ESPN Men's Basketball

Editor’s note: Each week, ESPN.com writers will debate a topic of interest in the college basketball landscape. Today’s topic: Which teams are garnering too much (and possibly unwarranted) preseason buzz? Which teams aren’t receiving enough?

Eamonn Brennan: UCLA

When the magazines hit the shelves this fall, and when the first official preseason poll is released, the expectations for UCLA will be sky-high. They already are. That's what happens when you pull in four top-100 recruits, two of which (small forwards Kyle Anderson and Shabazz Muhammad) are ranked in the top five overall. That's what happens when you add No. 26-ranked Tony Parker, and No. 41-ranked Jordan Adams.

That's what happens when you assemble this kind of talent, when you become the first team in four years to unseat Kentucky at the top of the recruiting rankings: We expect everything, we expect it immediately, and we have no patience for anything less.

Make no mistake: UCLA will be good. Probably very good. But there are very good reasons to ask whether Ben Howland's remarkable recruiting rebirth isn't an obvious guarantee of top-five, national title-level success.

Why? We have little evidence Howland can manage a highly touted assemblage of freshmen stars; in fact, the best evidence we have -- George Dohrmann's investigative profile in Sports Illustrated -- went so far as to assert the opposite: That Howland's teams are best when they are as low-maintenance as possible, that the way he treats talented players is anathema to his overall coaching style. At the very least, John Calipari he is not.

Even assuming that Howland has learned from the freshman-related mistakes of the past, there are still lingering questions about the returning players. Forward Joshua Smith remains a promising problem child, and forwards Travis and David Wear played at their best when on the floor together, but with Parker in the mix, how often can that happen? How will UCLA manage the minutes split between Muhammad, Anderson and Adams, the three dynamic incoming small forwards? Will the four freshmen adapt to the tough defensive style that led Howland to three straight Final Fours?

You get the idea. There's more to basketball than acquiring talent. As a program, there's no question UCLA is ascendant anew. But Howland and his staff have plenty to prove before we can rightly consider this team -- as we all seem to be automatically doing -- a national title contender. Until that happens, let's calibrate our expectations accordingly.

Dana O’Neil: Louisville

It may seem silly to question the early buzz on a team that is coming off a Final Four run (and perhaps it is), but I am still not all-in with Louisville. There are plenty of things I like about the Cardinals -- the fact the heart of the team is back, that Wayne Blackshear will be in the lineup from the opening tip, that Mike Marra returns from injury and above all else, their defensive tenacity.

Here’s the worry: the offense. Louisville struggled to score last season and with its best outside threat graduating in the form of Kyle Kuric, that doesn’t look to get any easier. I thought Luke Hancock, the George Mason transfer, might help ease that burden but the Cardinals appear to be carrying their injury bug from last season into the next.

Hancock injured his shoulder in a workout and will miss the next few months, according to Rick Pitino. He should return by the start of the season, but it’s still a significant blow for a team that already plans to be without Rakeem Buckles (still, again, pick your qualifier).

Louisville overachieved last year by miles to make it to the Final Four, and while this team certainly has reason to hope, I think it’s still a little premature to presume.

NEW ORLEANS – There were no tears.

The Louisville Cardinals didn’t hang towels over their heads or pause to collect themselves as they talked with reporters.

Following their 69-61 loss to archrival and national-title favorite Kentucky in the Final Four on Saturday, Louisville’s players and coaches did not sulk. They were disappointed but not devastated.

Wayne Blackshear chomped an apple and conversed with the team’s other youngsters about his classes as he sat on a stool.

Peyton Siva and Russ Smith stared at their smartphones. A few players who’d never touched the floor at Mercedes-Benz Superdome joked in a corner.

The team that had buckled the Final Four’s power grid -- Kansas, Ohio State and Kentucky were all ranked in the top 10 of both major polls at the end of the season -- offered the field a true underdog and added some intrigue to the gathering.

