Lots of News for WBB/VB/WSoc -- TUESDAY CARDINAL COUPLE

There are plenty of happenings going on around Louisville women's athletics and ACC women's sports. Basketball is the big one on everybody's minds, but we also have some volleyball and soccer to hit too.

Cards Travel to UT Martin

The big news today surrounds Louisville women's basketball. The Cards play their first true road game of the season when they visit UT Martin for a 7:00pm ET tip. This will only be streamed on ESPN+, but there is the always-reliable radio option too on 93.9 FM The Ville. Nick Curran and Cortnee Walton are back on the mics for this one...although in Cortnee's new duties as women's basketball director of operations...she's not always a sure bet for being on the broadcast. 

Louisville played #5 UCLA in Paris, France at a neutral site to open the season, a game where the Bruins were able to win down the stretch. The Cards then came home for the first time and cruised past Southern Indiana.

UT Martin is 0-2 to start the year. They fell at home to North Alabama 66-63 before going on the road to lose to Tennessee 90-50. The Skyhawks do have a Kentucky native on the team. Anaya Brown is a graduate of Lafayette High School in Lexington, KY. Brown is second on the team in scoring at 11.0 points per game, only behind Kenley McCarn, who is averaging 14.0 points per game. Kenley's younger sister Kaitlyn also plays for UT Martin.

The Skyhawks have shot well from the floor at .416 and have been fairly effective from three-point range at .306. They've struggled with rebounding and defense, but it's hard to gauge what to expect out of an opponent just two games in.

Taj Roberts Named ACC Rookie of the Week

Sticking with women's basketball, Taj Roberts earned ACC Rookie of the Week accolades in the first ACC awards of the season. She is the first Louisville freshman since the 2020-2021 season to earn the honor. 

Roberts kicked off her collegiate career with 21 points against UCLA, highlighted by four three-pointers. She is the first Louisville freshman since Hailey Van Lith to top 20 points in their debut. Roberts followed up the season opener with 11 points against Southern Indiana.

Volleyball Moves Up

Following a pair of sweeps on the road plus a key loss by Penn State, Louisville volleyball moved up to #3 in the latest AVCA rankings. While the AVCA rankings do not directly reflect the Selection Committee rankings, they are often very similar. The goal is to finish in the top four so the Cards can host the entire tournament at the KFC Yum! Center, provided they continue to win.

Louisville still has six more matches in the regular season. They return home this weekend to host Duke and RV North Carolina. They then hit the road for a weekend against Virginia and Virginia Tech. The final two matches are rematches against #1 Pittsburgh and #7 Stanford.

NCAA Women's Soccer Tournament

The NCAA Women's Soccer Tournament was announced recently. While Louisville did not make it in, which is what we expected, the ACC fared extremely well. The ACC set a conference record with nine teams in the 64-team tournament.

The ACC teams in the tournament are:

1-seed Duke (ACC Regular Season Champion)

1-seed Florida State (ACC Tournament Champion)

2-seed North Carolina

2-seed Wake Forest

3-seed Stanford

4-seed Notre Dame

4-seed Virginia

7-seed Virginia Tech

California

Happy Tuesday and Go Cards!

Jared

VolleyCards ground Eagles in a sweep -- MONDAY CARDINAL COUPLE

 LOUSVILLE VOLLEYBALL GOES TO 21-3 WITH WIN IN BOSTON

To steal a phrase from the 1965 rockin' classic by the Yardbirds, the train kept a rollin' all night long for Louisville Volleyball Sunday afternoon, getting their fifth win in a row over Boston College 25-21, 25-18 and 25-8. (Here's a link to the hit from the band that had Jimmy Page, Jeff Beck and Eric Clapton all in it at one time or another): 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cd1gRHk28IE

These Cards didnt have screaming guitars, frantic harmonica or a solid, driving bass/drum rhythm section, but they did have the power of Charitie Luper serves, Anna DeBeer kills and Reese Robins power at the net. Reese supplied the power in Power Gym, ironically.  B.C., playing in tiny Power Gym, just may have inadvertantly reminded Louisville of games at the LNFCU on the UofL campus...a small cozy environment that also hads a lot of red in it. 

