Monday afternoon Cardinal news and notes

—After capturing yet another Atlantic Division title, the Louisville baseball team will be the No. 2 seed for this week’s ACC tournament.

—The Cards are No. 7 in the latest D1baseball.com poll.

—Bill Connelly’s updated S&P ratings for the upcoming college football season have Louisville at No. 30 following Friday’s addition of defensive lineman Jermayne Lole.

—247 Sports ranks Malik Cunningham as the 17th-best QB in college football for the upcoming season.

17. MALIK CUNNINGHAM, LOUISVILLE

ACC quarterback ranking: No. 5 (out of eight).

2021 statistics: 209 of 337, 2,941 yards, 19 touchdowns, six interceptions; 173 rushes, 1,031 yards, 20 touchdowns.

2022 outlook: Entering his fourth season at Louisville’s starting quarterback, Malik Cunningham accounted for 39 touchdowns (20 rushing, 19 passing) last fall, but the Cardinals failed to finish with a winning record. The former three-star recruit from the Class of 2017 completed 62% of his passes for 2,941 yards and eclipsed 1,000 yards on the ground, averaging six per carry. Louisville will look for more success in the win column in 2022, and Cunningham is set to be a key piece should Scott Satterfield’s squad increase that total. He may not be as quick as previous program hero Lamar Jackson at quarterback, but his touchdown total speaks for itself.

—Things you didn’t expect to be saying five months ago: Rueben Owens II, the No. 1 all-purpose running back in the class of 2023, has canceled a visit to Georgia and locked in an official visit to Louisville.

—U of L football has added long snapper transfer Shai Kochav from Arkansas State.

—Louisville is 12th in the country for returning production in the upcoming college football season.

—Eric Crawford writes about Justin Thomas capturing his second PGA Championship over the weekend.

—The Louisville Bats will be holding a Memorial Day Eve (this Sunday, May 29) fireworks spectacular featuring a handful of special performances. Tickets are available here.

—The ACC made bank in 2020-21.

The ACC and Pac-12 released their financial data for the 2020-21 season on Friday, and most notably, the conferences saw their revenues impacted in a different way during the coronavirus pandemic.

While the ACC 990 form shows total revenue was more than $578.3 million, the highest gross revenue in league history, the Pac-12 reported total revenues of $344 million — down 36% over the previous year.

The ACC saw a 16.4% increase in revenues compared to 2019-20, the largest growth with the current membership, and distributed an average of $36.1 million per school. The Pac-12 reported an average distribution of $19.8 million per school, a decrease of 41% over the previous year. In a statement, the Pac-12 attributed those numbers primarily to decreased media rights and postseason bowl revenues, game cancellations, lower event revenue due to no fans, and higher costs associated with COVID-19 health and safety protocols and testing.

While the Pac-12 did not play a full football season during the coronavirus pandemic, the ACC scheduled an 11-game season. Though the ACC had its own game cancellations, the bulk of the conference schedule was played, and that helped contribute to its financial success. The league did spend $2.5 million on medical testing during the pandemic.

Also helping the ACC: Notre Dame participated as a full-time football team for this one year as a result of the pandemic, which not only helped the overall revenue but allowed the Irish to gain an equal share of the revenue distribution.

—This study says Louisville is the fifth-worst city in America for dating.

—SportsBetting.ag is the latest to set U of L’s over/under win total for the upcoming college football season at 5.5.

—Pierce Clarkson has his sights set on bringing highly-touted WR DeAndre Moore to The Ville.

—The latest NCAA tournament projection from D1Baseball.com has Louisville as the tournament’s No. 7 overall seed.

—Edgar Sosa and Anas Mahmoud are representing Louisville in the NBA’s Basketball Africa League.

—Time flies.

—An obscure rule for first-year head coaches has allowed USC to drop 10 football players from scholarship.

—U of L has offered class of 2024 edge Willis McGahee IV, the son of the former Miami superstar.

—I’m all in on Jermayne Lole.

Papa Siva’s gonna make a play.

—After back-to-back disappointing springs (for different reasons), Dan McDonnell says this year’s group of Cardinals are ready for a deep postseason run.

—Racing Louisville pulled out another dub on Sunday.

—No program at U of L was taking a bigger step up in competition from the Big East to the ACC than the baseball Cards, and yet ...

—Cardinal Authority is out with a new installment of their U of L women’s basketball recruiting notebook.

—Kenny Payne sees Jae’Lyn Withers as a kid with a bunch of talent who wants to be really good.

—Sydney Curry will be doing an autograph signing this Wednesday.

—Students can get tickets to see Lou City’s U.S. Open Cup round of 16 match against Nashville on Wednesday for just 5 bucks.

—There was a report las week that the Louisville men’s basketball team was going to face Oklahoma State in this year’s Armed Forces Classic. U of L has confirmed that this report was untrue. Would have been a fun matchup.

—We just gotta work on the finish.

—You can vote here for the area high school player of the week.

—Three crazy trades NBA folks would love to see involving Donovan Mitchell.

—Love this from Nolan Smith.

—The Baltimore Ravens launch the third and final phase of this year’s offseason workout program on Tuesday, and the biggest question is whether or not Lamar Jackson will be in attendance.

—And finally, the Mike Rutherford Show returns from 3-6 this afternoon on 1450 The Big X to recap all the major happenings of the weekend. You can stream it here.