As I did on the morning after Louisville’s first Freedom Hall game in 1956, I woke up early, before the rest of the family. And slipped outside in the dark very early morning to get the paper. (Complain all you want to about indigo on papyrus, and the current state of print journalism, there’s still nothing that beats reading about a big W in the newspaper.)

Except that I beat the newspaper delivery guy. But his papers were in a bag laying on my lawn while he made deliveries down the street. I took mine, left a note so he wouldn’t double deliver and started to head inside. Then I saw him walking up.

“I’ve already got my paper,” I advised him. “Had to get up early to read about the game.”

“What a perfect game, eh?”

Yes, my man, it was.

* * * * *

Louisville opened its Freedom Hall Era with a 10 point W over Notre Dame. Louisville closed its Freedom Hall Era with a 10 point win over #1 Syracuse.

Almost perfect bookends, wouldn’t you say?

The morning after that first win, U of L, still second fiddle around here, had to share the headlines with UK, who had beaten Illinois. Not so today. The Cards were not only the lead story locally, sports and otherwise, but the leading sports story nationally on these two modern inventions I like to call the internet and ESPN.

* * * * *

For many, myself included, who have grown up with Louisville hoops and made it a significant part of our lives, yesterday was special.

When the game was still in doubt, we were not above invoking the intervention of spirit forces from on high.

At some point during a timeout early in the second half, I talked with my mom and dad. Big Cardinal fans. They passed away decades ago.

“I don’t know if there’s anything like a hereafter. But, if there is, and you guys are watching the game, as I know you would be, now’s the time to talk to the b-ball Gods up there. If they have a heart, they’ll see that the Cards pull this one out.”

So it came to pass.

Thanks to you both. For yesterday. And for the decades of love for U of L basketball that you passed on to me.

* * * * *

I had a sense that the day might end up as special as we hoped. Walking the halls before the game, I ran into Charlie Gabriel.

Cardinal fans will remember him as the Unknown Musician, the member of the pep band during the halcyon days, who, sporting a paper bag over his head, would do a funky dance on court during timeouts.

“I just got a ticket late yesterday,” he said. “A buddy from Meinecke called me and said he looked down his list of best customers to see who to give his extra ticket to.” Always the joker, that now not so Unknown Musician.

“You gotta a paper bag for your head?”

He pulled out a little brown brown bag with eyes and a mouth drawn on it, big enough to put over his hand.

I walked away with a good feeling. If the Unknown Musician had made it into the house, something good was surely meant to happen.

* * * * *

Non Hoops Moment of the Day. Before the game, new Cardinal football coach Charlie Strong was chatting up some folks at the end of the runway that leads from the locker room to the floor, outside the Media Room. ESPN sideline reporter Holly Rowe saw him, walked up, and they gave each other a big hug, the kind old friends give.

My thoughts: Louisville is gonna be a pigskin playah!

* * * * *

What I know is this. This is what we do around here, this college basketball thing. It is what we love. It is who we are. It is what sustains us.

From Adolph Rupp to Uncle Ed Diddle to Peck Hickman to Branch McCracken to John Dromo to Joe B. Hall to Johnny Oldham to Denny Crum to Rick Pitino; from Bill Spiivey to Charlie Tyra to Cotton Nash to Bobby Rascoe to Don Goldstein to Wade Houston to L’il Richie to Dr. Dunkenstein to Kyle Kuric.

College hoops has become entwined in the helix of our DNA. Through thick and thin, good times and bad, despite the whole nettlesome Blue vs. Red animus, we are all one when it comes to our first love.

For Cardinal fans, yesterday was a celebration which will be hard to top. Yes, it’s time to move on. But the foundation that is Freedom Hall will always — always — be a significant anchor to U of L’s basketball tradition.

Big Barn. Gathering Place. Call the old gal what you will. She’s been there for us for decades. Never more so than yesterday.

* * * * *

One last shout out.

To Rick Pitino.

At the end of his portion of yesterday’s post-game proceedings, he was the classiest of class acts.

To paraphrase him, “There’s only one man who deserves to have the last word at Freedom Hall.”

At which point, he handed the microphone to Denny Crum.

Then the current coach and his two-time national champion, Hall of Fame successor hugged.

– Seedy K