CARDINAL COUPLE

CARDINAL COUPLE
We report on the joy and excitement of UofL women's sports here. Thanks for checking us out! Click the picture of Louie to hear the latest Cardinal Couple Radio Hour Podcast!!

Thursday, January 29, 2015

Strong second half soars Cards over Syracuse 78-58 -- Friday Cardinal Couple



FOUR IN DOUBLE FIGURES FOR WALZ'S 200th WIN


Photo by Charlie Springer -- UofL Card Game. Check out Charlie's gallery at
www.uoflcardgame.com




The University of Louisville women's basketball team began the second half on a 13-2 run and then put together a 16-2 run over a four minute stretch midway through the final half to defeat Syracuse 78-58 before 8387 fans Thursday night in the KFC YUM! Center.

As much as the final twenty minutes were a priceless work of art by Louisville, the first twenty were rough to watch at times. The Cards missed their first five shots and continued to watch the ball fail to drop through the cylinder...falling behind early and trailing 10-7 with 13:30 remaining...thanks to a shot clock buzzer-beater three by Brianna Butler. 

Louisville was 2-10 from the field at that point and Walz inserted both Myisha Hines-Allen and Sherrone Vails into the contest to spark some life into the weak paint play the Cards were producing.

It didn't work...at first. Syracuse jumped ahead 19-11 after forward Taylor Ford got one of her four first half baskets with seven minutes of first half action left. Louisville started to battle back from that point, though...A Jude Schimmel three drew Louisville within two at 21-19 at the 3:25 mark. Hines-Allen tied it up with 50 seconds left and the Cards went in at halftime down just one at 30-29 when Hines-Allen took a Schimmel feed a with six seconds left and scored in the paint. 

Louisville managed to shoot 38.7% for the first twenty after starting 3 for 14. Hines-Allen's strong ten minutes off the bench produced 12 points to lead the Cardinal scorers and 
reserve Taylor Ford and 10 for the 'Cuse.

We were all hoping for a little better Cardinal shooting and production in the final twenty and we got our wish. 

A designed start-of-the-half three look for Mariya Moore produced a trifecta and the Cards went on a 13-2 run capped by a Jude three to grab a 42-32 advantage barely three minutes into action.



 "Q" got a time out for his baffled and step-slow Orange (and nearly a technical for protesting a Hammond steal we thought was a foul) but the adjustments and pep talk could not rally Syracuse.  They didn't get closer than seven points the rest of the way.

The officials stopped action with 14:57 to play when Hammond took a hard slap to the face from a Syracuse player after a Alexis Peterson jumper. Both coaches were called to half-court to confer with the referees over the incident...Walz arguing vehemently for a foul and "Q" protesting just as loudly that it wasn't intentional. No foul was called, which led Walz to ask if open hand slaps to player's faces were now OK...

The Cards took off on another run three minutes later...sparked by seven straight points by MHA over a 90 second stretch. Hammond's put back changed to scoreboard to 70-45 Louisville with 7:17...a 16-2 UofL run over a four minute stretch. 

The Cards coasted in from there...enjoying their biggest lead of the night after a Moore three put them up 75-49 with 3:51 left in action. Syracuse's 9-3 run to end the game was too little, too late and Walz replaced all five on the court with 1:21 with Deines, Freeman, Vails, Henderson and Carter. Cards win...the Cards win!!! by a final of 78-58.


It is probably the best second half of basketball Louisville has played this season. Consider they shot 65% in the final twenty to finish the game 31-60 (51.7%) After holding Syracuse to 28.9% shooting in the first twenty...the Cards kept the pressure on and "Q"'s squad ended 21-66 from the floor for 31.8%

HInes-Allen led all scorers with 23 points (in 23 minutes)...her second game in a row off the bench and second game in a row she's led Louisville in scoring. 

We're seeing a trend here.

Moore had 21 (after just two first half points) and Schimmel's three threes helped her get to 13 ponts. Hammond ended up with 13 points, 12 boards and eight assists.


Only three other Cards scored in the contest...Smith ended with five, Sherrone Vails had two points and Shawnta Dyer hit a free throw in the first half for her only score. Deines saw a puzzling one minute of play and "E" was on the floor for five.

A nice post-game video montage preceded the presentation of a framed and player signed 200 game wins poster to Walz. He was gracious in acceptance, both to the crowd that stayed around to see it and the media afterward. 


Unfortunately, "Q" and the "Cuse" crew got on the bus and out of the arena before I could get over to try and catch a few words from him. He was in rare form during the contest, though...dancing the sidelines, charging back and forth like a sprinter out of the blocks and even giving up on the game-watch for a minute or so stretch with 13 minutes left in the game to carry on an impromptu sideline chat with a bemused Matt and AJ during action.

He probably should have continued the conversation. Right after that, Louisville went on their 16-2 run. 



If anyone listened to the radio feed, please let us know what he was talking to them about. He had them in stitches...from what I could see at half-court. 

Nice win over a ranked and dangerous opponent. Louisville shut down scoring machine Peterson to just nine points on the night and powerful center Day finished with just five points. Reserve Diamond Henderson led the way for the "Cuse" with 20 points in 28 minutes. 

The Cards end January going 7-1. February promises to start with a bang when Louisville heads to Duke for a Monday "Groundhog Day" battle in Cameron that will show on ESPN2. The Cards are 19-2 overall and face a Duke "Coach P" squad that is an unexpected 14-6 overall.

As for "Q" ...he'll take his road show to Tallahassee Monday night to battle Seminoles. At 5-3 in conference now, the "Cuse" could drop to .500...with North Carolina in the wings after the FSU contest 

<><><>><><>><><><><>><><><><>><>>><><><><><><><>



Dan Wilson wins the January Contest and a fabulous CARDINAL COUPLE T-Shirt by guessing closest to the points that Mariya Moore scored in January. She ended up with 117 and he guessed 116. Vivian McAdams finished second with 115 and Nick LeTomassio gets third with his guess of 119. 