Here's the details: 

SET ONE

It was actually BC early in the first set, scoring the first three points and grabbing a 6-2 lead on the visitors from Derby City, but UofL battled back behind Anna DeBeer, Luper and Hannah Sherman to grab a 13-11 lead. The Cards stay pretty much on the three-point lead, going up 23-20 on a block..then kills from DeBeer and Sofia Maldonado closed the door on set one. B.C, had fought the good fight but ended up on the short side of the score. 

SET TWO

Louisville did not make the same mistake of letting BC get up early in set two like they did in set one,...the Cards flew out to a 6-2 lead, with a DeBeer ace and kills from DeBeer, Luper and Robins. Louisville had no interntions of slowing down, and built that lead to 15-8,  but Boston College rallied behind the home crowd and cut the Cardinals lead to 17-15.  When the score reached 21-18, the Cards said "enough of this nonsense" and put on the final four points behind kills from Luper, Maldonado-Diaz, Robins and a service ace from Kamden Schrand, A Luper kill brought the final point in win by seven for the Cards. 

SET 3 

(Dare we say it? Charitie may begin at home, but she does pretty well on the road,too)

The Cards toyed with the Eagles early in the final set..leading just 4-2, but Luper delivered three straight service aces and a couple of kills pushed this set to a 9-3 Louisville lead. The Cards kept rolling, and put together a five-point run to take a commanding 16-5. Boston College had effectively tossed in the towel, and Louisville went on a 9-3 game ending run to close out the set at 25-8 and get the sweep of the match. 

Next up....Louisville brings in Duke for a Friday, 7 p.m. contest. The Blue Devils lost in straight sets Sunday at Pitt and they have not fared so well this season...going 5-9 in ACC play and 9-16 overall. The two will meet in the Cards on campus arena...the LNFCU (Louisville & Nashville Federal Credit Union Arena) Let's hope the train keeps rolling on the home tracks, too.

paulie

A Volleyball Kind Of Day - Sunday Cardinal Couple

Volleyball Visits Beantown

(Volleyball heads to Boston, but they wont be looking for Norm, Sam or Diane)

With a few specific exceptions, it feels like this weekend and last has been a little...dull?...in volleyball, across the country.  That's not to say that good teams aren't still playing quite well, they are, but by and large, they've been playing teams that fall down in the mid-ranks of their various conferences.

For the most part.

This is mostly intentional on the part of conferences, as they want to put the big splashy matchups late in the season, right before NCAA selection, to benefit from the recency bias that the committee uses.

(The B.C. court)

So the Cards had their home-and-home travel partners matches with a not-very-good Notre Dame last week, and this week take the northern swing for the ACC where they played a definitely not-very-good Syracuse team on Friday, and today take on an only-a-little-bit-better Boston College.  Syracuse, as Case mentioned yesterday, only has a single win in conference, Notre Dame only has a pair.  They play today, so someone is going to improve their record...a little.  Boston College is 5-8, though, which is, well, not great, but it's something anyway?

So the Cards, at 12-1 in conference are playing the Eagles, at 5-8.  You don't have to follow volleyball very closely to know who the favored team is, here.  As always in the ACC, however, BC is not a team to be taken for granted.  They were responsible for handing set losses to several of the undefeated teams in early conference play.  Stanford, Pitt, and UNC all had their first set loss in conference play come at the hands of BC, and in Pitt's case, it was their first set loss of the whole season.

(when we refer to "B.C." we mean Boston College, not the comic strip...)

As long as UofL continues their balanced attack, solid defense, and gets some good blocking, they'll win this game without too much trouble.  Get cocky, however, and the wheels could fall off.

 

The match today is at 1pm, as is typical for Sunday matches, and you can find the video (not always a given, at BC) on ACC Network Extra (streaming).

 

A Quick Look at Rankings

While I mentioned that this weekend and last has been a bit dull in volleyball across the nation, we haven't been completely bereft of spicy matches.  Last weekend, Miami upset Stanford which really helped solidify our hold on the 4th place ranking, dropping Stanford to 6th from their previous 5th.  Creighton was the big beneficiary of that ranking change, stepping up into the 5th place ranking.  That weekend also saw Georgia Tech vs North Carolina, two pretty good teams, go at it with the YellowJackets coming out on top...barely (25-23, 25-22, 19-25, 20-25, 15-12).

