Angry Birds: Final Four Ticket Scandal Upsets UofL Students

Louisville reaching the Final Four has been the most exhilarating experience I can think of over the past few years. This one is even sweeter than the one in 2005 in my humble opinion. But for students at the University of Louisville, this week has been bitter-sweet. The University received 710 tickets that were reserved for students at a special price of $25. The tickets were supposed to be available on Monday at 10 a.m., but due to an unfortunate event many UofL students are upset that they were unable to get tickets.

A mass email was sent out Sunday informing students on how to obtain the $25 tickets on Monday morning. The link was supposed to go up at 10 a.m. but a pulled fire alarm delayed the posting of the link about 15 minutes. During this 15 minute time span, it is reported that the link was leaked by an unknown intern in the athletic department and that only eight tickets were purchased before the general student population had access to them. These tickets were reportedly revoked by school officials. Another problem that occured was that the Student Government Association (or SGA for short) posted the link on the organizations Twitter page. The problem with this is that not all students use Twitter and the ones that do may or may not follow the SGA's page. At the time of the incident I checked the SGA's Twitter account (@SGAUofL) and they had only about 1,100 followers. The student population at UofL is around 20,000.

The Twitter world on the other hand has a totally different version of the story going around. It has been said that SGA officials gave the information to friends who then sent the link out in mass texts. This caused an unfair advantage to students who were impatiently waiting for the link to post to the schools athletic site, UofLSports.com.

I interviewed Randy Woodford, a student at UofL. Randy says that he was sititing at his computer refreshing the link every few seconds and when the link did finally appear, the tickets were somehow already gone. This incident did not sit well with UofL students and even made the local news.

I for one, do not really buy the University's version of the incident. The whole situation was handled terribly and has left many students very upset (including myself as I was also unable to purchase tickets.) To make matters worse, it has been reported that several members of the SGA were able to get tickets.

While this incident was very unfortunate, we still support our university and the athletic program. Time heals all wounds and a win over Kentucky would be an instant cure. Go Cards!

Russ Smith Wins Over Louisville Fans

I'll be honest...last year Russ Smith might have been one of my least favorite Cardinals...but after the season he's had this year and the effort he has shown game in and game out, he has climbed his way to the top of my list. Coach P is hard on Russ but he takes it in stride.

Check out THIS (click link) LEGENDARY clip as Russ crashes Coach Pitino's post game interview after the win over New Mexico Saturday night.

Here is Russ' post game locker room interview..(funny part towards end)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gw5lroyr60U

Cards Get New Uniforms for BIG EAST Tourney

Adidas has provided the Cardinals with new, "ultra-lightweight", uniforms! If you know me you know I'm not big on Adidas gear, (especially shoes) but these unis are pretty sweet! These uniforms are about "28% lighter" than our previous ones.

We will play in the gray tonight. The Cards haven't been playing well lately so hopefully this will give them the new attitude they need to make a push this post-season.

Chane Behanan Named to BIG EAST All-Rookie Team

Chane Behanan has been selected to the BIG EAST All-Rookie team. Chane has been a very pleasant surprise for the Cards this season. I knew he would be a starter coming into this season but I did not expect him to be the man child he is. He has been an absolute force in the majority of games this season averaging 9.3 points and 7.6 rebounds per game.

I can't recall Louisville having a player as ferocious in the paint as Behanan over the past 11 years. In my opinion he has been the most consistent player on the team this season. Behanan recorded double figures in scoring in 15 games and double figure rebounds in 8 games. He also recorded 6 double doubles this season.

WBB: Shoni Schimmel and Bria Smith Named to All-BIG EAST Teams

Yesterday the BIG EAST announced its Women's Basketball Regular Season Awards. Louisville players Shoni Schimmel and Bria Smith both received All BIG EAST honors. Schimmel was named to the All BIG EAST team and Smith to the All-Freshman team.

Schimmel has lead the team in scoring, assists, and steals per game this season. She was named to the All BIG EAST team as a freshman last year as an honorable mention. Bria Smith was a unanimous selection to the All-Freshman team after making considerable contributions to the team, especially on defense averaging nearly two steals per game.

The Cardinals will play the winner of the Villanova /Seton Hall game in the BIG EAST Tournament Saturday at 6:00 p.m.

Ohio State Linebacker Jordan Whiting will Transfer to Louisville

While the basketball team has been struggling, the football program has been adding weapons almost daily. The newest addition to the Cardinal family is Louisville native Jordan Whiting. Whiting is a Trinity graduate and committed to the Buckeyes out of high school. With all the turmoil that has been going on at Ohio State Whiting didn't see himself rising in the depth charts, especially with a new coaching staff coming in.

He made the announcement through his twitter page tweeting "I will be attending University of Louisville and will be a Cardinal for the remainder of my college career as a student and athlete!"

Since he is transferring NCAA rules force Whiting to sit out next season. He will be eligible to play his senior season in 2013.

This Senior Night not so Memorable

So Senior Night was an epic fail. We lost to a South Florida team who hasn’t won a game here in forever and we struggled to put 50 points on the board. We scored only 17 disappointing points in the first 20 minutes of the game. 17 points in a half is just plain embarrassing. To top it off we shot less than 35% from the field and got outrebounded by 10. All of these things together are a recipe for disaster. This is the formula for how to lose a basketball game.

Prior to the game Coach Pitino talked about playing at a faster pace to jumpstart the offense. That did not happen at all. In fact, it seemed as if we slowed it down a little bit. Our defense forced plenty of turnovers but the offense just could not capitalize and we often went on long scoring droughts. The Cards went on a total of six droughts of three minutes or longer; the worst being a nearly 7 minute drought midway through the second half after the Cards had put together a decent run and taken the lead earlier in the half.

I’m beyond disappointed in the way this season has been going as of late. Sure we have had more than our fair share of injuries, but that is no excuse for having the poor offensive season we’ve had thus far. Even at the beginning of the season when we were playing “Cupcake U” every night we’d rarely crack 70 points. According to ESPN.com we have the 128^th ranked scoring offense in the country. We simply can’t put the ball in the rim. I have my personal opinions on why this is so, but that’s for another discussion. In the mean time we need to focus on Syracuse and the upcoming BIG EAST Tournament.