Thursday afternoon Cardinal news and notes

—It’s game day for the red hot Louisville women’s basketball team. The Cards will face Notre Dame for a matchup of top 25 teams in South Bend. Here’s a preview.

—The big story in the world of college basketball today is that 20 men were charged in a point-shaving scheme involving more than 39 college basketball players on more than 17 teams, leading to more than 29 games being fixed, according to an indictment unsealed Thursday.

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One of the teams involved was DePaul, which was actively throwing games during a 2023-24 season in which it went 3-29 overall and 0-21 in the Big East … and beat Louisville by 7 in a game where it led by as many as 19 points.

The fact that we are, at this very moment, still paying Kenny Payne an exorbitant amount of money is beyond nauseating.

—One of the players charged in the indictment is former Louisville commit and eventual LSU Tiger Antonio Blakeney.

—Eric Crawford has some thoughts on the London Johnson situation at Louisville.

—The latest ESPN mock NBA Draft has Mikel Brown Jr. going sixth overall.

Mikel Brown Jr., PG, Louisville
Freshman
2025-26 stats: 16.6 points, 3.0 rebounds, 5.1 assists in 10 games

It’s still early in this process, but the sense I’ve gotten from a wide range of team sources is that this draft opens up in a major way after the first five picks. Though there is plenty of talent left on the board, there is less separating the next group of prospects, and more variance in the confidence levels of scouts projecting long term for these players. There is still time for this to change, but the rest of the lottery is wide open going into the second half of the season.

That brings us to Brown, who has not played since Dec. 13 because of a back injury and remains out indefinitely. He showed strong flashes of talent, including 29 points against Kentucky in November, but his top-five momentum has stalled because of his absence, leaving the door open for Kingston Flemings and potentially Darius Acuff to…

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Publish date : 2026-01-15 18:58:00

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