Today’s new word learned while reading too much stuff during breakfast: Anvilicious.
Which I am using to describe “having an experience so harsh so vile that it’s like being hit with extreme prejudice over the head with an anvil.”
Like watching the Cardinals getting drawn and quartered at Cameron Indoor as if Mel Gibson in a Clan Buchanan kilt was ordering the punishment.
The evening was, shall we say, bracing.
Sobering.
And, eventually, having escaped the emotional detritus, having recovered somewhat from the numbness, now come moments of assessment, contemplation.
Coach, good on you for not sugar coating the massacre. For not prevaricating. For advising the weather and travel issues had nothing to do with it. For owning your responsibility as captain of the ship.
But, Coach, it was more than a butt kicking.
This was the Free Birds, Rowdy Roddy Piper, Lou Thesz, Captain Lou Albino and Hillbilly Jim wailing away on the Cardinals all at once.
A full body MRI and full body CAT Scan are necessary.
We hope to see are short term tweaks — this season with personnel and staff on hand — and long term resolution.
Looking forward, to use the favorite terminology of the commentariat, to Adjustments.
* * * * *
Louisville, despite the obvious difficulties with bigger, stronger, more aggressive teams, is still a tourney squad.
#19 in the NCAA NET, #18 in Ken Pomeroy, etc. etc.
It is the direction — a spiraling swoon — that worries.
Fascinating it shall be to see what Kelsey and his staff might change moving forward. The rest of the tilts are winnable, though that swing to visit Carolina and Clemson doesn’t look like fun.
A heart transplant might help.
Find a Yellow Brick Road somewhere?
But ya know, Oz never did give nothing to the Tin Man that he didn’t, didn’t already have.
Unless there’s some Ellis Myles/ Charles Jones clone who somehow earns immediate eligibility, the Cards’ frontline is the Cards’ frontline for the remainder of this season.
Mikel Brown is young, and will still be young in March. Lacking experience, he will not be morphing into Chucky Hepburn ’25, Peyton Siva ’13 or Phil Bond ’75.
I am not astute enough a hoops technician to suggest what changes need to be made this campaign. When my car needs work I take it to a mechanic.
Other than fighting all the way to the buzzer should there be another throttlement on the horizon.
I am just hopeful that the train gets back on the tracks.
* * * * *
Even more I look forward to seeing how Pat Kelsey adjusts — that word again — heading into next year and beyond?
Roster construction.
Modus operandi.
Coaching staff.
Nothing changes if nothing changes.
* * * * *
I do know the next right thing.
Beat Southern Methodist.
— c d kaplan
