The 10th season for head coach Rick Pitino will open up in the schools new arena, the KFC YUM! Center. As a 9 Seed, the team lost in the first round of the NCAA Tournament against 8 seeded California. The lost only seniors and have a very strong squad again this season. The team are expecting PF Terrence Jennings to have a breakout season now that he no longer plays behind Samardo Samuels who left to pursue a professional career. In an early victory over Marshall, Jennings had six blocks, the most from any Cardinal since 2003.
Pitino is confident he has put together an up and coming squad. “I am pleased with this team top to bottom. We have a lot to work on, and by no means are we a great basketball team, but
I am pleased with everything. The whole is greater than the sum of its parts with this team. I think that’s why we’re a good team: The whole is good,” Pitino told the press in late November.
A SHORT HISTORY
The Louisville Cardinals men’s basketball team is noted as one of the premier programs in college basketball. The tradition includes 35 NCAA tournament appearances (5th all time), eight trips to the Final Four (winning two) and have won 18 or more games in 37 of the last 40 seasons to include a 15-year run with 24 wins or more per season. Arguably one of the best head coaches in college basketball stalked the Cardinals sidelines. Compiling a recorded of 675-295 (.695) Denzil “Denny” Crum coached the Cardinals from 1971-2001 and guided his teams to two NCAA Championships and six Final Fours. He was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 1994.
The Cardinals have won two NCAA Championships. They have made it into the Final Four eight times, the Elite Eight eleven times and the Sweet Sixteen twenty-three times. They have made it to the NCAA second round thirty times and have made thirty-five NCAA Tournament appearances.
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