When Louisville made the jump to the Big East for the 2005-2006 athletic calendar year, Notre Dame was the “gold standard” for most every sport not titled football or men’s basketball. Tom Jurich did not look at the opportunity to be in the same league as the Irish as grounds for a fight for second place. He wanted to establish the better program.
From 1995-2005, the Irish won the conference nine times. Louisville would win the league five of the next seven seasons. Fast forward a couple of conferences and decades later; Louisville has now won 11 in a row in the head-to-head series against Notre Dame, including two this past week.
The Irish and the Cards are “travel partners” for ACC road trips, but this past week the two would travel to each other for a pair of conference matches. Louisville was 12-2 and ranked No. 4 in the country, Notre Dame was 4-6 coming into the week…