Let's start with this: Normalcy is an illusion, in all walks of life. There is no universally accepted standard. There are no universally accepted and clearly defined borders within which all "normal" activity must exist.
Since this truth is, as mentioned, applicable to all walks of life, it's applicable to men's college basketball, which is what we're going to talk about today.
The word "normal" feels especially out of place when using it in the realm of a sport that is largely defined by its "madness."
There are 352 teams competing in Division-I basketball this season. A normal season for North Carolina and a normal season for North Carolina A&T are two extremely different things. The definition is only slightly easier to pinpoint when talking about each program specifically. A national title winning season or a Final Four run isn't necessarily "normal" for the Tar Heels. Neither is missing the NCAA tournament or being on the wrong end of a first round upset.
Clarity in college basketball is every bit the illusion that normalcy yet.
Despite all this, when you read the following statement, I have all the faith in the world that you're going to understand it in exactly the same way that I do: Tonight at 7 the Louisville men's basketball program is going to tip-off a season that should feel overwhelmingly normal to the U of L fan base.
Louisville is not ranked in either human top 25 poll. No one is predicting the Cardinals to crash the Final Four or play for a national championship. The ACC media voted the Cardinals ninth in the league's preseason poll.
And yet, here I am, legitimately giddy thinking about the five months that lie in front of us.
For nearly a decade, nothing around here has felt normal.
Katina Powell, Andre McGee, a canceled postseason, a lost championship banner, the FBI probe, a fired Hall of Fame coach, a fired athletic director, the David Padgett season, COVID, another canceled postseason, another extortion case, another FBI probe, parting ways with a coach in the middle of a season, losing, losing, losing and more losing.
In the midst of all these storms, there have been more moments than I can count where folks have declared a parting of the clouds, a return to the way things are supposed to be. Unfortunately, the warm rays of normalcy have never quite been able to break through. For nearly 10 years we have remained confused, angry, and in the dark.
At the lowest points of the period of time that we will hopefully refer to as the lowest in program history and are now prepared to leave behind forever, we've all been prone to uttering those four all-too-easy to catch and release words: "my god, it's just a game."
On the surface, of course, it's an accurate statement, but I think the implication inherent in the phrase is about as drastic an oversimplification as there is. Especially when the saying is directed at fans like the ones who have been following Louisville basketball their entire lives.
If you're reading this, you probably spend as much time reading about U of L basketball, thinking about U of L basketball, going to U of L basketball games or watching them from your home as I do. When you're willing to devote that much of yourself to something, to anything, phrases like "it's just a game" fall pretty flat.
It's been easy to forget in recent years that this is supposed to be about basketball, about on-court victories and defeats for an institution most of us have cared far too much about for as long as we can remember. For a while, the extreme lows of the past decade were mostly focused on off-the-court matters. It made us yearn for the "normalcy" of on-court failures. The on-court failures then returned, but they were anything other than normal.
The numbers, the records set and the wild facts created in the previous two years are still almost too jarring to fully process.
Twelve wins and FIFTY-TWO losses over two seasons.
The only two 21-plus loss seasons in the 110-year history of the program.
More exhibition game losses to Division-II opponents (2) than games won away from home (1).
More losses by 20 points or more (14) than overall wins (12).
A final finish of No. 290 on KenPom in 2023 and No. 203 a year later.
You could have given me a hypothetical with any sort of NCAA punishment -- postseason ban, TV ban, death penalty, not allowed to play anyone taller than 6-feet -- and these are still numbers that I would have deemed impossible by the University of Louisville men's basketball program.
All of it still feels like something of a fever dream.
The latest jolt of hope has come in the form that it typically does: A sweeping change, a new regime, a believable promise of a return to all that was good and a shedding of all that has been bad.
In eight months on the job, Pat Kelsey has done everything and more that one could have reasonably expected to do in order to make Louisville basketball feel like Louisville basketball again.
Through the transfer portal, Kelsey quickly assembled a roster loaded with talent and experience, one that appears fully capable of playing his brand of basketball and having success doing it against an extremely challenging schedule. He's endeared himself to the fan base by consistently engaging with them, and by showcasing through his words, his action and his energy that he fully understands and appreciates the gravity of the position he finds himself in. It's been impressive, it's been refreshing, and it's been inarguably encouraging.
As of today, it also means nothing.
Kelsey, as is the case with all of his colleagues and predecessors, will ultimately be judged by how much he wins. If it's not enough, the talent on his roster will make the leap from justification for hope to evidence that he can't get it done at this level. His unrivaled energy and enthusiasm will immediately morph from captivating and endearing to gimmicky and hollow. I'm not saying anything that he doesn't already know.
There are ample reasons to believe that this time is going to be different. For starters, we've seen this team compete four times in exhibition play, and every single time it has looked different, in the best possible way. While the style of play may have been a hard left turn from anything we've seen before, the energy, the passion, the togetherness; All of that was welcomingly familiar.
Secondly, Kelsey seems to grasp what this is supposed to be -- at least as much as someone who's never actually experienced it is able to. You have to have the right combination of normal person and absolute basketball psycho to hack it at a place like Louisville. Kelsey seems to possess that rare blend.
Time will ultimately tell, and it's difficult to find fault with the "need to see it to believe it" crowd.
If you're reading this, then you're probably like me in that you've cared more about Louisville basketball than you should for about as long as you can remember. This thing that is so special to so many of us should never feel like a chore or something we follow merely out of habit. This is supposed to be fun -- the best kind of fun -- and it hasn't felt that way in far too long.
This is what leads to the cynicism, the lashing out, the empty seats, the debates about change and the fractures in the fan base that we've experienced more times than not over the last eight years. We've always all been on the same page in the most important of respects: We all want this to go back to being fun again. We all want this to make us feel the way it used to. We all want this to go back to being "normal."
This evening, the 2024-25 Louisville men's basketball season will begin when the Cardinals host the Morehead State Eagles. If the team plays the way I believe it will, tonight will begin the return of a beautiful five-month journey that should reignite feelings and emotions in all of us that we forgot were there.
We need to lose ourselves again. The thoughts of what has been don't need to miraculously disintegrate (and they won't), but for these five months they need to exist only behind a box somewhere in the seasonal decorations closet of our collective sports brain. We need to immerse ourselves in bracket projections and debates over lineup combinations. We need to religiously check the rankings of predictive metrics whose formulas we couldn't begin to comprehend. We need to pretend as though this season, this period of time from early to November through late March or early April, is the only thing that matters.
We need to be our weird as hell brand of normal again.
It's time for the beautiful journey to return. It's time for this to be fun again. It's time to embrace the splendor of normalcy's return after a prolonged absence.
Eleven months ago, I wrote about the pain of being at rock bottom and not being able to do anything about it. Tonight, we get to climb.