Louisville women's basketball -- Cards contain Clemson 65-46-- THURSDAY CARDINAL COUPLE

FUEHRING, SHOOK SPARK CARDS TO 19 POINT-WIN

Normally a 19- point win over an ACC foe in February would be cause to celebrate for the Louisville Cardinals women's basketball team. And, although the Cards will gladly accept the win and move on, it wasn't basketball to brag about last night and the contest featured two Louisville technical fouls from frustration . 

Sam Fuehring and Kylee Shook, not the first two names you would look for in highlights for the Cards, had huge impacts on the contest. After a sluggish first quarter that Louisville barely won 15-13, the Cards found themselves trailing (1-10, 11-13) Clemson 19-18 with a little under five minutes left in the second quarter. This surprising lead, coupled with a Jeff Walz technical, had Cardinal fans in a "What is happening here?" state of bafflement.

Another state is South Carolina, where Clemson is located, and who was responsible for creating the confusion. 

Fuehring turned it around. Her jumper put Louisville ahead to stay 22-19. She followed it with a bucket in the paint. Then, off a Myisha Hines-Allen assist, another score for the 6'3" junior from Jersey. It was suddenly 26-19 and the start of a 14-2 run to close the half and put the Cards in the locker room up 32-21 and in a much better situation. Fuehring led all scorers with nine points and got a rousing reception from the crowd when she checked out after her minute and a half of offense. Jaz Jones had the final four points of the quarter and the frowns and looks of concern in the 7014 on hand were beginning to abate. 

As for the Walz "T"...it's as mad as I've seen the Cardinal coach in quite some time. A very dubious foul "called" on Arica Carter at the 4:41 mark was the subject of debate and Coach let loose a few statements that we can't print here. He continued on the rest of the half and might have been in danger of getting ejected but the Dee Kanter led crew wisely

turned a deaf ear. 

The question did arise. Who would take over if Walz got a locker-room sentence. The answer is most likely long-time associate Steph Norman, although I lobbied for Jeff's daughter Lucy. Some singing and magic-marker doodling was sorely needed at that juncture. If Sam had been wearing the pink shoes, he would have been the obvious choice...but the 'dapper dan" was in black wing-tips last night 

Louisville started the final half on a sour note, missing three shots before Jones, Carter and Dunham ran off eight straight points to give the home team a 41-28 advantage. They would end the quarter with a 47-34 lead and one wondered which Cardinal squad we'd see in the final 10 minutes. The one who gets outplayed or the one that seals the situation. Clemson was not giving up, battling the Cards with all they had and Kobi Thornton for the Tigers was starting to heat up. 

We got the "seal the situation" Cards. Shook, Durr and then Shook again knocked down threes and it was 56-38 Cards after four minutes. Fuehring was involved, too, but in a different way. She swung a wild elbow that missed after she missed a close-in score that would have sent the Clemson opponent over the scores table and into the Bourbon bar up behind section 116. Emotion, frustration...yes, I get it, but the Cards can't have that kind of reaction from her. Putting a clamp on those feelings is what the Cards need out of her. Sam took a seat to cool down and reappeared a couple of minutes later to can a jumper that gave UofL their largest lead of the game at 64-42. 

Louisville was playing their best basketball of the night in the final quarter and Shook and Durr combined for 11 of the Cards 18 final session points to win going away 65-46. 

THE FRED REPORT

Free Throws -- 16-22 is 72.7% and meets and exceeded the 70% mandate we have for letter-earning in this category. It is a bit below the Cards 75% season average. Kudos to Durr (6-6) and Jones (4-5). I'll go with the lower case "f".

Rebounds -- Despite my colleagues Worldwide and Jared's lobbying for no letter here, the Cards DID win the battle of the boards 36-30 and Shook had 10 to go with her 10 points. Sorry, gents...we'll give the effort a lower case "r". Call the concierge if there are complaints. 

Effort/Execution -- Louisville looked sluggish and inefficient in the first 25 minutes of the contest. They ended up, though, winning the points in paint (22-12), points off turnovers (19-7) and only committed 10 turnovers. Waiter, I'll have another small letter, make this one an "e"...please.

Defense -- Holding a foe to 46 points is good, right? Getting 17 turnovers and seven steals works for me, how about you? Clemson shot 35.6%, below their season average. We'll end the Fred report with a Capital "D". despite the early lack-of-success. Clemson was playing lights out. 

FRED TALLY: f-r-e-D

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DRAWING! 

Four players in double figures. Overcoming a shaky start. Must have been the "playing on a Wednesday night" syndrome right? Even UConn struggled a bit last night with just a 18-point win over Central Florida. Speaking of UConn, they're next on the slate. Monday night in Storrs. Grocery stores, hardware stores or whatever kind of stores the Huskies frequent. 

(This is the second "edition" of today's column. The previous one got erased around 1 a.m. this morning. Suspects are being questioned but no culprit has been apprehended yet. Imagine my surprise to find that out early Thursday morning. Oh, well. This one was probably better, right? Sadly, most of you will never know.)

-- (Photos today by Jared Anderson, who has made my life much more complicated by starting to post them on Flickr and making them impossible to download.) 

-- Today's musical choice: WIth the 25th win for UofL, we have to go with the classic early 70's song by CHICAGO...25 or 6 to 4. LINK: CHICAGO'S 25 or 6 to 4. I like horns. There are plenty of them in this gem. 

-- WALZSPEAK. Here the Coach's post-gamer here: JEFF WALZ POSTGAME. He noticed that the Cards didn't come out very sharp tonight and Clemson came to compete. So did we, Coach. So did we. 

-- Hear Paulie confuse Sam Fuehring in the post game interview with her and Kylee Shook ! I was right, though. LINK:  SAM AND SHOOK...SHAKEN, NOT STIRRED She scored six straight points. Maybe she was still flustered about "the elbow incident". I'm just glad she didn't throw one at me...

-- PAULIE --