“Well, basically what I told the guys was that for Chris [Smith] and Kyle [Kuric], it was like preparing for the Olympics, and you just work so hard every single day, gave some extraordinary effort, then at the end you're on the podium and they're playing somebody else's national anthem, but you have a bronze medal around your neck,” said coach Rick Pitino. “When I compared them a few weeks ago to the '87 Providence team, it was in terms of effort and attitude. They made me really, really proud. They battled a great team tonight. We just needed lot of things to go right down the stretch.”

The Cardinals had no business being in New Orleans. And their postgame vibe in the Big Easy suggested that they knew as much.

Blackshear scored nine points in 14 minutes of crucial reserve duty against the Wildcats. But his October shoulder injury forced him to miss most of the season and commenced a string of personnel mishaps for the Cardinals.

Mike Marra and Rakeem Buckles suffered season-ending knee injuries. Other key players were hampered by injuries, including Siva, who dealt with an ankle injury at the start of the year.

The team used mixed martial arts helmets in recent practices to protect three players, Siva included, who’d endured multiple concussions.

“We made it to the Final Four when nobody thought we could,” said Siva, who led the Cardinals with 11 points.

That’s why Pitino smiled on the Superdome podium as he talked about this Cardinals squad, one that had clearly overachieved by even reaching New Orleans.

The 4-seed cast doubt on what seemed like a formality -- Kentucky winning the national title -- with its effort.

A pregame trade with the Hornets might not have guaranteed a victory for the Cardinals. After the game, Pitino compared Anthony Davis (18 points, 14 rebounds and 5 blocks) to Bill Russell. John Calipari’s squad shot 57.1 percent from the field to Louisville’s 34.8.

But with Kentucky leading 46-34 with 15:37 to go and threatening to enter Blowout Mode, the Cardinals clawed back with the same fight that led the Big East’s seventh-place squad to a Big East tournament title and Final Four appearance.

A Siva 3-pointer tied the affair (49-49) and capped a 15-3 run with 9:12 to play. But Kentucky surged after that moment, which ignited the school’s fans.

Louisville matched Kentucky’s toughness (outscored by only 40-38 in the paint). But the Cardinals failed to equal the Wildcats’ execution.

They mustered just 13 second-chance points on 19 offensive rebounds. Their 5-for-15 mark on second-chance opportunities was the lowest rate in this year’s NCAA tournament, per ESPN Stats & Information. The latter also reported that Louisville missed 13 dunks and layups.

But the Cardinals didn’t talk like a team that felt like it had blown a national championship opportunity.

“I don’t think there’s any disappointment here. Like, nobody believed in us, nobody believed we could make it to the Final Four,” said Gorgui Dieng, who scored 7 points, grabbed 12 rebounds and blocked 4 shots. “Even they couldn’t believe we could make it to the Sweet 16. We wanted to make a big run to the national championship, but it is what it is. Why are we gonna hang our head?”

A “they all doubted we could get here” mantra reverberated around the locker room. And really, there were few reasons to believe the Cardinals could crack the Final Four on Selection Sunday, even though they possessed one of the top defenses in America.

“We don’t look at ourselves as the underdog because we’re a big-time university. We just feel disrespected because we’re winning,” said Russ Smith, who scored nine points. “It’s like nobody respects us.”

Their fans do.

Louisville loyalists flooded Bourbon Street as early as Thursday. Boisterous school cheers rang out from downtown streets. The blue-collar crew had crashed the country club assembly of power players in New Orleans.

The Cardinals’ supporters wanted the city to know that they were ready for the festivities.

They didn’t need a victory to party.

Pitino said he hopes his players follow that example.

“I told the guys, ‘Look, I'm going to Miami tomorrow and I'm celebrating a season where we worked around the clock, around injuries and everything else. If you guys don't celebrate and have good, clean fun, you're fools. Because I think there's only been eight teams that got to the Final Four in the history of one of the greatest traditions and they did it,” he said. “So they're going to celebrate. Kyle will celebrate a little more low-keyed than Chris will, but they're going to celebrate.”

NEW YORK – Rick Pitino grew up on the East Side -- 26^th Street, to be exact -- and like all boys who grew up with basketball visions dancing in their heads, Madison Square Garden was the Holy Land, the hallowed hardwoods for the gods.

He watched games there as a boy, even signed his scholarship papers to the University of Massachusetts on the Garden court.

