Tuesday afternoon Cardinal news and notes

—The Louisville baseball team will play host to Kentucky tonight in the Battle of the Bluegrass. First pitch at Jim Patterson Stadium is set for 5 p.m. The Cards have taken nine of the last 10 from the Cats.

—Congrats to Cardinal hoops commit Kaleb Glenn on making the Courier Journal’s All-State Team.

—Louisville gets some love in this On3 piece on the biggest national storylines surrounding the 2023 college football recruiting cycle.

The updated On300 also reveals a few surprising classes – Louisville with three top 300 recruits and UCF with two.

Both the Cardinals and the Golden Knights have made some solid headway over the past few recruiting cycles. But their early success is still somewhat unexpected. It should help both programs potentially make a run at top-25 classes.

That’s especially true for Louisville, which is ranked No. 13 in the country, with four four-star commitments and blue-chip quarterback Pierce Clarkson already on board.

“I’m blown away by the success they’ve had out in California,” a rival ACC recruiting coordinator said. “Landing Clarkson was the key. He’s like a Pied Piper for the Cardinals. He’s so well known that once he committed a lot of other top California guys started looking Louisville’s way.”

—Former Card and current Racing Louisville star Emina Ekic talks about her growth heading into her second professional season.

—Eric Crawford takes an early look at this year’s Kentucky Derby field.

—The Cardinal lacrosse team cruised to a 19-10 win over Niagara on Monday.

—Tennessee big man transfer Brandon Huntley-Hatfield, a former 5-star recruit, will be in town this weekend.

—Louisville is among the basketball programs that has given some early attention to 6’8 freshman Cooper Flagg from Maine.

—Shoni Schimmel is in trouble with the law again.

—Kenny Payne is remaining “secretive” about the rest of his staff. At least for now.

—Incredible:

—Louisville has offered class of 2025 QB Stone Saunders from Bishop McDevitt in Harrisburg, Pa.

—Louisville Report previews tonight’s baseball game against Kentucky as well as this weekend’s series against NC State.

—Duke big man Mark Williams has entered the NBA Draft. That is fine by me.

—So great to see Asia back on the court.

—Congrats to Carlik Jones on being named to the NBA G-League’s All-Rookie Team as well as being named Third Team All-League.

—Kahlil Ali, yet another top 300 football player from the class of 2023, talks about his enjoyable visit to U of L.

—The latest Cardinal Sports Zone Podcast episode is here.

—A clear and immediate rift between Scheyer and K. The Brotherhood is obviously on life support.

—Former Louisville women’s golf standout Laura Restrepo got engaged at Amen Corner during The Master’s two weeks ago.

—Louisville did not make the cut for SMU transfer Kendric Davis, arguably the top player currently available in the portal.

—Matt McGavic breaks down the game of new Louisville CB commit Aaron Williams.

—West Virginia transfer Sean McNeil is taking four visits this week, but still needs to set a date for his trip to Louisville.

—I enjoyed this “inside look” at the famous Fenway Park pizza throw.

—The Ringer ranks the 50 best RomComs of all-time.

—The U of L softball team pulled off a weekend sweep of Syracuse.

—Four years after the fact, Matt Norlander grades the college hoops coaching hires of 2018. Chris Mack receives a C-.

Louisville

The hire: Chris Mack

It was a failure, but that doesn’t correlate to an “F” here. Far from it. Four years ago, this was the most consistently praised hire. Few people, if any, could have predicted Mack wouldn’t make it to the end of Year Four. But that’s what happened, and Mack was the one that initiated the sever. It ended mostly amicably.

Here’s the thing: Mack won 64% of his games at Louisville. He was 63-36 when he stopped being the Cardinals’ coach. He made the NCAAs in his first year, then would’ve had a No. 4 seed at worst had there been a 2020 tournament. But there wasn’t, and things went sideways for the most part after that.

Mack’s time at Louisville wasn’t an outright disaster, though it definitely wasn’t a success. Call it an unexpectedly incongruent union. Mistakes aplenty. Putting Louisville in deeper, hotter water by being privy to more rule-breaking (even if the violations are tame compared to other issues, they happened when ‘Ville was on probation) and adding to an already-existing NCAA infractions case is a major mark against him.

Should he ever choose to be a head coach again, Mack will probably get a job in a power conference. The question is if he wants to leave the bench for good with this Louisville setback as his final experience. I think he eventually gets back in.

GRADE: C-minus

—Devin Ree’s official visit to Louisville was “very much a success.”

—Cardinal Authority takes an early look at next seasons’s U of L women’s basketball roster.

—Appears Manning will be making a bit more than Nolan Smith, at least when it comes to his base salary.

Smith’s base salary, according to Dawson, is $400,000.

—Duke Basketball Report says it’s early, but Kenny Payne is making some smart moves.

—Quincy Riley is coming to Louisville with some major aspirations.

—Today’s Mike Rutherford Show will be on from 3-5:30 before we hand the mic to Louisville Bats coverage. You can stream the show here.

—And finally, beat Kentucky.