Thursday evening Cardinal news and notes

—The CJ’s Shannon Russell has three things to know about new Louisville hoops addition Matt Cross.

—The Kansas City Star reacts to former KU commit Syndey Curry picking Louisville.

—Curry’s commitment moves Louisville’s 2021 recruiting class to No. 19 in the country according to 247 Sports.

—The latest installment of Jeff Greer’s always informative newsletter is here.

--Three players mentioned to me as impressing so far in summer workouts: Jae’Lyn Withers, Samuell Williamson and Mike James. Louisville needs Withers and Williamson to be stars this season. The James note is also very intriguing. Provided he keeps it up, the 6-foot-6 freshman will command at least some playing time. Does he run at the 2? The 3? Who does he beat out for minutes if that happens?

--The reported DePaul home-and-home series replaces the Cincinnati series. Yes, DePaul is bad. But at least in terms of metrics, DePaul has consistently been a Top 150 KenPom squad the past four years (under now-former coach Dave Leitao). Think of it as a similar series to Western Kentucky purely in terms of schedule metrics.

--September figures to be a big month for 2022 guard Rodney Rice, who told Cardinal Authority he’d visit Virginia Tech the weekend of Sept. 3-5 and planned to visit Louisville sometime after that. Really feels like he’ll pick between those two schools and maybe Alabama.

—Wes Unseld Jr. is the front-runner to be the new head coach of the Washington Wizards.

—Myles Powell is suing Seton Hall and Kevin Willard for “downplaying a serious knee injury that derailed his professional career.”

—Good video here.

—The Pirates and Henry Davis are reportedly on track to have a deal done soon.

—Cardinal Authority updates its basketball recruiting big board for the class of 2022.

—Louisville Report takes a closer look at what Sydney Curry brings to the Cards.

—Matt Cross hasn’t been at U of L long, but he’s already excited about the style of play.

“The biggest changes is a lot of change,” Cross said. “Definitely the style of offense that they’re running, compared to what they were running here last year.”

And it’s a change Cross savors, one he compared to professional basketball.

“It’s just very fast-paced and I think it’s good,” he said. It’s really opened up my game more than I would have even thought because it breaks open a lot. Some guys can get back or are scrambling. They’re running out and getting transition threes and a lot of open shots. It’s really good to see an NBA-style offense, I think. Not robotic. It’s really personally helped me, along with the team.”

He also likes what he has seen from a shooting standpoint and thinks UofL will greatly improve on last year’s percentages of .431 overall and .308 from 3-point range, both among the worst for the program in modern times. The Cards ranked 14th in the ACC in 3-point field goal percentage, 11th in field goal percentage and 12th in scoring (68 points per game).

“They pretty much told me they weren’t the best shooting team last year,” Cross said. “Now, though, everyone in our practices and pick up games and even just shooting around, I think we’re going to be a pretty good shooting team. Especially after everyone got adjusted to what is going on and not having to think as much. A lof of guys are making a lot of shots. I think we could end up being a really good shooting team overall. So I think it will be a big change from what they had last year.”

—Class of 2023 guard Caleb Foster is feeling the love from U of L.

—Lamar Jackson continues to respond to the criticism of him playing pickup football on concrete with kids.

—And finally, be like Ted Lasso.