Tuesday afternoon Cardinal news and notes

Tuesday afternoon Cardinal news and notes

—Ashton Gillotte has been named to the 2024 Walter Camp Preseason All-America First Team defense.

—Former Cardinal hoops walk-on Hercy Miller has signed with Southern Utah of the Big Sky Conference.

—Pat Kelsey has not publicly uttered the word “fight” since being hired as the new U of L men’s basketball coach. That doesn’t feel like a coincidence.

Offensively, Kelsey described a system based on reading and reaction.

“The installation process takes a while, and it evolves throughout the course of the season,” Kelsey said. “The guts and the core of what we do and how we play offensively is based on more randomness. We call it ‘the beauty’s in the randomness,’ and our flow and how we play after makes and after misses and after an action breaks down. And there is a method to that madness, as well. But, obviously, your ability to execute set plays and get certain players certain shots in different parts of the floor in different parts of the game is very important. And that’s a process that kind of evolves. We’ve began to introduce some of those things, kind of the shapes we play out in some of our set plays.”

One challenge is in taking complicated offensive structures and making them easy to learn, communicate and understand, Kelsey said. He praised his coaching staff, in particular assistant coach Mike Cassidy, for doing a lot of heavy lifting in this regard.

“Mike’s really good at this. He he takes the complicated and makes it simple,” Kelsey said. “So, in his mind, in my mind, in terms of the offensive coordinator, for instance, it could be complicated in his mind. But the way that maybe you organize or structure or label or name your terminology, it simplifies it for the players. That might not make a lot of sense, but, sometimes, it takes a ton of time, like hours and hours to come up with a method to simplify it for the guys. I think we’ve done a good job of that over the years. We’ve started to do some of that the last couple practices. The guys have been great and had fun with it.”

Kelsey borrows a phrase from baseball manager Joe Maddon, who talks about his players having “GBT — great baseball talk,” in the dugout and around the clubhouse.

“He loves guys talking Xs and Os in the dugout, in the hotels, on the airplanes,” Kelsey said. “And we value GBT here — great basketball talk. We have a veteran group that loves to talk hoop.”

Now, I know what you’re asking. Where’s the fight?

I wouldn’t worry about it. At long last, it seems, we can move on to other things.

—Louisville forward Elif Istanbulluoglu and head coach Jeff Walz are overseas to take part with the U20 Turkish National Team. Walz is serving as an assistant coach on the staff while Istanbulluoglu is one of 18 players named for the team that will be competing at the 2024 FIBA Women’s U20 EuroBasket. The tournament will be held in Klaipeda and Vilnius from July 6-14.

—The Louisville Bats are hosting the biggest fireworks show of the week in Louisville tomorrow night at Slugger Field. You can get tickets here.

—For more fireworks shows taking place throughout the city this week, check out this list from the CJ.

—Damion Lee remains the best.

—Louisville baseball has added catcher Tyler Herron from Illinois State out of the transfer portal.

—LawnStarter ranks Louisville as the 12th-best BBQ city in America.

—Louisville will travel the 10th-most miles of any football program in the ACC this coming season. Cal tops the list.

—It will be very cool if these rankings wind up being accurate.

—College Wire ranks Louisville as one of the six under-the-radar teams most likely to crash the College Football Playoff.

—Kentucky currently sits at No. 42 in the country in education according to this study.

—CONVERSELY, Kentucky is number one on the list of states with the most “cursed” or haunted attractions across the entire USA. We’re all good at something.

—Chane Behanan has been added to The Ville’s roster for this year’s TBT.

—Seems good.

—Years after his Louisville playing days, Damion Lee still has Louisville’s back, and it still has his.

—Five-star shooting guard Darius Adams from the class of 2025 has received a Louisville offer.

—The latest Locked on Louisville podcast episode is here.

—Your jersey numbers for the upcoming men’s basketball season.

No. 93 is an absolutely insane selection and it makes me adore Noah Waterman.

Also, as many have already pointed out, both Andre McGee and Terrence Williams were noticeably omitted from the graphic.

—Darryn Peterson, the consensus top-ranked shooting guard in the Class of 2025, is set to visit Louisville this fall.

—The Louisville defense is No. 22 in the new EA Sports College Football game.

—Hearing ”you have two choices: Do it right, or do it again” after the last two years is a gift from the basketball gods.

—Pat Kelsey says his team’s trip to the Bahamas later this month should speed up its growth.

—Louisville Report breaks down the U of L offensive line for the upcoming season.

—Four wins? Doesn’t matter.

—Saturday Blitz looks at realistic expectations for Louisville in Jeff Brohm’s second season.

—MoMo Sanogo joins the From the Pink Seats podcast in their latest episode.

—Cardinal fans are going to love Chucky Hepburn.

—And finally, the Mike Rutherford Show is back this afternoon from 3-6 on 1450 The Big X. You can stream it here.