And we look beyond the ACC for another spicy matchup, that should help the Cards out, as 7th ranked Wisconsin, swept 3rd ranked Penn State.  And after the first set completed 25-23, it wasn't even that close, with the 2nd and 3rd sets going 25-12, and 25-13.

That should drop the Nittany Lions down a spot or two leaving an opening for Louisville to move up into 3rd.

(Sweet Home...KFC YUM Center...wher the Cards are so true...)

Looking ahead, there's definitely a good path for Louisville to play their full NCAA tournament run at the KFC Yum! Center.  They have to get a top four seeding from the committee to assure that, and they got that seeing in the early reveal back on October 20th, and that seeding, or better, has only gotten stronger support since then.  Of course, the Cards still have to close out the season with matches against Pitt and Stanford, so there are some potential stumbling blocks in the way, but overall the Cards are in a pretty good place right now.

Cardinal Couple Radio Hour Podcast

(Paulie loves volleyball, it is a inside sport where it isn't freezing)

It was just the two of us (cue Bill Withers) on the CCRHP yesterday, as Paulie and I held it down. We know not where Case or Jared were, just that they were out (conspiratorial theorist..begin...now) and Daryl was having work done o n the house 

We were thankful as we move into the Fall/Winter sports overlap, giving us both Basketball and Volleyball to cover.  OK, neither competition was against very competitive teams, but it was great to have basketball play to be talking about again.

Check it out at Spotify or your favorite podcast directory:

https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/cardinal-couple/episodes/Basketball-Begin-in-Earnest--Volleyball-Cruises-e2qpnph

-- JMcA

Volleyball Sweeps; Basketball Wins Home Opener -- SATURDAY CARDINAL COUPLE

Volleyball Wins in 3 at Syracuse

Louisville Volleyball went on the road to take on the once-mighty (and now not so much) Syracuse and are leaving New York with a sweep of the Orange. The Cards moved to 12-1 in the ACC and 20-3 overall with a fairly straightforward 25-17, 25-18, 25-15 win. 

Louisville won the first three points of the match and fairly well set the tone for the remainder. The Cards held the Orange at bay for a bit before back-to-back Syracuse aces made it 10-8. A service error and a Louisville ace quickly flipped it back to a four-point advantage for the Cards and the Orange never shrank the deficit from there. 

In both the second and third sets, Syracuse won the first couple of points. In the second, they were able to stick close until both teams reached double-digits. In the third, Louisville blitzed them quickly and put the match out of reach. The Cards dropped Syracuse (who was undefeated in non-conference play) to 1-12 in ACC and just 13-12 overall. Yikes. 

Louisville's offense was well distributed yesterday, with six players picking up at least five kills. Only one other player (Alanna Bankston) had a kill and she was one-for-one on attempts. Nearly everyone that attempted had a kill as well, but Nayelis Cabello was oh-for-one and Hannah Sherman was a surprising oh-for-three. Anna DeBeer led the way with 13 kills and a hitting percentage of .385. Carra Cresse and Reese Robins had identical offensive lines (6 kills, 1 error, 10 attempts, .500), but Cresse took the matchup with four block assists to Robins's one. PK was back in a big way with seven kills and a .556 hitting percentage. 

Last night saw the first opportunity for Louisville fans to see Kamden Schrand wear the off-color jersey with the starters. Elena Scott got the night off, and Schrand played well in the libero position. She finished with 12 digs and an ace, while recording no service or reception errors. She didn't have any assists, but with Cabello and Elle Glock putting up 38 of Louisville's 40 assists on 44 kills, there weren't many opportunities. 

It wasn't a huge blocking night for Louisville, overall, as they only finished with seven. But that was better than Syracuse's three, and they outhit the Orange .389 to .119. Louisville also won the service battle with each team recording six errors and Louisville putting up seven aces against Syracuse's five. 