When he coached there for the first time, as head coach at Providence, Pitino cried, overcome with emotion at what he had achieved.

And when he became the court’s primary caretaker as the head coach of the New York Knicks, those were pinch-yourself days.

Pitino is 59 now. He’s logged more of his professional career in the Commonwealth of Kentucky than the streets of Manhattan, but in his gut he remains the little kid who stared adoringly at the Garden.

This place still means something to him, and in an age of fraying conference loyalties and the death of collegiality, somehow it seemed fitting that at the last Big East tournament as we know it, the Garden King stood victorious.

Pitino and Louisville, a team even the hometown crowd had written off after a 33-point loss to Providence in January, topped Cincinnati 50-44 to win the Big East tournament title.

“I’ve had a lot of good memories in this place,’’ Pitino said amid the celebration on the court, “and this is one of them.’’

In recent years, plenty of people have argued the merits of conference tournaments. Outside of the one-bid-league fray, some say they are little more than annoying stopgaps to survive en route to the NCAA tournament.

After Syracuse was ousted by Cincinnati in the semifinals, the Orange said as much.

“As much as we want to win this tournament, the only one that matters is the one that starts next week,’’ coach Jim Boeheim said.

“Everyone says that,’’ Cincinnati coach Mick Cronin countered, “after they lose.’’

No one will question whether it matters to Pitino. Through a tumultuous year in the Big East, Pitino has emerged as the league’s primary politician and loudest cheerleader. He stumped for Memphis and Temple, practically begging his longtime friend and league commissioner John Marinatto to extend an invitation to the basketball-friendly schools.

And when Marinatto did, no one crowed more about what a fantastic job Marinatto had done, insisting that though the Big East will be different it will remain every bit as good, than Pitino.

Cynics might say he’s merely protecting his own brand. Louisville is here and no one left in the Big East wants anyone to think the conference is anything less than the power it always has been.

But to Pitino, it’s more than that. He holds the conference close to his heart, and while he accepts the changes he remains a traditionalist at heart, one who deeply believes in honoring the vision of league founder Dave Gavitt.

So to take home the crown, his second since Louisville joined in 2005, and the last in the league’s most powerful alignment, matters.

“This is the last time the Big East will be together like it was,’’ Cardinals guard Chris Smith said. “To win it, it means a lot to us. I know it means a lot to Coach P.’’

Pitino won the 10th conference title in his career (five SEC, two Big East, two Conference USA, and one North Atlantic) in vintage fashion, rebuilding another Humpty Dumpty of a team.

Along with massaging Gorgui Dieng into productivity, educating the enigmatic Russ Smith on the fine line of shot selection and riding the roller-coaster tendencies of point guard Peyton Siva, only three players have participated in all of the Cardinals’ games this year. The rest have helped construct an injury report that would make an NFL team blush:

Mike Marra, torn ACL, out all year; Rakeem Buckles, torn ACL, out since January; Stephan Van Treese, patellar injury, out all year; Wayne Blackshear, shoulder surgery, out 25 games; Siva, sprained ankle and concussion, missed three games; Kyle Kuric, sprained ankle, missed three games; Jared Swopshire, recovering from groin injury, missed two games.

It forced Pitino completely out of his comfort zone. He had to put the brakes on the fast-tempo style he’s always loved and felt this team was best suited for, and turned the Cardinals into a wildly unpredictable outfit.

“It was really hard,’’ Pitino's son and assistant coach Richard said. “In a lot of ways, this team overachieved, but then again he’s done that his whole career.’’

There is no secret to Pitino’s methods other than consistency.

Cronin spent two seasons working under Pitino at Louisville, taking a lifetime of learning in that short span.

“The most important thing he taught me is that you have to coach like you coach,’’ Cronin said. “You can't let outside people define who you are. You can’t let the kids splinter. You have to make sure they keep in mind who they are as people and who they are as a team.’’

It was a valuable lesson for Cronin this year as he shepherded Cincinnati from the black eye of the December brawl with Xavier to the brink of its first Big East crown -- and an equally crucial tool for the Cardinals.

