THIS AND THAT -- The Walz CN2 interview

.
SUNDAY CARDINAL COUPLE

-10 minute Walz interview with CN2's Chip Cosby

-Saturday in the BIG EAST WBB

-Softball goes to 9-0

Ran across this recent interview Louisville women's basketball coach Jeff Walz did with CN2's Chip Cosby.

Revealling, informative and a good watch:

DAVID WATSON

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded%20ed&v=ZVbGGwzOMYw

FROM THE BIG EAST SATURDAY:

UConn falls to St. John's 57-56. Sandy to follow with a look at this one. In other Saturday games:

# 15 Georgetown with a 66-39 win over Providence. Tia Magee had 17 for Georgetown.

#21 Rutgers defeats Villanova 61-52. April Sykes led Rutgers with 20 points.

#24 DePaul knocks off West Virginia 77-63. Brittany Hrynko scoring 21 and Anna Martin 19 for the Blue Demons.

USF downs Pitt 62-50. Andrell Smith getting 12 points and 10 rebounds for the Bulls and Jasmine Wynn leading with 14.

Syracuse handling Marquette 79-63

Cincy bests Seton Hall 54-48

All hail the softball Cards! A sweep Saturday. 9-0 on the season.

(I have to apologize. I may have inadvertantly erased the earlier CARDINAL COUPLE entries that Sandy and I did earlier today. See what happens when Paul and Sonja are gone? )

