Buffalo Bills, and Lamar Jackson’s Baltimore Ravens.

—In the same interview, De’Aaron Fox said that John Calipari couldn’t care less about winning games and that he couldn’t go to Louisville because of “the stripper shit.”

—The Wall Street Journal’s Jason Gay writes about the importance of being Ted Lasso.

—It’s damn near impossible to figure out who is good in college basketball this season. Sports Illustrated’s Jeremy Woo gives it a shot.

Tier 7: Good, but not completely convincing

Alabama (10–3)

Indiana (8–5)

Louisville (9–1)

Minnesota (10–4)

Oklahoma State (9–3)

Purdue (8–5)

Rutgers (7–4)

Stanford (8–3)

UConn (7–1)

USC (9–2)

It’s hard to get a great bead on these teams, but they all clearly merit some intrigue. I won’t wax poetic on any of them.

I don’t know whether Alabama and Louisville can stay hot, but it wouldn’t shock me. The Tide’s success feels more pace-driven than talent-driven, but Nate Oats gets things done, they’ve beaten Tennessee already and could hold on to win the conference with a little luck.

Louisville has two great guards in Carlik Jones and David Johnson, as well as some promising underclassmen, but not much else in the way of offense. Samuell Williamson has been disappointing.

Samuary is here, Jeremy. Show some respect.

—Charlie Strong is headed to Jacksonville to join Urban Meyer’s staff.

—Despite having a “nice” conversation with U of L president Neeli Bendapudi, Butch Beard still wants to be disassociated from the school until he sees the change he’s looking for.

—I am loving this trend of using guys who might need a little bit of a boost on game promo graphics.

It worked for Sam on Wednesday. Here’s hoping we get a big bounceback effort from Jae’Lyn on Saturday.

—The U of L track and field squad will open its indoor season this weekend.

—Five things to do in Louisville this weekend.

—It doesn’t sound like we’re going to be seeing Aidan on the court any time soon, but good news on Quinn being ok.

—Two months into the season, there’s no question that Carlik Jones has been one of the best guards in the country.

—Canes Warning previews Louisville-Miami.

—The Hurricanes were seen as an ACC darkhorse heading into the season, but injuries and Covid issues have derailed those plans. Jim Larranaga’s team might be starting to get healthy though. Or they might not. It’s hard to tell.

Guards Chris Lykes and Kameron McGusty and forward Deng Gak are still dealing with injuries as the Hurricanes are preparing to host No. 16 Louisville on Saturday (8:00 p.m., ACCN).

“We just don’t know how many players we’re going to have,” head coach Jim Larranaga said Wednesday on Hurricane Hotline.

Lykes has missed the last nine games for the Hurricanes with a left ankle injury suffered on Dec. 4, but did return to practice on Monday, but did not play in Tuesday’s 84-62 loss at Boston College.

McGusty missed his third straight game Tuesday and has only played once in the last eight games with a right hamstring injury sustained against Purdue on Dec. 8. He played 27 minutes against Clemson on Jan. 2, but received PCR treatment afterwards, which has sidelined him since.

“He had a PRP injection and that means you’re out for 10 days after the injection,” Larranaga said Tuesday. “He irritated the pulled hamstring. He played against Clemson, did a nice job, but by playing against Clemson he irritated that injury and kind of has a different kind of treatment to improve the hamstring so he can get back and play.”

Gak missed Tuesday’s game with sore knees.

“We’re expecting Deng Gak to get his knees treated next week and hopefully the treatments will work to get him as close to 100 percent as possible, but I don’t know how much he’ll be able to play so we could be back to just seven guys,” Larranaga said.

—BC Interruption recaps the Eagles’ Thursday night loss to Dana Evans and the Cards.

—The Bills’ Matt Milano says he feels confident that his team “will contain” Lamar Jackson on Saturday.

—There will be no increase in basketball tickets and no more furloughs within the athletic department either.

—Baltimore keeps winning as Lamar Jackson keeps learning.

—And finally, beat Miami.