The ante has been upped in Kentucky these days. Down the road in Lexington, John Calipari is busy collecting talent like a hoarder. His Wildcats will be announced as the overall No. 1 seed on Sunday evening and will head into the NCAA tournament as the favorite to win the title.

Louisville, in the meantime, has swung and missed on some recruits and entered the season on the heels of an NCAA tournament upset at the hands of Morehead State in the same year that Kentucky went to the Final Four.

“I know a lot of people back home doubted us,’’ Chris Smith said. “That’s OK. They’ll love us now.’’

Louisville did not win style points in this victory against Cincinnati. It was hard to watch, a slugfest where points were at a premium and the scoreboard had trouble nudging itself forward.

The Cards won because of their defense. Pitino challenged them to guard the arc like soldiers against the league’s leader in 3-pointers made per game -- “I told them I don’t care if they go by you; you have to guard them from the NBA line,’’ Pitino said.

It made all the difference. The same Cincinnati team that had 10 3-pointers by the half against Syracuse’s zone finished the game 3-of-14 against the Cardinals.

When the buzzer sounded, the players erupted, a mosh pit of infra-red jerseys celebrating in front of the court. Pitino, all business, walked to shake Cronin’s hand before finally breaking in to a wide grin as he hugged his assistants, wife and son, celebrating once more time on his own personal home court.

When he was walking in to work on Saturday night, a construction worker spied Pitino and yelled out, “Hey coach, you shoulda never left the Knicks!’’

“I looked up. He couldn’t have been more than 26 or 27,’’ Pitino said. “I yelled back, ‘You were in diapers.’’’

Perhaps, but New Yorkers never forget. Not when it comes to the Garden.

LOUISVILLE -- Kyle Kuric swished two huge shots to force overtime and Peyton Siva made the game-winning layup in Louisville’s 62-60 victory over Vanderbilt at the KFC Yum! Center on Friday.

But the real life-saver in the Cardinals’ win never left the bench.

Rick Pitino has an NCAA title ring in his jewelry box and is the only coach to lead three different schools to the Final Four. Still, in a roundabout way, what Pitino has done at Louisville the past few seasons is as impressive as any feat on the future Hall of Famer's résumé.

One year after leading a team with a glaring talent deficiency to a 25-win season and a third-place finish in the Big East, Pitino has the Cardinals off to a 7-0 start despite a list of injuries that would cause most programs to wilt.

McDonald’s All-American Wayne Blackshear has yet to play because of a shoulder injury. Mike Marra is done for the season with a torn ACL. Rakeem Buckles is working his way back from knee surgery, while Elisha Justice (broken nose) and Stephan Van Treese (knee) are out indefinitely.

Yet here are the Cardinals, undefeated and ranked sixth in the country.

“Never have I had as much fun coaching as I have the last two years,” Pitino said. “This team epitomizes everything you want in a team in terms of rooting for each other and not giving up.”

The reason for Louisville’s resolve is simple.

“We’re a reflection of our coach,” Siva said.

Indeed, it was a only a few years ago when some college basketball fans were calling for Pitino to resign following a messy off-court situation in which he was accused of impregnating a woman and then paying for her to have an abortion.

Still, rather than walking away from the game in shame, Pitino surged forward. Instead of floundering in the face of adversity, he flourished.

“We’re never going to give up,” Siva said. “Whether we’re out there with broken legs or broken noses or hands or whatever, we’re going to go out there and play for our coach. He puts so much hard work into practice and hard work into us. This is our time to show that we’re going to battle for him.”

The Cardinals’ talent level hasn’t been as high lately as it’s been in the past. Terrence Williams and Earl Clark were both NBA draft lottery picks in 2009, but since that time Louisville hasn’t had many NBA-caliber players on its roster.

While the situation might not speak all that well for Pitino’s recent accomplishments on the recruiting trail, it’s magnified his prowess on the sideline. No team in the country has made so much out of so little the past few seasons.

Louisville is counting on its fortunes changing as players such as Buckles and freshman Kevin Ware -- who becomes eligible Dec. 14 -- work their way into the rotation. Blackshear could be back by late January.

