Gillette Day, March 5.
Bring a Razor to donate to the Louisville Basketball team.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/nc ... e/5772953/
AT THE WATER COOLER: Louisville coach Rick Pitino and his players have decided not to shave their facial hair with a "grow our beards until we lose" approach.
The way the Cardinals (23-4, 12-2) have been playing lately, there may not be a need for a razor in March. Louisville has won six games in a row, most recently clipping AAC leader Cincinnati to move to the top of the league standings. With one more win (Thursday vs. Temple), the Cardinals could close out February without a loss.
With all the attention on former No. 1 Arizona, previously-unbeaten Syracuse and currently-unbeaten Wichita State, have we forgotten about the defending champs? It's not as if the Cardinals were written off, but we can't talk about Florida's veteran-laden, cohesive group without also turning the focus to a similarly stocked team loaded with championship experience.
Of course, going into the season there was plenty of back-to-back hype for this squad. While Louisville's four losses — North Carolina, Kentucky, Memphis and Cincinnati — weren't particularly glaring, the omission of a key victory was missing from its résumé up until Saturday. In USA TODAY Sports' latest bracketology projections, Louisville holds a No. 5 seed and much of that is drawn from the team's RPI of 27 and SoS of 96.
We can dissect the Cardinals' NCAA tournament credentials all we want, but let's not ignore the potential here. Russ Smith has matured and changed his "Russdiculous" game for the better. Junior college transfer Chris Jones has been a capable replacement for Peyton Siva at the point guard position. Montrezl Harrell has blossomed into a productive big man on offense and defense and senior forward Luke Hancock is playing more and more like the Final Four MVP version of himself.
It's almost laughable to consider Louisville an underdog, but there's no doubt the defending champions have dodged much of the national spotlight.
No need for motivation, though. They've got beards for that.