It wasn't an injury bug that threw around Rick Pitino's Louisville Cardinals last season. Bugs are small creatures that splatter innocently against windshields. This was an injury cobra, a selective striker that exposed the facade from a team posing as one that belonged at the top of the college basketball rankings. Before the venom set in, Louisville had won 16 straight games and rose to No. 4 in the Associated Press poll. Along the way the Cardinals had poisoned two number one ranked teams -- Florida and Kentucky -- and handed Conference USA rival Cincinnati a historic, 27-point thrashing. The Bearcat win was the first sign of trouble -- shooting guard Taquan Dean had played through what was then thought to be a groin strain to contribute 21 points. Then magnificent small forward Francisco Garcia sprained one of his ankles in a three-point victory over Tennessee. The full-blown epidemic was soon to follow, beginning at the least likely source. For what he described as a "urological-related" uncomfort, Pitino then took a medical leave of absence in January. Pitino, Garcia and Dean would miss Louisville's 64-48 win against Houston. All three were back in action the following Saturday against Marquette, but the wheels were starting to come off. In Freedom Hall, the Warriors ended the Cardinals' streak as Garcia and Dean limped through. Both of them didn’t come off the bench against Memphis the following game and Louisville lost again. Two weeks later, the team's best rebounder Luke Whitehead, sprained an ankle and sat out the Cardinals defeat in the rematch with Cincinnati. To finish out, Pitino's squad dropped nine of its last 13 games. They went from one of the top five teams in the nation to a first-round NCAA Tournament exit at the hands of Xavier, the snake-bitten Cardinals plunged to mediocrity after a few bad breaks.

The late-season meltdown hardly slowed the rising optimism Pitino has brought back to the program. In March of ’02, the university signed Pitino to a three-year contract extension through the 2009-10 season. Pitino still had three years and a $5 million bonus waiting at the last part of the original six-year agreement he signed with Louisville on March 21, 2001. Since the 52-year-old Pitino came to town off an unlucky stint as president and coach of the Boston Celtics, donations to the Cardinal Athletic Club have increased by nearly $2 million. Direct gifts to his program have surpassed $5 million in the same span. Also, the overall GPA of the team is higher than it's ever been since the school began keeping track of the statistic in 1984. Also, attendance in Freedom Hall exploded to an average of 19,443 per game last year, the third-highest ever for Louisville. Most essential of all might be that Pitino believes his fourth year in Louisville will rationalize all of the benefits accrued from his arrival, even though he lost super recruit Sebastian Telfair and junior college hoss Donta Smith to the NBA Draft. Two extraordinary recruits and one long-lost warrior are expected to try and fill the Cardinals one gaping deficiency -- their interior play. Furthermore, Pitino has the right mix of senior leadership and youthful verve to slingshot the team to the NCAA's upper echelon – for the entire season. Barring another injury cobra, that is.