TUESDAY CARDINAL COUPLE
UConn Takes The AAC Title
That having been said, foul shots weren't going to change the outcome of this game. Unlike their previous meeting last week, UofL did manage to control the boards, block out and get some rebounds...some of the time. Unfortunately, the boards weren't consistent and UConn was able to take advantage of the times when Louisville wasn't rebounding well to get 2nd and 3rd chance points. Stephanie Dolson and Breanna Stewart were particularly effective at cleaning the glass with 16 and 9 rebounds, respectively. UConn outrebounded UofL 47 to 37.
Louisville only shot 30.3%, but UConn only shot 42.4%. If there's a particularly bright spot, its that Louisville was perfect from the charity stripe...although with only three attempts, that may not have been enough to be statistically significant.
Shoni Schimmel finally shook off the Huskies Blues by scoring 20 points, although not many other players on the team were able to hit their full potential. Nita Slaughter went scoreless, Asia Taylor only got seven. Tia Gibbs and Jude Schimmel both connected for six, while Sara Hammond tallied five. Bria Smith gets four points in only 16 minutes of play that was clearly shortened by continued knee pain.
UofL will now wait to see what the people that matter think about whether we should be the 4th #1 seed in the NCAA tournament. The NCAA will announce the field on Monday the 17th at 7pm. Louisville will host an event, as they did last year, at the KFC Yum! Center. This event was a lot of fun last year, so make plans to attend.
Softball Defeated by Illinois State
In a game rescheduled from Saturday, The Illinois State Redbirds beat UofL out at Ulmer Stadium 5-2. Freshman Maryssa Becker pitched most of the game, with Rachel LeCoq coming in to pitch for a disastrous third of an inning in the 5th, allowing three of ISUs five runs before Becker returned to the circle to finish out the game.
Louisville's two scores in the game came in the third inning with Katie Keller, who had been in a bit of a hitting slump coming into this weekend's games continues to roar back with a single. Whitney Arion followed with a double, scoring Keller. Maryssa Becker with a single gets Arion home.
The Cards had runners in scoring position in the last three innings of the game, but, as has seemed to be the case often this year, couldn't finish it out and get the runs.
UofL and Illinois State continue Spring Break play with a game at 1pm today.
jeffmca
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It looks like Creme is sobering up about UConn having to play in the Louisville regional. I don't think it's coincidental that yesterday ESPN rated the top 8 tourney seeds and the Cards came in at #3. I'm betting we get a #1 seed.
ReplyDeletehttp://espn.go.com/womens-college-basketball/story/_/id/10587566/women-college-basketball-rethinking-connecticut-huskies-placement-louisville-regional
I think that Creme finally got it right.
ReplyDeleteEven though you can make a decent case that Cards get a #1 (over Stanford, I think), it looks pretty certain that Stanford remains a #1 and UT gets the fourth #1.
I'm OK with that, as long as UT comes here.
As regards last night's game....you don't get to the FT line when all you do is shoot perimeter jump shots. And I'm sure that Geno is perfectly happy with Shoni getting 20 as long as it takes her 25 shots to do it.
No guarantees that Cardinals make it back here....a second-round matchup with a team like Iowa State is no bargain.
Eeegawds...Charlie Creme making sense. What is the world coming to?
ReplyDeleteI think Louisville players played really hard in this game, and that is all you can ask. They were playing with basically a WNBA team playing in college. UConn would be competitive with at least a third of the teams in the WBNA.
ReplyDeleteI have been following Shoni for over 6 years, and I have never seen her play harder than she did last night. She played hard both offensively and defensively, and I have never seen her run so fast as she did in getting back on defense to try to thwart a couple of UConn fast breaks. She was taking long strides and really motoring. She also gave it her all on the offensive end. It was not her best game offensively but she made some nice plays - the best one of which was not even noticed or comment upon by the TV people. They had Breanna S on her and she took her off the dribble and went from the wing to the other side of the land, hitting a 10 foot shot over Stewart. In many ways that was as great an effort as the shot over Brittany last year.
Bria Smith made a vallant effort out there while she could play, and would have been a big help if she could have played the whole game. I hope she did not re-injure the knee badly. When she is playing well she is a big asset to this team. It has taken all three players who sat out with heath issues a long time to get back to form. Nia got back a couple of weeks ago and Jude got some of her confidence back in her great effort against USF, and Bria looked like she was getting back before she went down against UConn.
It looks like the Cards will enter the tournament with a full deck or close to it. They will need it. There are a lot of very good teams this year. These very good teams are kind of overshadowed by UConn and ND being so great. Gary W.
Both Shoni and Jude have been nominated for the annual AAU James E Sullivan award. Pretty Cool. Voting is open to the public so if you get chance pick a sister and vote.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.aausports.org/News/View-Story/ArtMID/1108/ArticleID/52414/CategoryID/126/AAU-Announces-2013-Sullivan-Award-Nominees