All signs point to the Cards staying in-house.
U of L interim president Greg Postel told reporters that he expects to name Louisville’s interim head basketball coach late Friday afternoon. The naming of an interim athletic director will likely wait until early next week.
By now, most of you have probably heard what transpired yesterday. For those who haven’t, the team strongly made it known to the powers that be at U of L that they want to play for David Padgett this season. Hence the report last night that Tom Crean (not a popular choice among the player) had been eliminated from consideration.
It’s also worth noting that Insider Louisville’s Joe Sonka has reported that Postel met with former Louisville player and current Simmons College head coach/athletic director Jerry Eaves.
Source says Greg Postel met with Simmons bball coach Jerry Eaves at campus Starbucks this morning.
— Joe Sonka (@joesonka) September 29, 2017
Still, all signs point to Padgett at this point.
The good in this is obvious. He’s the team’s choice and he’s been a favorite of the fan base since he first transferred in from Kansas more than a decade ago. This will not be a difficult team to root for.
The bad, if you want to call it that, is that if the intention here is to “clean house,” this doesn’t really accomplish that. Padgett is extremely close with Rick Pitino and has been linked to Louisville basketball more or less since 2004. I’m fine with that, so long as it can be absolutely proven that he had nothing to do with the transgressions that led us to this place, but my guess is there are others who are not.
Here’s the mentality I think we all have to take, and the mentality that makes Padgett the right choice: Just focus on the season. Fears about future NCAA sanctions and players leaving and recruiting falling off completely are legitimate, but they’re not going to affect November-March (the NCAA couldn’t move quickly on this for Louisville to be potentially banned from the postseason and I can’t imagine U of L would go the self-impose route again ... at least not at this point).
This is a talented roster that’s (likely) going to be led by one of the most popular Louisville players over the last 15 years. Quentin Snider, Anas Mahmoud, Ray Spalding and all these guys didn’t sign up for any of the bullshit they’ve had to endure since 2015. V.J. King knew about the first helping of nonsense and he still chose to stick it out and become a Cardinal.
The future certainly looks bleak, but the immediate future doesn’t have to be. Support the hell out of these guys, try to use the actual games as a distraction, and then we’ll regroup and go from there.
