Four advance, four leave tonight -- FRIDAY CARDINAL COUPLE

BATTLE OF CAROLINAS AND IRISH VS TREES TONIGHT IN NCAA WBB SWEET SIXTEEN

We are getting closer to a Final Four in the NCAA Women's Basketball Tournament. In Greensboro, NC and Oklahoma City, OK it'll be a scenario where eight survivors enter and four have there survivals extended. Some very good basketball on tap.

We'll look at the matchups in a minute. First, we'd like to extend our best wishes and hopes to the UofL men's basketball squad...who faces ACC foe NC State in the men's Sweet Sixteen. The Cards lost to the Wolfpack in the KFC YUM! Center in the conference schedule...a game where Louisville led at the half but fell upon a cold shooting stretch and numerous defensive breakdowns. 

The Pitino led squad is playing better than that these days and should send Mr. and Mrs. Wuf packing back to Raleigh.

Oh yeah...be prepared for Big Blue boasters today in your travels. Teflon John and his NBA roster decimated Wichita State by 39 last night. 40-0, 40-0 !! Three games away...

Now...to the ladies. In the four games tonight, there are really no major surprises here in the contestant's chairs. The top four seeds advanced to this stage in these two regionals. Only Texas and Dayton in Albany and Gonzaga in Spokane are teams that were not #4 seed or better that made the Sweet Sixteen. Gonzaga, you figured had a good chance...playing in the northwest...Dayton a surprise and Texas was a #5 seed and not that big of a stretch.

UNC vs South Carolina  7 p.m. Greensboro


South Carolina has looked very good in getting this far.... hammering Savannah St. and Syracuse. They'll find the sledding a little tougher against a Sylvia Hatchell squad that handled Liberty and managed to hang on against a Ohio St. squad who rallied back big time to barely lose. 

It's a ACC vs SEC matchup and I'm going with the rough and tumble TarHeels to narrowly send South Carolina back to Columbia. They've gotten lucky once when they survived the Ohio St. spree and luck will be a lady again tonight for Carolina Blue.

Iowa vs Baylor  7:30 p.m. Oklahoma City


It's back to the scene of Kim Mulkey's most disappointing career loss...where Louisville downed Griner and company a couple of years ago. Griner is gone, but Iowa is no Louisville (The Cards dismantled Hawkeye Nation by 34 earlier in the season).

Baylor may not win by as much, but win they will and Kim won't have to do a striptease for the Oklahoma City contingent. Iowa has improved since the Cards clipped their wings but the midwestern farm girls will be headed home Saturday morning. 

Arizona St. v Fla. St.  9:30 p.m. Greensboro

This time, the ACC goes against the PAC Conference and Arizona St. Sue Semrau's Seminoles were second best in the conference but have looked like champions against Alabama St. and FGCU...maybe the easiest path anyone had in getting to the Sweet Sixteen. These Tallahassee lassies will trot forward against a group of Sun Devils that said "no way-o" to Ohio and sent UALR packing

Charli Turner Thorne does have Sophia Brunner and a candidate for Worldwide's All-Name team in Promise Amukamara...but these Charli's Angels won't solve tonight's mystery and are headed back to Tempe..from what we see.

Notre Dame v Stanford  10 p.m. Oklahoma City

It looks like the PAC will go "0-for-Sweet Sixteen" tonight when Tara Vanderveer takes her trees for a toilet-papering by the Irish. (Interesting fact: The Trees nickname only applies to the Stanford band...the sports teams are The Cardinal.)

Muffet McGraw is fully aware that The Cardinal is the only team to beat UConn this year. Ol' leopard-skin-print-lady is also aware that she has Jewell Loyd, Taya Reimer, Lindsay Allen and a team that shrugged off miserable Montana and Dougie Bruno's Blue Demons. Irish eyes will be smiling again tonight (or tomorrow morning) as Muffet's Curds and Whey won't be scared by any spiders, trees or Samuelson's...

paulie
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