It isn't a win to write home about, as I noted earlier, with the Orange occupying the third to last-spot in the conference, but when so many matches are emotionally draining top matchups, winning the ones you are supposed to easily is very important. Louisville will now head to Boston College to take on a scrappy Golden Eagles team. BC is only 12-13 (5-8) on the year, but as Jeff has mentioned, they can jump up and take a set off of anyone. Louisville shouldn't have too much trouble, but they can't take a road match like this for granted. Tomorrow's match gets underway at 1PM on ACC Network Extra. 

WBB Beats Southern Indiana 75-51

After opening the season with a tough loss to a highly ranked opponent in Paris, Louisville women's basketball started their home season with a get-back win over Southern Indiana. It may not have started quite like fans expected, but the Cards took care of the Screamin' Eagles in the end with a 24-point victory. Coach Walz was less than thrilled in his post-game press conference, citing a poor shootaround and mindset entering the game. The team responded after a close first quarter to play much improved for (almost) the rest of the game. 

Louisville picked up a quick 7-2 lead to open the game, but USI was not deterred. The Eagles hit a three to cut the deficit to two and held tight to the Cards despite two early 3-pointers from Merissah Russell. Ahead by a pair with three minutes to go in the first, Louisville gave up a pair of offensive rebounds that ultimately led to USI tying the score at 15. After a steal, the Eagles took the lead on a breakaway layup. Walz gave his team the chance to sort it out themselves, opting not to call a timeout. The Cards responded with an offensive rebounding effort of their own and tied it at 17 with 1:34 remaining. 

USI was ready to strike, though, and after retaking the lead, they extended their advantage to four with another steal and breakaway. Again, Walz chose not to call a timeout, and Russell hit her third triple of the first quarter. Russell then forced a steal on the other end and hit Izela Arenas on the outlet pass to give the Cards a 22-21 lead at the first break. 

Daryl displays the mood for the second quarter.
Paulie displays the mood for the remainder.

The first quarter was ugly. Louisville gave up five offensive rebounds, leading to eight second chance points, and they were outrebounded 9-7 overall. They allowed 7-16 shooting and USI was 5-6 at the free throw line. As Walz noted in his presser, the poor shootaround carried into the game, despite the team's "spirited discussion" after the walk-thru. 

After what I'm sure was another one of those spirited discussions in the quarter break, Louisville woke up. The Cards opened the second quarter on an 18-0 run (which extends to 23-0 if you take it back to the end of the first) over the first six minutes. Louisville went a bit cold for the remainder of the quarter, making just one more three over those final four minutes, but they held USI to just four points of their own, giving the Cards a 21-4 quarter victory and a 43-25 halftime lead. Louisville won the points-off-turnovers battle 12-0 in the second and held USI to 2-11 shooting. 

Southern Indiana recovered a bit in the third, scoring 11, but Louisville continued to apply the pressure with a 19-11 victory. It wasn't quite the same beatdown as the second, but the Cards held USI at more than arm's length, and entered the fourth with a comfortable margin. As the fourth quarter wore on, Louisville extended their lead to 33 points with 4:36 remaining in the game. Here is where Walz got frustrated again and why I said Louisville was much improved for almost the remainder of the game. Louisville had 13 turnovers in the game with three minutes to go. Louisville finished the game with 19 turnovers. Woof. They also lost those last three minutes 9-2. Double woof. Despite having a largely rotated lineup in the game at that point, Walz and the fans would expect more from the team. 

At the end of the day, Louisville comes out on top with a 24-point win. It's easy to nitpick, but it's also easy to forget that this is a very young team that has a lot of growing up and growing together to do. The close loss against UCLA may have given us a bit of an overestimation of how the beginning of this season could look. Similarly, this game could be the outlier and Louisville could go on the road and beat the tar out of UT Martin. We'll see. 

The FRED Report

F-Free Throws: Louisville took a surprising number of foul shots in this game. If you're surprised at 18 shots, though, you'll be shocked at only 9 makes. No letter. 

R-Rebounds: Should Louisville outrebound an OVC team easily? Yes. Did they? Kind of. Louisville finished with a 45-31 advantage on the boards and won both the OR and DR stats. The first quarter wasn't great, but they did clean it up significantly. Only because they managed to also win the second chance points battle, I'll award a capital 'R'. 

