WDRB Sports Journalist. Writer. Photographer.
The following ran on the WDRB.com website on March 12, 2018 . . . I’ve been reluctant to discuss the future of the University of Louisville basketball program very much this season, particularly in terms of its coaching situation, out of respect to David Padgett, who didn’t ask to be thrust into the interim head-coaching…
By now, the Bellarmine story has made it around the sports world and back. It has been a topic (No. 2, top of the show) on Pardon the Interruption. It has been Tweeted and talked to death. None of that, of course, will make much of a difference. The NCAA has rules, and it has…
This column originally appeared at WDRB.com on March 22, 2018. On Wednesday, Louisville interim athletic director Vince Tyra said on more than one occasion that the university needs an “elite coach.” With a search under way for the next coach of the University of Louisville basketball team, that begs the question – what is an…
When the clock hit 0:00 on the University of Louisville men’s basketball season in a 51-50 ACC Tournament loss to Virginia just before midnight on Wednesday, a chapter for the program closed. Mike Pegues, the interim coach who stepped in twice for Chris Mack, will soon be off the clock. And interim athletics director Josh…
The rule is what it is, and if anything is drilled into the heads of Bellarmine men’s players from the day they get to campus, it’s this: You play by the rules. But the rule that a reclassifying program must wait four years to become eligible for the NCAA Tournament is a particularly tough one…
Let’s put it this way. We’ve seen a lot better Louisville teams play a lot worse against Virginia. Though, I should add, we probably haven’t seen many worse Virginia teams lately than the one that beat Louisville 51-50 on Wednesday night in the second round of the ACC Tournament in the Barclays Center in Brooklyn….
With Bellarmine, it’s not the pregame speech that’s fiery. It’s the postgame that gets you. The locker room was calm before Tuesday’s ASUN Tournament championship game against Jacksonville in Freedom Hall. Coach Scott Davenport just repeats the team goals. “We win the war rebounding, we win the game,” he tells them. “Attack with great purpose,”…
Bellarmine Coach Scott Davenport speaks to his team before its ASUN Tournament championship game against Jacksonville, and Father Dale Cieslik delivers a pregame prayer.
Someday, a group of Bellarmine players will gather after the NCAA Tournament championship game, settle in for the “One Shining Moment” video, and wait to see themselves. That won’t happen this year. The Knights’ aren’t eligible for NCAA Tournament play because of reclassification rules, even if the second-year NCAA Division I program does beat Jacksonville…