Thanks to all that took part in the contest. We had 12 entries that got within five points of the final number....including four that chose 120 and three with 114. You all are stinkin' geniuses! 

The February Contest is to pick the Cards leading scorer for the month and how many points will the leader get. E-mail your entries to us at cardinalcouple@twc.com by 6 p.m. Feb. 2nd.

paulie   

12 comments:

  1. This team keeps proving me wrong game after game. I panicked after the FSU game and thought we would finish 10-6 but I honestly can't see us losing 6 now. Hines-Allen and Moore have been the key to victories our past two games -- happy they are freshmen!

    ReplyDelete
  2. About the convo with coach Q, Matt mentioned something about his bow-tie. I'm not sure what Q's reply was but Matt was cracking up

    ReplyDelete
  3. What a great win. Sara comes within a couple assists of a triple double after her tough game vs Miami. Bria had seven assists and really brought energy. Jude found her touch from three and had a great overall floor game. Our freshmen combine for 44 points! 26 assists on 31 made baskets! Watching Hines-Allen run the floor and finish at the rim is a beautiful thing. That energy seemed to be catching as I thought the starters and Myisha got in a groove. Particularly happy to see Sara and Bria have great, high energy games going into our Duke contest.

    Slow starts aren't good but showing resilience and maturity by sticking with it and coming back is great and will surely help come tourney time. These kids are never out of any game. Great teamwork and coaching are making it happen this year.

    I thought the CardTV broadcast quality and commentary were the best they've done this year.

    Looking forward to Big Monday!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. We couldn't get to the game so we used CardsTV for the first time and I thought it was fine. I probably should have figured out that the video portion would be the in-house feed - exactly what we see on the video board at the Yum!. It was a little annoying when they put up the "Get Loud" image - seemed like a steal or a fast break occurred every time they did that - but on the other hand we got to see the Dance Cam, the Kid Cam, the T-Shirt tosses and the Pet of The Week results. Just like being in our seats.

      I thought Matt and AJ did their usual great job of commentary. Enjoyed the brief conversation with Coach Q.

      Delete
    2. Yes the "Get Loud" etc. screens are annoying as is the fact that there's no scoreboard displayed. But I prefer Matt and AJ's call of the game and at least the audio is in sync.

      Delete
    3. Yeah, the audio was perfectly in sync with the video. And Matt does a great job of providing time and score, and also keeps up with the shot clock.

      Delete
  4. I'm back to take the slams after my Kats dropped a heartbreaker to the Vols last night at Memorial. 4 missed shots at the very end and any one of them could have won it for UK.

    It sounds like Louisville had a good second half, unlike in the game against Kentucky. I think the Cards firmly entrenched themselves as the third best team in the state behind UK and WKU with their win last night. Good luck at Cameron Indoor Stadium against the Dookies. You won't be able to stop Elizabeth Williams or Rebecca Greenwell but maybe you can avoid a double digit defeat.

    Walz at 200? He's ahead of Matthew? A sure sign of the cuipcakes and pastries Jeff has feasted on in his preconference scheduling.

    Matthew Mitchell For Governor

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It's simple Walzian math. Four is better than 0 but only if one out of the four turns into two.

      Huh?


      Paulie

      Delete
  5. Ah Ms. Gov...Your masochistic tendencies are pretty concerning but thanks for coming on over after your kittens drop another one. Full credit that your kids made a game of it but you know the old saying..."Close only counts in grenades and horseshoes". A loss is a loss (and you've now got 5 of 'em) but you folks did better than most expected so good for you. Now if you and your buddy Matthew can just get them to change the NCAA tourney rules to "if we almost beat a really good team we move on and still might make a final four someday" you'll be cooking with gas.

    I'm no expert on the subject but our buddies at Wiki tell us that your boyfriend Matthew is 187 - 75 for .714 during his tenure babysitting the liter box. That's pretty good but with Walz at 200 - 72 for .735 it's kinda close but no cigar. Now according to ESPN, 31 of Walz's wins have been vs top 25 teams. Do some research and let us know how many of your boyfriend's wins have been against top 25 squads. If it's higher as a percentage of his wins than Walz you may have a point on scheduling. If not it's just another in your long line of airballs.

    If it's all the same to you we'll go ahead and still make the trip to Durham and play the game even though we "don't have a chance". Maybe you haven't been paying attention but we've been proving folks wrong all year and the best is still in front of us. Trust me when I say Ms. McCallie is totally paying attention right now.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. LOL...On Coach JoAnne P...the scary thing is this...she can appear focused but no one is ever sure...including her...on what.

      It could be Greenwell...or the lady wearing a nice scarf across the court... or what she wants for dinner. Coaches with interesting personas....yeah, the ACC has that.

      If you put the ACC WBB coaches in a group therapy session, the psychoanalyst would quit midway through the first discussion.

      Paulie

      Paulie

      Delete
  6. Can't seem to get your email. I would like to predict that Hine-Allan will score 112 points in February. Thanks.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hmmmm.sorry about that, Charlie...just sent a test e-mail to myself from a different laptop it arrived OK. Anyone else having trouble reaching us at:

      cardinalcouple@twc.com

      Let me know.

      You do have a close relative who is IT skilled...LOL

      Paulie

      Delete

Please leave your comments here. We ask you be respectful of other posts, no matter how ridiculous they may seem to you. After all, it is CARDINAL COUPLE.

Any attempts to advertise a product or other website here in the comments section without the prior consent of CARDINAL COUPLE will result in a bill rendered for advertising services and possible legal action. We're serious. No more bots.

Now, have your take...