Fans, media and journalist of every venue should know by now that when a coach speaks it should be taken with a grain of salt. But it never fails that when the larger than life Coach Pitino speaks it sparks interest from all over the nation.

A couple weeks ago coach Pitino was the featured luncheon speaker during the Mid-South ACG Capital Connection in Louisville. The event brought together private-equity and venture capital investors from across the region. Pitino summed up his remarks by telling the attendees about his greatest regrets and how those regrets made him more successful. It was comments made during that part of his speech that had folks in Boston, Lexington and Louisville buzzing.

Speeches like Rick made a few weeks ago are not for dissecting and should not be taken literally. Coaches twist words, use analogies and talk out of both sides of their mouths to get across their message of the moment. Contradictions are what coaches do best. Below is a link where you can view Coach Pitino’s full speech. You watch it and decide for yourself.

Ricks Speech

This past weekend was the prestigious NBPA Top 100 Camp. This basketball camp takes 100 of America’s top prep players and splits them into different teams evenly by positions. This provides a great opportunity for these players to really show they belong in the elite company of the nations best. This camp is unique in that it really does put the best against the best. This event is closed to the public and only credentialed scouting services are allowed to attend. This provides an atmosphere that is all about business for these recruits. There was a lot of recruiting news that came out of the camp including many new updates regarding current and new Louisville targets. You can see those updates and info on new targets on the Beak Recruiting page. According to many scouts present at the event Louisville was being mentioned in conversation by many of the top athletes and it appears that Coach Pitino and staff are working hard to secure future greatness for the basketball program.

A couple of future Cardinals that turned many heads over the weekend was 2014 commit Shaqquan Aaron and Quentin Snider. These guys delivered huge performances amongst a stellar field of highly regarded players. Aaron fresh off of his standout performance at the high school tournament in Seattle called the Quaker Slam was creating a lot of buzz at the NBPA Top 100.

ESPN’s Paul Biancardi also had this to say about Aaron’s weekend:

-Most Creative
Shaqquan Aaron (Seattle/Rainier Beach)
SF, 6-6, 175
This Louisville commit was comfortable with the ball in his hands, sizing up defenders then separating from them with his dribble. He excels in the transition game and when the game slowed down, he would shoot a stare-down 3-pointer easily rising over a defender with his length. He is not a volume scorer and is at his best finishing a play, but he also showed he could create and find others for scores. He has some George Gervin in his game.

2014 Louisville commit Quentin Snider was also creating some buzz of his own as scouts talked about his improved strength and shooting ability. It was a bigger, more physical Snider who walked through the doors of John Paul Jones Arena last Thursday. He knew he would have to get stronger to be as affective as he wanted to be at the next level and that is just what he’s done. He is now at 177 pounds up from 150 pounds at last years Top 100 camp.

The folks over at NY2LASPORTS.COM also had this to say about Snider’s weekend:

-Quinten Snider — 2014 — PG — Ballard H.S.
6-2 — Louisville, KY
The Louisville commit is one of the best in the country at getting in the lane and making plays for himself or his teammates. Snider strikes a very good balance as a point guard and this enables him to help his team get a good look on almost any possession. Snider as a scorer gets it done in a variety of ways, as he has crafty moves around the hoop while also having good range and a solid and pretty consistent perimeter stroke.

I am really looking forward to seeing these guys in Cardinal uniforms next season and both could potentially be at the five star level by the time their high school careers are over. I look for both of them to continue to move up in the rankings. Keep checking my recruiting page this summer for updates on these guys and other potential future Cards.

The first error of the College World Series wasn’t committed by any of the teams playing, it was the guy that did the artwork on one of the dugouts that got that honor. You will notice on the picture that College has three L’s instead of one. In a crazy twist to this mishap all 4 teams that were in the dugout that had the extra ‘L’ in college yesterday took an ‘L’ in the opening round of the College World Series.

Today the Louisville Baseball team is down to their last chance. They will play against Oregon State the No. 3 national seed at 3pm and the team that gets the “L” in this one will be eliminated from the College World Series.

-BASEBALL AMERICA OREGON SCOUTING REPORT

OREGON STATE (No. 3 national seed)

Record: 50-11. Preseason ranking: 6. Ranking at end of regular season: 4.

