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Rick Pitino loves horses. Last season he started a new custom in his hobby of naming horses for his own Louisville players. The honor was first bestowed last summer to Peyton Siva ("Siva") and Gorgui Dieng ("Dieng"), which was followed by "Russdiculo...

ATLANTA -- Beginning exactly one year ago today, we've known, or thought we've known, what Louisville was. Louisville was the best defensive team in the country. That's usually as far as it went. The Cardinals dominated defensively in 2012, and af...

ATLANTA -- The Louisville Cardinals are your 2013 national champions after beating Michigan 82-76. Overview: It was everything a national title game should be. Great offense, great pace, great performances, great stories and, having withstood all ...

"Digging In" is our in-depth look at what makes each of the Final Four teams tick, with an assist from the coaches who scout and prep for these teams all season. Our final scout: Louisville. How good is Louisville? Good enough to make opposing coa...

Four for Four is our quick look at a few things you need to know right here and now about the 2013 Final Four. We did it last April too, but I can't remember why the introduction was so long. "Guards win in the tournament." There are a lot of c...

A quick dive into Louisville's big Saturday afternoon win at the Carrier Dome: Overview: Here's the thing: If you sat down to watch Syracuse-Louisville expecting a free-flowing, finesse, up-tempo game of basketball, then you don't know much about ...

Scouting Louisville: The Cardinals reached the Final Four last season not only through timely plays and Russ Smith's overcaffeinated brilliance, but because Rick Pitino unleashed the frightening power of the nation's best defense for five consecutive...

Other than that whole UCLA thing -- I've watched that Norman Powell foul like 10 times already; it is sublime -- the biggest news of Sunday night came from Louisville. Forward Gorgui Dieng will miss an indefinite amount of time with a broken scaphoid...

Last December, before Louisville played The Buzzsaw That Was Kentucky to a respectably close margin on New Year's Eve, and months before it won the Big East tournament and went to the Final Four, where it would match up with Kentucky well enough agai...

Louisville's frontcourt was already quite good. Power forward Chane Behanan is prepared to take a star sophomore leap. Center Gorgui Dieng could already be the nation's best shot-blocker not named Jeff Withey or Nerlens Noel, while Dieng's offensive ...

You already know about the first. It's Louisville forward Jared Swopshire, who transferred out of Rick Pitino's program this spring in search of more playing time -- a scarce quantity in a frontcourt that already includes Chane Behanan, Gorgui Dieng,...

Throughout the 2012 NCAA tournament, and the Louisville Cardinals' unlikely run to the Final Four, Rick Pitino spoke openly and frequently about his feelings for his current team -- how much he loved coaching them, how hard they worked, how they maxi...

The 2012-13 Louisville frontcourt is pretty much set. At center, there is ever-developing block specialist Gorgui Dieng. At power forward, there is Chane Behanan, an adept post scorer who could be the nation's likeliest big-time breakout candidate...

NEW ORLEANS - A few quick bulleted thoughts on the first half of our first Final Four matchup: Louisville should be thrilled it trails by only seven. The Cardinals are, as expected, outclassed at every position. Nothing is coming easy on the off...

NEW ORLEANS -- Russ Smith always wanted to play for Rick Pitino. The only problem? Pitino didn't want to coach Russ Smith. The coach had seen plenty of the diminutive, scattershot guard as a seventh- and eighth-grader at the Louisville basketball ...

Louisville center Gorgui Dieng has come a long way -- both on and off the court -- since he left Kebemer, Senegal, and came to the United States three years ago. He arrived as a bean pole with minimal skills and no grasp of the English language. Last...