In the meantime, Louisville is achieving success thanks to a menacing defense and an aggressive mindset that allows it to fight back just as victories seem to be slipping away. Last season, the Cardinals won six games by five points or fewer. Three of its victories were in overtime.

“We’ve been winning close games the past two years,” Pitino said. “So I don’t think we have to learn, because we learned last year. It’s a treat to coach this team because you see so many great comebacks. There are times when you think they are dead, and then you just look up and we win the game.”

Friday was one of those occasions.

The Cardinals trailed by nine with less than eight minutes remaining and by six with less than four minutes remaining before battling back to force overtime against the 19th-ranked Commodores. Vanderbilt appeared to have the momentum after jumping out to a 55-50 lead early in the extra period, but Louisville fought right back and took a 58-57 lead on Kuric’s 3-pointer from the left corner with one minute left.

A pair of free throws by Vanderbilt’s John Jenkins made it 60-60 with 12 seconds left. That’s when Siva took the inbounds pass, jogged up the court and blew by two defenders on his way to the game-winning layup with 1.2 seconds remaining on the clock.

“I just wanted to go jump in the crowd or something,” Siva said. “I was saying, ‘God, thank you for letting me make that shot -- but please don’t let them hit a buzzer-beater from half court.’ ”

Instead, the Commodores never got off a shot, and a wild celebration ensued as the final horn sounded. Beaming from ear to ear near the sideline was Louisville’s 59-year-old head coach.

More than 600 wins and three decades since beginning his career, Pitino has never looked better.

Louisville freshman Wayne Blackshear was going to be a major part of the Cardinals' 2011-12 season. He was a prized top-30 recruit and a McDonald's All-American, and his mixture of athletic scoring and rebounding could have been a crucial complement to point guard Peyton Siva in Louisville's backcourt.

That potential seemed to be lost last week, when Blackshear suffered a torn labrum. The initial diagnosis indicated that the Louisville guard would miss the entire 2011-12 season. It wasn't a devastating loss, but it was a major hit. In Pitino's own words, his team with Blackshear could be "extremely good;" without Blackshear, it was merely "very good."

Fortunately for Cardinals fans, there is some good news to report: On Tuesday, Pitino told the media that Blackshear, who underwent surgery to repair the torn labrum this week, could return to the lineup within six to eight weeks:

“If this happened to like a Zach Price you wouldn’t worry about this season -- you’d just bring him along slow and redshirt him,” Pitino said in a phone interview. “But with Wayne Blackshear there’s no reason to redshirt him -- you just play him when he’s ready to play.”

It may be a slow recovery process, but there's no question Blackshear's new diagnosis is hugely positive. His impact on the Cardinals aside, Louisville has been beset by injuries in the preseason. After Siva suffered a concussion in practice this week, he became the eighth Louisville player to miss some portion of practice time in the two weeks since practice kicked off. Literally and figuratively, the appropriate phrase here is "ouch."

Louisville and Vanderbilt are both safely ensconced in the warmth of the Associated Press poll's preseason top 25. Both teams have high expectations -- it's fair to say the Final Four is the goal for both -- in 2011-12. And both teams, by varying degrees, will now have to deal with important injuries suffered late last week.

For Louisville, the news was downright devastating: Freshman Wayne Blackshear, a McDonald's All-American ranked No. 27 overall in the class of 2011, suffered a torn labrum in a practice Friday afternoon. The injury will require surgery and at least four months of recovery time, meaning Blackshear will almost certainly miss the entire 2011-12 season. At Big East media day, Louisville coach Rick Pitino described Blackshear's importance as such:

"With him, we are an extremely good team," Pitino said. "Without him, we are very good."

