Wednesday evening Cardinal news and notes

—The U of L field hockey team’s Final Four game against Michigan has been set for a 4 p.m. start in Chapel Hill on Friday.

—Roosevelt Wheeler is No. 81 and Mike James is No. 91 in the final class of 2021 player rankings from 247 Sports.

—Louisville women’s basketball signee Payton Verhulst is one of 28 athletes that have accepted invitations to attend the 2021 USA Basketball Women’s U19 World Cup Team trials.

—Cool, now let’s take care of the damn ball, guys.

—The U of L men’s golf team has been selected as the No. 5 seed for the NCAA Noblesville Regional.

—Kicker Parsa Pordeli out of Jacksonville has committed to U of L.

—The Athletic’s Chantel Jennings has Louisville at No. 5 on the list of women’s basketball programs that have benefitted the most from the transfer market so far this offseason.

5. Louisville Cardinals

The Cardinals weren’t going to be able to figure out a plug-and-play situation to replace the pace and speed that Dana Evans played with, but they did the next best thing. They found a point guard in Chelsie Hall (Vanderbilt) who can score and facilitate, and they brought in a big guard in Emily Engstler (Syracuse) who is a multi-positional threat with a really high ceiling.

Hall averaged 15.4 points, 4.8 rebounds and 3.8 assists per game this year during Vanderbilt’s shortened season, and she did all of that while shooting 50 percent from the floor. She makes good decisions, takes high-percentage shots and gets everyone into the flow of the game. With a team that returns a lot of talent (and brings in some new, talented faces in transfers and freshmen), coach Jeff Walz has to be thrilled to have someone like Hall as the point person for this offense.

Engstler is a double-double threat (10.5 points and 9.1 rebounds per game) with a hard-to-stop game due to her length and size. Her 3-point shooting percentage has greatly improved since she has been in college, and that element of her game makes her that much harder to contain. In three seasons at Syracuse, Engstler’s offensive rebound rate and free throw rate went up while her turnover percentage went down. She can impact the flow of the game even when she doesn’t touch the ball, but expect the Cardinals to get her as many touches as possible.

—Former Cardinal righty Bobby Miller tossed three scoreless innings in his professional debut on Tuesday.

—After Tuesday’s win over Vanderbilt, Dan McDonnell did not hold back about his thoughts on Jim Patterson Stadium’s current attendance plan.

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

—As a society, we must stop spending our time arguing against stances that don’t actually exist.

—Chance Marrow, a 6’6 wide receiver from North Carolina, has been offered by Louisville.

—Louisville signee El Ellis has been named a NJCAA All-American.

—ACC basketball coaches talk anonymously about the jobs in the league that have the best and worst sales pitches.

Tier 2

Louisville Cardinals

Virginia Cavaliers

Syracuse Orange

There was a clear tier break after these three, and a few coaches made the case that it’s really Louisville and Virginia in their own group.

Louisville is one of the best jobs in the country from a coaching perspective. It has everything: resources, facilities, fan base, three national championships (although the 2013 title was vacated), plenty of Final Four appearances. But it also has expectations bordering on those of a blueblood while being a notch behind those programs in terms of cachet.

“It’s like a pro team. Huge fan base, they make so much money. There’s no issue with resources. The arena is incredible,” one coach said. “The hard thing is the expectations are out of whack, you’re in a state where Kentucky is always going to be the king. You’re in a little bit of a funny geographic place; there are a lot of good players around you, but the bordering states are Big Ten country. It’s a great job, but it’s maybe not a great recruiting job.”

—U of L is in the top 10 for DB Jaylen Ellis.

—Kentucky has landed Iowa transfer CJ Fredrick.

—WDRB looks at Louisville field hockey’s successful “extra long season.”

—And finally, after more than 600 days off, the Louisville Bats played a game at Slugger Field on Tuesday night.