Monday afternoon Cardinal news and notes

—Spread check (football): Louisville by 1.

—In its loss to Florida State on Saturday, new Miami starting QB Emory Williams suffered a season-ending arm injury. That leaves the Hurricanes with two options for this weekend’s game against Louisville: Embattled veteran Tyler Van Dyke or sophomore Jacurri Brown, who has not seen the field this season.

—Despite a 2-0 start, the U of L women’s basketball team actually fell two spots to No. 19 in this week’s AP poll.

—The Louisville men’s soccer team is headed to the NCAA tournament for the third consecutive season. The Cardinals will host Dayton on Thursday in the opening round of the tournament at Dr. Mark & Cindy Lynn Stadium. With a win, the Cards would face No. 5 overall seed West Virginia in the second round.

You can see the full bracket here.

—The week ahead in Cardinal athletics:

Wednesday, November 15

Men’s Basketball vs Coppin State - 7 p.m. ET (KFC Yum! Center)

Thursday, November 16

Men’s Soccer vs. Dayton (NCAA Tournament First Round)
#12/3 Swim & Dive at Ohio State Fall Invitational
#12/3 Swim & Dive at IUPUI Diving Invitational
#17/15 Women’s Basketball vs Bellarmine - 7 p.m. ET (KFC Yum! Center)

Friday, November 17

#12/3 Swim & Dive at Ohio State Fall Invitational
#12/3 Swim & Dive at IUPUI Diving Invitational

Saturday, November 18

#12/3 Swim & Dive at Ohio State Fall Invitational
#12/3 Swim & Dive at IUPUI Diving Invitational
#9 Football at Miami - 12 p.m. ET
#5 Volleyball at #7 Pittsburgh - 1 p.m. ET

Sunday, November 19

Men’s Basketball vs #18 Texas (Empire Classic) - 3:30 p.m. ET
#17/15 Women’s Basketball vs Bucknell - 4 p.m. ET (KFC Yum! Center)

—Two late Northwestern goals delivered the Louisville field hockey team a gut-punch loss in the NCAA tournament quarterfinals on Sunday.

—Highlights from the U of L women’s basketball team’s Sunday win over DePaul are here.

—Ashton Gillotte has been named a semifinalist for the Chuck Bednarik Award for the Outstanding Defensive Player of the Year.

—The rivalry never sleeps.

—Brett McMurphy’s latest bowl projections still have Louisville facing Ohio State in the Orange Bowl.

—Sports Illustrated projects that Louisville will be No. 9 in this week’s College Football Playoff Rankings.

—The Athletic’s Brendan Quinn spent three days with Rick Pitino and has a terrific read on the man still too driven to do anything but coach.

Joel Soriano, a 6-foot-11 All-Big East selection last season, is one of only two holdovers from former coach Mike Anderson’s roster. Soriano considered pursuing professional basketball this season, but Pitino and Masiello took him to dinner last spring, asking for one more run at St. John’s. “I started thinking about what I could accomplish with Pitino,” Soriano recalls. “I figured if I have the season I had last year, but it’s with him, and we win? That’s different. People will notice.”

So Soriano agreed, imagining himself starring for the revamped Johnnies. Then, though, came offseason workouts. The film session when Pitino told Soriano he isn’t good enough to play for St. John’s Prep in Queens, let alone St. John’s University. The time Pitino told Soriano there’s a reason his previous teams at St. John’s and Fordham didn’t win with him. This preseason, Pitino demoted Soriano to the second string in preseason practices.

Added all up, Soriano at times has wondered what the hell he’s doing this for. He’s not the only one. St. John’s brought in high-profile transfers from Penn (Jordan Dingle), Harvard (Chris Ledlum), Connecticut (Nahiem Alleyne), Kansas (Zuby Ejiofor), Oregon State (Glenn Taylor Jr.) and Massachusetts (RJ Luis Jr.), along with two promising freshmen (Simeon Wilcher and Brady Dunlap). Most of these players have never seen anything like Pitino.

“Everything’s changed here,” Soriano says, sitting in an empty Carnesecca Arena. “You have to be perfect.”