E-Effort/Execution: Hmmmm. This one is a toughie. The Cards shot 29-64, making 45.3% of their shots in the game. They were 8-25 from beyond the arc, which isn't terrible, but 32% isn't great either. Excluding the first nine minutes and the last three minutes, Louisville outscored USI by 36. But you can't exclude those minutes. And 36 would be an ok, but expected margin of victory for this whole game. I'm going to say no letter. 

D-Defense: The Cards held the Eagles to 37.5% from the floor, but that's largely thanks to the 2-11 second quarter. USI was over that percentage in the other three. The Cards had 12 steals and four blocks. With the very strong second quarter and the good quarter and a half after the break, I'll give lowercase 'd'. 

That yields a final score of _-R-_-d, which is not particularly good. It's early in the season, of course, but we'll want to see more out of this team in their next outing. 

Daryl grabs a selfie with
Z-Bo (Zach Randolph), 
father of Mackenly

Speaking of the team, nearly everyone played. All but Jayda Curry and Rebekah Graves saw the floor, with everyone getting at least five minutes. Louisville was led by Olivia Cochran, who finished with 15 points. The only other player in double figures was Taj Roberts, who had 11. Imari Berry led the team with eight rebounds, with Cochran and Ja'leah Williams close behind at six. Nyla Harris and Merissah Russell finished with nine points each. Everyone that played snagged at least one rebound and everyone except for Reagan Bender and Eseosa Imafidon scored. Bender was a bit of a surprise, going 0-5 from the field (all from three-point distance) in fifteen minutes. 

With Curry out, two freshmen joined Cochran and Harris in the starting lineup along with transfer Ja'leah Williams. Mackenly Randolph and Taj Roberts drew the starts, but it was another freshman, Izela Arenas, who picked up the second most minutes (23) behind Cochran's 25. 

Louisville is back in action on Tuesday against UT Martin. That game will be on ESPN+ and will tip at 7PM eastern. 

Cardinal Couple Radio Hour Podcast

The number of topics is shrinking with a couple of fall sports wrapping up, and coincidentally, the hosts are shrinking with it (for this week). Paulie and Jeff (and maybe Daryl) will bring you the show this week with plenty of volleyball and basketball to discuss. You can check out the live stream of the show by going to the Cardinal Couple YouTube page and clicking on the live video. Jeff usually creates that about an hour before the show, which officially starts at 11 AM Eastern. If the live time doesn't work for you, there are plenty of playback options, so be sure to check out whichever is best for you!

Cardinal Couple YouTube: Link

Spotify: Link

Apple Podcasts: Link

Google Podcasts: Link

Overcast (free account required): Link

Pocket Casts (free account and app required): Link

RadioPublic: Link

Until next time, Go Cards!

Case

WBB home opener vs Southern Indiana -- Walz presser -- VB at Syracuse FRIDAY CARDINAL COUPLE

FRIDAYS WITH DARYL

Hello readers, I am back with you this morning! It’s been a wild couple of weeks as I went out of town  but I am back and getting back into the swing of UofL athletics mode.  Actually I did make the trip to Boston College for the Cardinals football game Halloween weekend.  You know, the one they won in comeback fashion.  It was a lot of fun to celebrate my Bachelorette party there with my girls.   

The Cardinals golf program concluded its fall season with a tournament victory at the Robbie Tournament . it is the Cardinals first tournament win since 2021 when they finished tied for first at the Illini Invitational. It is the first solo tournament win since 2019 when they won the Cardinal Cup.  

I myself have also put the golf clubs away for the season.  Till next year!!!  🏌


WBB

Just before Walz met with the media Thursday afternoon the program announced another season opening matchup with a national powerhouse program, UCONN, to be exact in Germany, to open the 2025 season.   Another incredible opportunity for these players to travel the world and play basketball.  

Walz presser - video courtesy to WDRB   Jeff Walz 11/7/24 Press Conference

Highlights include:

-- Walz talked about the game vs UCLA in paris and felt like it was a great college basketball game and was proud of the team, said they took care of the ball and recognized 12 steals as a team. 

