Thursday afternoon Cardinal news and notes

—Spread check: Louisville by 2.5.

—College Football News likes Louisville over Pittsburgh by a field goal.

—Louisville Report’s Matt McGavic is predicting a 1-point Pitt win on Saturday night.

—Your 2022-23 Louisville men’s basketball team:

—The top-ranked Texas volleyball team fell to Iowa State last night, which means Louisville could be poised to take over the No. 1 spot with a pair of wins this weekend.

—Cardinal Authority looks at Louisville football’s series history with Pitt.

—Donovan Mitchell was pumped to see his former Cardinal teammate bury a game-winner last night.

—Louisville Report goes behind enemy lines with Pitt writer Stephen Thompson.

—The good news on Louisville commit Aaron Williams is that he’s an All-American. The bad news is that he says he’s working on locking in official visits to Georgia and Oregon.

—I love this man. I can’t help it.

Pitino’s Iona Gaels are once again the preseason pick to win the MAAC.

—Tickets are now on sale for next Wednesday’s Louisville-Notre Dame volleyball match at the KFC Yum Center.

—Olivia Cochran is one of 20 watch list candidates for the 2023 Katrina McClain Award.

—The fact that the smoke around this seems to be growing every day makes me extremely uneasy.

They’re really gonna do this, aren’t they? They’re gonna fuck around and screw up the one sporting event in America that pretty much everyone agrees doesn’t need messing with.

—Speaking of ... SEC commissioner Greg Sankey voiced his desire to expand the NCAA tournament during the league’s media day on Wednesday. His arguments, as expected, were hot garbage.

—Jeff Greer’s latest hoops newsletter focuses on this weekend’s Red-White Scrimmage.

* The Red-White scrimmage is always a great first glimpse of Louisville’s team, the chance to see which players have physically progressed and which players appear to have gained confidence — or maintained it — over the offseason. It’s not the be-all, end-all event of the preseason, of course, because Lenoir-Rhyne (Oct. 30) and Chaminade (Nov. 3) will play exhibitions at the KFC Yum Center. But it gives us a start.

Here’s what I’ll be looking for:

(1) Playing style. We spent so much time talking about conditioning this offseason. We talked about the NBA influence on Kenny Payne. We talked about size, length and athleticism impacting how Louisville might scheme and deploy. So … how do the Cards actually play?

(2) Coaching interactions/tendencies. Obviously we’ll get a whole season to evaluate Louisville’s staff, and typically the staff splits up for the Red-White game, but we get the chance Sunday to see them interacting with each other and the players. Does Payne stay out of the scrimmage and watch? Does he take over coaching one of the teams? Is he a yeller? A pacer? A talker? None of the above? Take mental notes of this, too — we can compare it to where Payne is as a sideline presence in March.

—The CJ has three things to know about Louisville-Pitt.

—Here’s an NFL draft profile on Yasir Abdullah.

—The Crunch Zone compares the Louisville and Pitt programs.

—A stunning development.

—U of L women’s basketball guard Morgan Jones has been named to the Cheryl Miller Award Watch List.

—CBS is out with its preseason college hoops All-American team.

—The U of L men’s soccer team will host reigning national champion Clemson Friday night in the final home game of the regular season. Here’s a preview.

—I hope Scott Satterfield is choosing to view this as a massive opportunity.

—Louisville and Pitt are both coming off of impressive wins, both rested after bye weeks, and both looking to start the second halves of their season on high notes.

—Michael McCammon previews Saturday night’s game.

—And finally, at least one site says Louisville-Pitt is the best matchup of the weekend in the ACC.