The day prior, going through his player development session, Soriano saw Pitino conversing off to the side. He glanced at the coach after each shot. When shots fell with Pitino’s back turned, Soriano shook his head. A 23-year-old with four seasons of college experience desperately wanting to prove himself to a Hall of Fame coach.

“He’s the most honest person I’ve ever met in my life,” Soriano says. “Any little thing, he’s on your ass. It’s been very overwhelming. I’ve had nights just, like, contemplating, damn, I came back for this? But I know that’s all in my mind. I’m just trying to stay positive.”

Soriano understands what’s happening. That he’s being tested by a coach with 835 career wins in college basketball — the ninth-most ever, the most among active coaches, regardless of which ones the NCAA counts.

Thinking on all of this, Soriano uttered the ultimate adage so many have conceded when it comes to Rick Pitino and the sport of basketball.

“The results,” Soriano says, “will all be worth it.”

The Johnnies face Michigan tonight at 6:30 in Madison Square Garden.

—No Louisville players get a mention in Sam Vecenie’s latest NBA mock draft for 2024.

—If it hadn’t already been here a hundred times over at this point, I would say this is truly the all is lost moment.

You can hear the full conversation, which starts at the 35:30 mark of the podcast, right here.

—The CJ’s Kentucky high school boys and girls preseason top 25 hoops polls are here.

—Lyon County senior Travis Perry, the leading scorer in Kentucky high school boys basketball history with 4,359 career points, committed to Kentucky on Sunday.

—Cool conversation here between two members of Louisville’s first College World Series team, including the second-best St. Matthews Little League All-Star of the 1990s, Skylar Meade.

—Texas A&M is firing Jimbo Fisher and paying his $763 million buyout. It’s not quite that much, but it may as well be.

—Mississippi State has also fired head coach Zach Arnett just 11 games into his tenure.

—The numbers show what we already knew: Louisville was very lucky to escape with a win over Virginia on Thursday night.

—Jeff Brohm and company are working hard to keep Male High star Isaac Sowells (2025) home.

—Pat Forde writes that Michigan’s response to its NCAA punishment has been embarrassing.

And that was before this:

—The NC State women’s team stunned UConn on Sunday.

—State of the U kicks off their Louisville-Miami coverage here.

—Streaking the Lawn has five takeaways from Virginia’s loss to Louisville.

—Just to be in these hypotheticals in mid-November is a dream.

—Chop Chat has Louisville at No. 2 in its ACC power rankings.

—The fifth-ranked Louisville volleyball team celebrated Senior Say with a Sunday sweep of North Carolina.

—There are an awwwwful lot of people online making vague references to the possibility of former U of L commits DeAndre Moore and Rueben Owens transferring in to Louisville. I think there is very legitimate smoke surrounding at least one of those names.

—I love Jeff Walz.

—T-Shirt Hooligan is having a sale.

—Brad Crawford of 247 Sports looks at all the one loss teams in college football and makes the case for each as the best in the country.

LOUISVILLE CARDINALS

Key wins: Notre Dame, Duke, NC State

Louisville beat a college football-leading six teams which are bowl-eligible, but few are talking about the Cardinals and that’s part of the issue for a team that might be too far back of the pack to make serious noise over the next few weeks. This is a feisty group under first-year coach Jeff Brohm, needing to lay a beatdown in the finale against Kentucky and pass the eye test against unbeaten FSU in the ACC Championship Game to have a legitimate argument for why they’re deserving of a bid. Like the Longhorns’ issue in the Big 12, the ACC’s top-tier has holes and some of Louisville’s top wins aren’t holding as much water as they once did.

—Here’s a look at how Cards in the NFL fared over the weekend.

—Louisville is No. 9 in CBS’ ranking of all 133 FBS teams.

—Paul is the best. RIP to his father and condolences to the entire Rogers family.

With Paul out for this weekend’s game against Miami, Jody Demling will handle the radio play-by-play duties, while John L. Smith(!) will serve as the analyst.

—Inside the U takes an early week look at Louisville.

—Real recognize real.

—Miami fans seem to be wildly in favor of Jacurri Brown getting the start at quarterback against Louisville on Saturday.

—And finally, the Mike Rutherford Show returns from 3-6 this afternoon on 1450/96.1. We will pretend like the football game happened on Saturday so that we don’t have to talk basketball (not really....maybe). You can stream the show here.