By Brett Jager
Fresh off an elite eight appearance in the NCAA Tournament last March, the University of Louisville men’s basketball team is eager to start this season.
“We can’t wait for this season to start,” Edgar Sosa, junior point guard, said. “It should be a great season for us and we have all the tools to go far in the tournament.”
The team returns with four starters; seniors Andre McGee and Terrence Williams, and juniors Jerry Smith and Earl Clark, as well as some key reserve players including Sosa.
U of L head coach Rick Pitino has also brought in one of the top recruiting classes in the nation for this season, including the highly touted Samardo Samuels, as well as Terrence Jennings, Jared Swopshire and Kyle Kuric.
“The freshmen will play a large part in determining how good we are this season,” Will Scott, senior guard, said. “They will have to play a lot of minutes and have to quickly learn the system, as well as mature and grow in a short period of time.”
The Cards tip off their season on Saturday with the Billy Minardi Classic against Morehead State. They will play the winner of the South Alabama-Florida A&M game the following day.
“It is very important to win those two games,” Sosa said. “It’s about as important as any other games because it is in memory of Mr. Minardi. We have to play well and if we don’t, it affects Coach P and the team as well.”
The Cards are ranked No. 3 in both the AP and ESPN/USA Today preseason polls. The team feels it was an honor being picked that highly, but they are aware of the attention it garners.
“Being ranked this highly, of course you’re going to have a bulls-eye on your back,” said Scott. “It’s a compliment to the work we did as a team last year, but this team has not earned that ranking so we have to prove ourselves.”
The Cards will once again play in the war zone that is the Big East Conference. The conference has seven teams in the top 25, four of which are ranked in the top 10. The Cards know they will have to be at the top of their game every night.
“Coach P stresses everyday that it is one of the best conferences in college basketball history,” Sosa said. “It’s going to be very strong, we just have to come out and play every game.”
Due to the toughness of the Big East schedule, Scott feels it is important for the Cards to play well in the non-conference schedule.
“Coach’s main point has been that the non-conference games cannot be played as they were in years past,” Scott said. “Since the Big East will be so tough this year we can’t afford to drop down by losing non-conference games because it would be near impossible to come back up.”
The Cardinals hope to use last season’s start as a learning tool to help make a better start to the current season. “Quietly to ourselves we think of winning nothing less than a championship,” Scott said.