Some good news and some bad news for Louisville fans, then. The good news? Your coach still thinks your team is very good. The bad news? There may have been some shot at excellence there this season. Without Blackshear in the fold, that level may be just out of reach.
Vanderbilt's injury was less drastic, fortunately, but still serious all the same: Forward Festus Ezeli sprained ligaments in his knee in practice this week. (Ezeli was injured Tuesday, but Vanderbilt waited to receive the diagnosis before announcing the injury Friday.) The injury will take six to eight weeks of recovery time. The ironic part, if qualifies as irony, is that Ezeli was already set to miss some of that time -- the Commodores' first six games -- thanks to a suspension for secondary NCAA violations levied earlier this month. The length of Ezeli's injury will keep him out even longer, and the injury presents a new set of challenges, according to coach Kevin Stallings:

“I’m not proud of the fact we’ve had somebody suspended — albeit what he did, I think, was very unknowing and unaware,” Stallings said. “But it was a lot better when he was just suspended than when he’s injured because he was able to practice. There’s a huge difference from that standpoint. Now you have six to eight weeks of losing conditioning and timing and things like that.”

Another problem is timing. With the suspension alone, Ezeli would have returned just in time for Xavier's Nov. 28 visit to Nashville. That's as important a non-conference game as the Commodores have, and Ezeli is now sure to miss it. He's also likely to miss a massive road trip to Louisville on Dec. 2 and a Dec. 9 game at Davidson. Stallings said his already perimeter-oriented team will have to construct odd lineups and unusual rotations to keep up with opponents, and it's difficult to understate how much that transition -- the process of getting Ezeli in tune with his teammates after eight weeks of downtime -- can make a season's developmental curve sag.

At least Ezeli isn't out for the season. Louisville feels that pain. But neither team can be feeling particularly good.

1. Midnight Madness as we’ve come to know it may be dramatically altered if the Big South can get a proposal passed at the NCAA convention in January. The proposal amends bylaw 17.3.2 to align men’s basketball practices with the opportunity the women have. It would move the first official practice from the closest Friday to Oct. 15 to 40 days before the school's first game. The school cannot have more than 30 countable practices during that 40-day period and the amendement would be put into effect on Aug. 1, 2012. If this were in place for this season, then Arizona and Valparaiso would be able to start practice as early as Sept. 28, 40 days before their first game on Nov. 7. The opening of practices would be staggered as teams begin on different dates. VCU coach Shaka Smart said he’s in favor of the legislation to avoid early-season injuries when players go from two hours a week in practice to 20 hours a week once Oct. 15 hits.

2. Kentucky coach John Calipari said if returning sophomore wing Terrence Jones isn’t one of the top-three players in the country then he’s not sure who would be this season. Calipari is reacting to how well Jones is playing for him in practice, so far. But Calipari isn’t backing off his statement that Doron Lamb could be the best player on the team. Lamb is playing as hard as anyone and being productive. Calipari said the player who is making “every shot” and has “sneaky good offense” so far is freshman Kyle Wiltjer. All of this will be good for the Wildcats considering the most impressive talent should be freshman big man Anthony Davis.

3. Louisville’s season changed for the better with the news last week that freshman Wayne Blackshear has been cleared academically. Blackshear was being held up during a request for more documentation. Blackshear had to sit for five months with a dislocated left shoulder that had to be surgically repaired. Louisville assistant Richard Pitino said Blackshear isn’t in shape yet and isn’t ready to be a dominant layer. But by the end of the season the expectation among the staff is that Blackshear will be in the starting lineup and a likely force.

For the next month or so, our friends at The Mag are previewing one high-profile school per day for their Summer Buzz series. For the sake of all that is synergistic, yours truly will be attempting the same, complementing each comprehensive Insider preview with some analytic fun. Today's subject: the Louisville Cardinals.

Here's why previewing teams in the summer can be so difficult: Until we get to the season, we have no idea what teams can really become. The 2011 Louisville Cardinals are a perfect example.

Last season was supposed to be a holdover year for Rick Pitino. Last summer, things were looking grim. The Louisville coach had survived -- but been thoroughly embarrassed and chastised by -- the Karen Sypher extortion scandal. His recruiting had taken a dip, and the best player from the 2010 class, Justin Coleman, was unable to qualify for the team. Top 2011 point guard Marquis Teague, long considered a likely Louisville commitment, defected to the worst possible place for Louisville fans: Kentucky. Under Calipari, the hated Wildcats were on the rise. The 2010 Cardinals were mediocre, and the talent from that squad had been thinned by the early NBA departure of center Samardo Samuels and the graduations of Reginald Delk and Jerry Smith. Could 2011 really hold that much hope? What about the long-term health of the program? Had Louisville's best years under Pitino passed him by?