-- He also said it was an awesome trip and that this team is great together, mentioned that the hotel was in a great location to get to explore cafes and shops and had fun things planned like dinner halfway up the Eifel tower and a river cruise that were great but also wanted them to experience Paris with the friends and family that also made the trip. They knew they were there for a basketball game, of course,  but was proud of how they all got along abroad.  

-- Jayda Curry's hamstring did come shooting around on Wednesday and non- contact Thursday.  Do not want a season long lingering injury.   

-- Ja'Leah Williams transferring into the program a wonderful thing and how pleasant she has been to have on the squad. 

-- Playing in Germany next season against UConn and how its an opportunity you can't pass up.  It speaks volumes for the program and how we represent ourselves as a program in the communities  


Southern Indiana preview





In their first meeting, the Cards and Screaming Eagles will square off at 7 p.m. ET and it will be streamed on the ACC Network Extra.

The Cardinals are 15-2 all-time in home openers under head coach Jeff Walz. Since the KFC Yum! Center opened in 2010, the Cardinals are 12-2 in openers at the Yum! Center. The Cardinals have won each of their last eight home openers, dating back to the 2015-16 season.

Southern Indiana comes into Friday's matchup with a 1-0 record after a 100-49 opening night victory over Brescia. USI had five players score in double figures and never trailed in the win. The Screaming Eagles are coming off a 2023-24 campaign where they went 25-7 overall, 17-1 in conference play and won the Ohio Valley Conference Tournament. They return all five starters from last year. 

Last year's leading scorer was now senior, Vanessa Shafford with 13.6 ppg. The Screaming Eagles return the top-three scorers from last season including Shafford, and graduate students Meredith Raley (12.2ppg) and Madison Webb (10.8ppg). Shafford was the team's leading rebounder last year with 7.7 per game and Webb had a team-best 3.5 assists per game.

VolleyCards

The volleyball squad is heading northeast for some ACC competition with the Syracuse Orange on Friday night.    The Orange are 13-11 after starting the 2024 season on a 12 match win streak, making it the team's best start since 2010.   

Ava Palm leads the Orange and is tied for #8 in the ACC with 278 kills. She has racked up double-digit kills in 17 of Syracuse's 24 contests. Palm has also stuffed the stat sheet defensively, as her 187 digs lead the Orange.

Palm has recorded six double-doubles this season, including in three of the last four matches. She has posted double-digit kills and digs in all three of those contests, with all six of her double-doubles coming by way of kills and digs.

The outside hitter is also tied for the lead on the Orange in aces with 25....with Skylar George. 

Enjoy this fall weekend!   

As always, 

Go Cards! 

~Daryl 

ACC FH Championship Set -- ACC WSoc Semifinals Set -- THURSDAY CARDINAL COUPLE

ACC Field Hockey Championship Set

The ACC field hockey tournament is down to the final two teams. The eight-team tournament saw the four quarterfinal matches on Tuesday and two semifinal matches yesterday.

#1 North Carolina 3, #5 Syracuse 1

The defending ACC Champions and National Champions cruised to a victory. The Tar Heels led 3-0 before the Orange scored a goal in garbage time.

#3 Boston College 2, #2 Duke 1 (Shootout)

Duke scored a goal right out of halftime but Boston College answered a few minutes later. The match survived two overtime periods to go to a shootout. The shootout was dominated by the goalkeepers. The Blue Devils did not convert any of their four attempts. The Eagles converted on two attempts to secure the win.

North Carolina and Boston College will square off on Friday for the conference title.

ACC Women's Soccer Semifinals Set

The ACC women's soccer tournament moves onto the semifinals today after a pair of matches were completed Sunday.

On the opening day of the tournament over the weekend, 4-seed North Carolina took down 5-seed Virginia 2-0 and 3-seed Florida State beat 6-seed Notre Dame 2-1.

Today's games will be played at WakeMed Soccer Park. 2-seed Wake Forest and 3-seed Florida State will open up the action at 5:30pm. 1-seed Duke will play 4-seed North Carolina at 8:00pm.

The ACC Championship will be played on Sunday.

While we did not get to see Louisville in either tournament, there are certainly some high hopes to see the Cards next season. Eight of the nine teams make the ACC field hockey tournament, giving Louisville a good chance. For women's soccer, only six of the 17 teams make the ACC Tournament, but Louisville returns a good chunk of the roster.