' CRUNCH TIME! We are at that point in the season where every game counts more than ever. Saturday evening I had written “Huge games this week will determine the seeding for the upcoming Big East Tournament.” I knew not to what extent I meant what I was saying. One of those huge games turned out to be St. Johns 57 at Connecticut 56. For the first time in years someone besides Connecticut has a true opportunity to win the Big East regular season. It’s too early to work out the number of possibilities but with a current 1st place (by one game) Notre Dame still to play the current 2nd place Connecticut at UConn, a new regular season champion is a greater possibility than in more years than I remember so absolutely, every game counts. To get the job done Notre Dame will have to do a much better job running a true offense instead of the two player street ball offense which was displayed in the West Virginia loss. The February 27 game will be the last played regular season game for both teams. ESPN2 is the lucky station to be airing the game. After Monday’s home Notre Dame game Louisville has back to back contests beginning Saturday 25th with DePaul for their last home game of the year which is quickly followed by their last regular season game only 2 days later on Monday the 27th at Seton Hall 0-13 / 7-20 in South Orange, NJ. The Cards can defeat DePaul but their fast paced game will require a lot of energy from a team who will have a short turn around time. Combined with travel, the Seton Hall game could be a particularly dangerous game with a team that has nothing to loose with pride at stake at a time when the final season rankings and tournament placements are at risk. BIG EAST Overall Notre Dame 12 - 1 25 - 2 Connecticut 11 - 2 24 - 3 St. John's 9 - 3 18 - 8 Georgetown 10 - 4 21 – 6 West Virginia 10 - 3 20 - 6 DePaul 8 - 5 20 - 7 Louisville 8 - 5 19 - 7 Rutgers 7 - 6 18 - 8 USF 7 - 7 15 - 13 Syracuse 5 - 8 16 - 11 Cincinnati 5 - 8 14 - 12 Villanova 5 - 9 15 - 12 Providence 5 - 9 13 - 14 Marquette 4 - 9 13 - 13 Pittsburgh 0 - 13 8 - 18 Seton Hall 0 - 13 7 - 20 As of Friday night Louisville currently is sharing the 6th & 7th places in the conference with DePaul (DePaul has one additional out of conference win) but less than 1 win separates their current position from USF’s current 9th place standing. Louisville has the opportunity to help itself by defeating DePaul at home on the 25th, which is actually a home weekend game. This is where the Louisville fan base needs to do their part by showing up and cheering to such an extent that we become a 6th player for the team. Mark your calendars. The remaining Women’s Big East Basketball Schedule can be found at the Big East Website: http://www.bigeast.org/Schedules/ScheduleData.aspx?sportid=7&season=2011 The first round of the Big East Tournament begins 3 days later on Friday March 2 at Hartford, Conn. Teams who finish 9th or lower in the regular conference game standings will begin play on that date. 5th through 8th place finishers are rewarded with a first round bye and will begin play on Saturday March 3 while those who finish the regular season in 1st through 4th place are rewarded with byes in the first 2 rounds and will not begin play until Sunday March 4. There are no days off as the Semi-final is set for Monday with the Championship game on Tuesday. For those of you who follow bracket placements, later this week I will post the Big East Championship Tie Breaker Rules. THIS AND THAT Cardinals in the news In case anyone missed the Jude and Shoni article by Graham Hays – you can find it in the February 17 ESPN.com archives at womens-college-basketball/story/_/id/7584730/jude-schimmel-perfectly-comfortable-role-little-sis-louisville-cardinals Positive national exposure is always a good thing. BASKETBALL RECRUITING NEWS The unfortunate word is that Mercedes Russell and more than likely also Stephanie Mavunga will not be able to attend Monday’s Notre Dame game as planned due to Mercedes commitment to her high school team to play in a rescheduled bad weather game. Bummer as the YUM center experience can’t be reproduced by television or video recordings. Perhaps they can make it to the DePaul game. We are getting into the time of year where I am constantly chasing online and written TV guides for postings of women’s basketball. I’ve found a few postings and sites which are reprinted below. NCAAW Basketball Today on ESPN3 Tennessee vs. Ole Miss, 2 p.m. C. Michigan vs. Ball St., 2 p.m. SIU vs. Missouri State, 3 p.m. Duke vs. Maryland, 3 p.m. S. Carolina vs. Alabama, 3 p.m. FSU vs. Miami, 3:30 p.m. Georgia vs. Florida, 3:30 p.m. Purdue vs. Michigan St., 5:00 p.m. U Of L Softball The Big East Pre-Season Poll found the U of L Softball Team picked to finish 4th in the conference behind DePaul, Syracuse and Notre Dame. This weekend the 5-0 U of L team has traveled to Greenville, N.C. to play in the East Carolina Pirate Clash being held a the ECU Softball Stadium. They come into the tournament ranked 21/23 in the nation. Friday found U of L defeating Virginia 4-2 and then defeating East Carolina 5-0. Saturday’s schedule began at 9 a.m. with a defeat of Hofstra by a score of 7-6 and was followed by an 11:00 UNC-Greensboro clash where Louisville continued their winning streak with a 5-4 win. Today the 7-0 Cardinals will play Fordham at 9 a.m. BIG EAST WOMEN BASKETBALL standings in the RPI NCAAW RPI Rankings as of Jan. 30, 2012 are posted at http://www.bigeast.org/portals/5/fls/19400/pdfs/womens_basketball/2011-12/polls.pdf School RPI Rank Connecticut 3 Notre Dame 5 Rutgers 10 Villanova 15 Louisville 16 DePaul 21 Georgetown 24 St. John’s 41 West Virginia 72 Providence 74 Marquette 81 USF 83 Cincinnati 96 Syracuse 124 Pittsburgh 151 Seton Hall 152 Locating games which can be viewed can be difficult. In case you are looking, check out the remaining ESPN associated televised NCAAW Regular Season Womens’s basketball games. Let us know in the comments area of other sites which are posting additional game viewing web addresses or televised stations and I will add them to the site. http://espn.go.com/womens-college-basketball/story/_/id/7117985/espn-televise-100-women-basketball-games shows the remaining regular season ESPN associated NCAAW basketball games. They are reported as follows: Sun., Feb. 19 NC State at North Carolina ESPNU 1:30 p.m. Duke at Maryland ESPN2 / ESPN3 3:00 p.m. Georgia at Florida ESPNU 3:30 p.m. Purdue at Michigan State ESPN2 / ESPN3 5:00 p.m. Mon., Feb. 20 Notre Dame at Louisville ESPN / ESPN3 2 p.m. Ohio State at Penn State ESPN2 / ESPN3 7 p.m. Elon at College of Charleston ESPN3* 7 p.m. Vanderbilt at Kentucky ESPN2 / ESPN3 9 p.m. Thur., Feb. 23 Iona at Marist ESPN3* 6 p.m. Hofstra at James Madison ESPN3* 7 p.m. Fri., Feb. 24 Miami at Duke ESPN3* 7 p.m. Sat., Feb. 25 Robert Morris at Quinnipiac ESPN3* 1:30 p.m. Sun., Feb. 26 Fairfield at Rider ESPN3* 1 p.m. Kentucky at Mississippi State ESPNU 1:30 p.m. Duke at North Carolina ESPN2 / ESPN3 3 p.m. Florida at Tennessee ESPNU 3:30 p.m. LSU at Georgia ESPN2 / ESPN3 5 p.m. Mon., Feb. 27 Baylor at Texas A&MBig Mon. ESPN2 / ESPN3 7 p.m. Appalachian State at Chattanooga ESPN3* 7 p.m. Notre Dame at Connecticut ESPN2 / ESPN3 9 p.m. Sandy Walker