A year later, those concerns seem ridiculous. The 2011 Cardinals thrived. Pitino's decision to pick up the pace -- and his brilliant construction of a lineup that executed that could execute his classic pressing style effectively -- led to a 25-10 season and one of Pitino's finest seasons as a coach. Meanwhile, the recruiting picked up: Pitino landed commitments from Chane Behanan, Wayne Blackshear, Zac Price and Kevin Ware, all four of whom are ranked in 2011 ESPNU top 100. Guard Peyton Siva enjoyed a breakout year at the point guard spot, and is a likely preseason candidate for Big East player of the year.

The message is clear: Louisville isn't going anywhere.

Now that that's settled, the next item on the docket is another move toward the national elite. That will require the assimilation of those talented freshmen -- especially big men Behanan and Price -- into a lineup that would benefit from size and rebounding, especially in the wake of Terrence Jennings's strange decision to enter the NBA draft this spring. Jennings was often the only interior presence worth watching for the Cardinals. His 11.8 percent offensive rebounding percentage was a major contribution, one the team often needed when its offense struggled to get easy looks. Gorgui Dieng and Stephen Van Treese might be ready to step into larger roles; both posted OR% rates higher than 13 percent in limited minutes last season.

Another item of business involves replacing Preston Knowles -- another breakout catalyst of Louisville's surprising success -- on the offensive end of the floor. Knowles wasn't the most efficient scorer (his offensive rating was a good-but-not-great 105.0), but he had the highest usage rate and shot rates on the team. Siva's emergence may help to close that gap. Chris Smith's presence is a plus. But will Blackshear -- whose scouting report cites his outside shooting as his main weakness -- be able to contribute, too? If not, will Siva be able to adopt more of a perimeter scoring load?

But these are all minor concerns for Louisville fans. For a while there, it was the big picture that seemed most worrisome. Now, Pitino and Co. are back to basketball business as normal. No more existential crises. No more embarrassing headlines. Forgive the cliche, but what a difference a year makes.

"Finally" is a strange word to use in Louisville's case. After all, it was just 2008-09 that Rick Pitino took a star-laden team to a Big East title, a No. 1 NCAA tournament seed and an Elite Eight finish. Louisville hasn't exactly been dormant.

But the hoops culture in Kentucky is such that it probably feels like ages since the Cardinals were on top. Since last summer, it's been bad news item after bad news item: Pitino was the victim in a federally prosecuted extortion case; the Cardinals faltered in a just-OK 2009-10 campaign; Pitino's involvement in the Karen Sypher mess reached previously unseen levels of humiliation; Kentucky coach John Calipari was nabbing recruits left and right, including former Louisville target Marquis Teague; and the 2010-11 the Cardinals didn't offer much hope for the immediate future.

That's all still true. But as of yesterday, there is more reason for optimism than Louisville fans have had since Earl Clark was prowling the perimeter.

I'm referring, of course, to the commitment of the No. 32 overall player in the class of 2011, Chane Behanan, the fourth four-star prospect in Pitino's 2011 recruiting haul. The class was already looking loaded; Pitino previously nabbed the No. 33-ranked Wayne Blackshear and No. 73-ranked Zach Price. There could be more good news on the way, too, as some recruiting experts believe the No. 4-ranked player in 2011, forward Quincy Miller, and No. 50-ranked Deuce Bello, are both on the verge to committing to Louisville, too.

If both commit, Pitino could make a very legitimate claim on the best recruiting class in 2011. Even if one or neither do, Pitino has already made a major case about the legitimacy of his tenure and coaching going forward. Behanan was the highest-ranked prospect in the state of Kentucky in 2011. He was also recruited by John Calipari at Kentucky. That Pitino landed him instead is just the salve Cardinals fans -- many of whom were rightly worried that Calipari was going to make succeeding at Louisville impossible -- need.

It's been a rough year for those fans. It's been an even rougher one for Rick Pitino. But the good news is that there's good news. Finally.