Lady Cards host Marquette in BIG EAST play tonight

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TUESDAY CARDINAL COUPLE

-Thanks for your patience

-Marquette breakdown and analysis

-Tay to Clemson

We appreciate your patience while we work out some technical difficulties at CARDINAL COUPLE. We'll still attempt a daily posting for you while we work these out...it may not be the fastest around but we'll give you what we can until we get things back to normal.

Photos and such will be something we won't be able to enter onto the site for awhile, looks like...please bear with us while we exorcise the demons from our computer. (Any holy water would be appreciated...)

-Cardinal Couple

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The Marquette Golden Eagles come to the KFC YUM! Center for a Tuesday night BIG EAST clash with the University of Louisville Lady Cardinals. The Golden Eagles arrive with a 9-5 record, 0-1 in conference and currently on a four game win streak. Notre Dame handed them their conference defeat, a rather lopsided 95-42 drubbing by the Irish.

Out of conference wins aren't all that impressive...they did knock off in-state rival Wisconsin...but have pretty much feasted on cupcakes besides that.

Marquette is led by 6'3" soph. forward Katherine Plouffe. She averages a team high 14.5 p.p.g and is co-leader on the boards with 7.9 grabs a game. She'll challenge the Cardinals inside and is a a strong, go to the hoop, type of player.

Arlesia Morse scores 11.2 a game for the Golden Eagles and is the leading three point threat...24-71 on the year. She's a 5'10" freshman guard and is adept at the three or taking a defender inside
the paint to score. Sarina Simmons, a 6'1" junior forward gives Marquette additional strength inside. She totals 10.9 p.p.g and is tied with Plouffe with 7.9 boards. The final double figure scorer for Terri Mitchell's squad is Apiew Ojulu. The 6'3" freshman center is scoring at a 10.6 a game. Scott County (KY) freshman Lauren Tibbs is another player off note...the 6'4" freshman center comes off the bench for Marquette.

Marquette is outscoring opponents 66.0 - 58.6 a game and outrebounds the foe by a 38.1 to 32.1 margin. They're
59-190 from three point range for .311.

The Cards, who have struggled most of the season with rebounding, will get a tough test tonight in the paint. Whether Walz chooses to remain with a three guard attack against the tall Golden Eagles remains to be seen - the Cards may have a little more quickness that M.U. but will need to have shots fall and be aggressive on defense after made shots to keep the Golden Eagles from using their inside attack. WE expect Terri Mitchell to subscribe to the 'stop Shoni" theory opponents have been using lately...so it'll be key for Becky to be "on" from beyond the arc and Bria to avoid foul trouble and penetrate and create.

The Golden Eagles are coached by Terri Mitchell. She's in her 16th. season and has a career record of 305-176. Last year, under her direction, the Golden Eagles went 24-9 and 10-6 in BIG EAST play. They defeated Texas in the first round of NCAA Tournament play  and fell to Tennessee in the second round.

Louisville will need some big time step up from Warren, Taylor, Dyer and the other "bigs" tonight if they hope to send Marquette back to Milwaukee 0-2 in conference play.

Game time is 7 p.m. We'll have a full report for you Wednesday on the outcome.


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By now, most of you have probably heard that Charmaine Tay is headed to Clemson. We wish her the best, hope she can "make the grade" down there and has a great rest of college experience.
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