Cards picked third in BIG EAST...Reid, Schimmel picked for All BIG EAST squad.

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FRIDAY CARDINAL COUPLE

-Coaches pick Lady Cards third in BIG EAST women's basketball pre-season poll

-Shoni, Monique seleced to pre-season All BIG EAST team

Media day in New York for BIG EAST women's basketball. Not a lot of surprises. The coaches picked their pre-season rankings and theirs turned out about like the CARDINAL COUPLE poll we ran. The results:

1.  Notre Dame (9 first place votes)  219 (total points)   9. WVU         108
2. Connecticut   7                           216                      10. USF           96
3.  LOUISVILLE                               191                     11. Marquette  92
4.  Rutgers                                     176                      12. Pittsburgh   62
5.  Georgetown                              175                      13. Villanova    54
6.  DePaul                                      152                      14. Providence 51
7.  St. John                                    145                      15. Cincinnati   38
8.  Syracuse                                    123                      16. Seton Hall   22

They also came up with a pre-season freshman of the year. That award went to Kaleena Mosqueda-Lewis, who is at UConn. That is a good choice. Seen her play and she's deserving of the award. Go take it to her, Bria, Sara and Jude...

Skylar Diggins was selected pre-season BIG EAST Player of the Year. Once again, can't disagree with the selection here. She led the Irish to the title game last year and now that Maya Moore is in the WNBA....she's the heir apparant. Be paitent, Shoni...your turn comes next year.

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The coaches also came up with a BIG EAST Pre-Season Team selection. Louisville did well here with both Shoni and Mo getting selected. Here's the rest:

Bria Hartley                   UConn
Tiffany Hayes                UConn
Keisha Hampton             DePaul
Sugar Rodgers                Georgetown

Natalie Novosel             Notre Dame
Devereaux Peters          Notre Dame
Shenneika Smith            St. John
Da'Shena Stevens           St. John
Kayla Alexander             Syracuse

No major problems here, except WE would have liked to seen Khadijah Rushdan of Rutgers figured into this all-star mix. Too good to delegate to Honorable Mention...where she ended up with BIG EAST Punk of the Year April Sykes. (a CARDINAL COUPLE award).
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