Season In A Nutshell: The Beavers got off to a 15-0 start—their best since 1986—and never looked back, winning the Pac-12 by two games over Oregon. They allowed just seven runs in a three-game sweep through the Corvallis Regional, then bounced back from a loss to Kansas State by winning the next two games of their super regional.

Tune into ESPN2 at 3pm and cheer on the Cards. If you are at work you can listen on ESPN radio or the watch ESPN App.

We are several months away from the pig skin flying through the air, tailgating and the Louisville football team taking the field for another season. Websites and sports gurus everywhere are putting out their pre-season polls in preparation. Most of the publications and talking heads have Louisville firmly in the top ten and most have them going undefeated on the season.

Today the king college football Prognosticator Phil Steele who publishes a college football preview magazine put Louisville at number 7 in his countdown. Steele, whose annual college football preview is gobbled up by thousands of fans each summer, has been releasing his preseason top 40 one-by-one over the past few weeks. Out of all of these folks Steele is the guy who’s opinion I value the most. He is fun to read, does his research and plays his hunches. Steele says “UL has 16 returning starters and figure to be in the AP Top10 in August.” and “they figure to be favored in every game.” Steele also goes on to say that 5 out of his 9 sets of predictors calls for the Cardinals to go undefeated.

You’ll likewise be interested to learn that Pregame.com, a Vegas aggregator, has released the opening lines on all Louisville’s games, and according to the Golden Nugget the Cardinals will be favored in every one. Per Pregame Louisville is one of 5 teams that should be favored in every regular-season game. The others are Ohio State, Oregon, Alabama and Georgia.

Back to Mr. Steele. He has been offering up his preseason Top 40 in drips and drabs, revealing one team per day on PhilSteele.com. His unique yearbook hits newsstands Tuesday.

The Louisville Cardinals can see the College World Series from here. Yesterday Louisville overcame a 2-1 deficit with three runs in the seventh to hold on for a 5-3 win against the No. 2 national seed. Zak Wasserman drove home Jeff Gardner for each of Louisville’s first two runs of the game, including the game-tying RBI single in the seventh. Vandy closer Brian Miller took over for Ziomek with the bases loaded, and pinch-hitter Matt Helms greeted Miller by hitting a two-run RBI single through the left side, putting the Cardinals ahead for good.

The win yesterday puts the Cardinals in the drivers seat. Teams that win the first game of the Super Regional have over a 70% chance of moving on to Omaha. A win today will give Louisville their second trip to a College World Series. Louisville last reached the CWS back in 2007 after getting an at-large bid into the NCAA Tournament. Also a win today would give the Cardinals 51 victories on the year breaking the previous win record of 50 wins in 2010.

Today could be a very special one for this baseball team as they are looking to make their mark on the Louisville program. Be sure to tune into ESPN at 4:00PM today and cheer on the Cards.

(photo courtesy @howielindsey)

This weekend the Cardinals baseball team will be playing a three game series in the Super Regionals against the Vanderbilt Commodores. The winner of this series will punch their ticket to Omaha and join seven other teams in the College World Series.
This is the 3rd Super Regional in the last 7 seasons for the Cards. They beat Oklahoma St in 2007 to advance to the College World Series and lost to Cal State Fullerton in 2009.

I don’t think many folks are giving our Cardinals much of a chance this weekend in Nashville but I think they have the team to pull off the upset. The Cardinals have great starting pitching and a bullpen that has been compared to a double A ball club. The Cardinals collectively have a great defensive team as well so if they manage to get a lead on this Vandy team their chances improve a lot.

This Vandy team is being described by many as one of their best ever. They are a veteran team with very skilled and athletic players at every position. They also have a very good group on the mound and in the bullpen. They play very confident baseball especially at home and it will be a tall task to deny this group a chance to play in the College World Series.

Our Cards will have their hands full this weekend and perhaps may need a little something extra if they are to pull off this major upset. They just might get that extra something from the new cutting edge uniforms unveiled today. The Cardinals will wear their new unis on Sunday. Just like with the basketball uniforms these new baseball Uniforms from Adidas are pretty outrageous. But if they yield the same results then I’m all for it. Plus I really like the new uniforms because they take me back to my early childhood. The new uniforms look like the ones the Houston Astros wore in the mid 70’s. And it makes me think of the times I went to Riverfront Stadium when they played the Reds there.

It’s going to be an exciting weekend of baseball so be sure to tune in and cheer on your Cardinals to victory. Would be great to get back to the College World Series and would go along way at helping us move up higher in the Capital One Cup standings.

-Louisville (49-12) at No. 2 Vanderbilt (54-10)
Saturday: 3 p.m. (ESPN)
Sunday: 4 p.m. (ESPN)
Monday: 7 p.m. (ESPN2)

When you are a Cardinal fan there is no such thing as time off. And there are no slow news days. Today is especially not a slow one. Today Coach Pitino had a press conference to talk about his Makers Mark bottle being released this Friday the 7th. But like any press conference other topics were discussed.

The Makers Mark bottles will be on store shelves starting Friday and there will be a bottle signing that will happen on June 13th at 5:00pm in the KFC Yum Center. Tickets will go on sale for that signing on the 10th and will cost 1 dollar. Here are some of Coach Pitino’s comments about Makers Mark:

Coach Pitino on being on Maker’s bottle: “it has happened before……in a different color.”

Coach Pitino: “we couldn’t do what we are doing for our student athletes without sponsors like maker’s mark.”

Anyone who hasn’t been under a rock over the past couple of weeks are very familiar with the controversy surrounding comments made by the Ohio State President Gordon Gee. Coach Pitino made headlines last week when he shared some very choice words for Mr Gee. Today Coach Pitino had some other things to share about this controversy:

Coach Pitino: “Gordon Gee has agreed to a gift of $500,000 for the academic center (jokingly).”

Coach Pitino on Gee’s apology being genuine: “No, he did it because the board of directors made him.”

Coach Pitino on Gee: “it is a pompous attitude.”

Coach Pitino: “it is low self esteem, jealously, we’ll need a psychologist to determine.”

During the press conference Coach Pitino updated everyone on some of the players and talked about the success of the athletic program. It sounds like Kevin is making great progress, all the incoming guys are on schedule, Russ playing ball in Spain, NBA GMs are amazed at genuine attitude of Gorgui/Peyton and one of the big shockers of the day Zach Price is moving on. Here are some of the comments from Coach:

Coach Pitino: “we are 3rd in the Capital Cup with half of the sports.”

Coach Pitino: “it is unusual to see so much success in a single year.”

Coach Pitino: “Kevin is shooting jump shots.”

Coach Pitino: “Kevin is just off crutches two weeks ago.”

Coach Pitino: “everyone is on campus but Rozier and Hancock. Rozier will be here soon.”

Coach Pitino: “I don’t like my guys playing pick-up basketball.”

Coach Pitino: “Russ may go to Spain to play on a touring team.”

Coach Pitino: “Rozier will be here this week.”

Coach Pitino on Zach Price: “I’d say he is gone, because our players don’t tweet.”

Coach Pitino on Gorgui and Peyton: “GMs ask me if this is fake, are these guys this nice?”

Coach Pitino closed it out today by talking about some of his activities during the break. He mentioned his fishing trip and talked about his horse not winning the Derby and hanging out with Pitt Bull.

Coach Pitino on his fishing trip: “it was great fun, but the chances of me going again are remote. Kenny couldn’t catch the big fish.”

Coach Pitino on Goldencents: “I am a bad loser, since didn’t win the derby haven’t paid attention. been hanging out with Pitbull on the west coast.”

Coach Pitino will be making an appearance at the Cardinal Caravan tonight at Captain’s Quarters in Louisville at 6:30pm. The Caravan started today and will be making stops around the Bluegrass area over the next 3 days. Below is a schedule of the stops. The Cardinal’s Beak will be at a few of these stops along the way and I will have video and photos from the event.

Just as the Pitino press conference came to an end twitter started to buzz about the news of Louisville Football’s 2014 schedule. We learned today that the Cards will be playing Notre Dame, Florida State, Miami, Clemson, NC State, Kentucky, BC, Virginia, among others in 2014. It’s going to be tough during this transition year but great things await for the football team and the fans in the future. Below is the crossover schedule of future ACC football opponents:

(Special Thanks and H/T to @UofLSheriff50 for all of his great updates via Twitter. Cards Fans go give him a follow)