Happy Thursday and Go Cards!

Jared

ACC FIELD HOCKEY TOURNAMENT -- WEDNESDAY CARDINAL COUPLE

 

ACC FIELD HOCKEY TOURNAMENT UNDERWAY

Although Louisville did not qualify for the ACC Field Hockey Tournament, we will be watching with some interest in the results here at Cardinal Couple.. The Tournament is being held in Winston-Salem, at the Wake Forest Field  (Gentner Stadium). 

The home team, Wake Forest played the third game out of four gmes on Tuesday, and...as a #7 seed, was a prohibitive underdog to #2 Duke, coached by former UofL Field Hockey Coach Pam Bustin. And, the Blue Devils won this "satanic" match-up over the homestanding Demon Deacons 4-1

Earlier in the day, #1 UNC opened the tournament and had no problems in diposing the #8 seed squad from California (that beat out Louisville for the #8 seed). The Golden Bears got stuck in the TarHeels trap and fell 5-0. That one was a 10 a.m. start. Who knows, but maybe the Cards were lucky not to get in the tournament. UNC is playing with their hair on fire lately. 

Next up was #4 Virginia vs #5 Syracuse, and we got maybe a slight upset in this one, with the Orange downng the Cavailiers 1-0. So, it'll be #5 Syracuse facing #1 UNC Wednesday at 1 p.m. Boston College gets Duke after the opener. 

The day's activities ended with #3 Boston College facing #6 seed Stanford. The Eagles beat the Cardinal 3-2. 

So, the #1, #2, #3 and #5 seeds advance to the semifinals today. ACC Network is showing all the contests, in case you want to get away from election results, and they begin at 1 p.m when North Carolina goes up against Syracuse. 

My pick? I loved the job that Duke's Pam Bustin did when she was Louisville's head field hockey coach and have been a fan of her ever since. I'd like to see her knock off B.C. and UNC. They also have former Louisvllle star, Charlie van Oirschot, who transferred there as a junior and is now a graduate student. In this rare case, I will say, "Go Duke..." 

 A lot of good Field Hockey players come from the state of Pennsylvania, so...why doesn't Pitt play Field Hockey?  Mystifying,isn't it? Penn State, Penn and Villanova do.  

paulie

Louisville WBB Falls in Season Opener 66-59 -- TUESDAY CARDINAL COUPLE

Cards Fall in Paris to UCLA

Photo by GoCards

Louisville women's basketball opened up the season yesterday in an untraditional way. The Cards traveled all the way to Paris, France to participate in the Aflac Oui-Play, a doubleheader that featured #3 USC vs #20 Ole Miss and #5 UCLA vs #17 Louisville. USC survived the first game 68-63. The Cards fell to the higher-ranked Bruins 66-59.

For Louisville, the question of the starting lineup has been answered... for now. Olivia Cochran, Nyla Harris, Mackenly Randolph, Taj Roberts, and Ja'Leah Williams took the court for the start of the game. Jayda Curry did not play due to injury....a hamstring suffered about a week ago.

Photo by GoCards

1st Quarter: Louisville 18, UCLA 13

We had a weird start to the game as UCLA was late in turning in their lineup and was given a technical foul. The Cards led 1-0 before the tip-off started. They then pushed the lead to 6-0 with a quick spurt following a three by Cochran and a fastbreak layup by Randolph. UCLA settled in from there, forcing the Cards into more contested looks and having good ball movement. UofL held a small 8-6 lead at the first media timeout, but the Bruins answered with a three immediately following the break. It was all Louisville from there the rest of the quarter.

2nd Quarter: UCLA 32, Louisville 29

Offensive rebounding helped UCLA get an early basket before we saw an extended break due to an injury to Merissah Russell. Louisville went ice cold, which allowed UCLA to take a 25-20 advantage early in the second quarter. Taj Roberts had an answer of her own featuring a pair of deep threes at the top of the key. The Bruins took over again from there the rest of the quarter that was highlighted by a buzzer-beating three-pointer to go into halftime.

Third Quarter: UCLA 50, Louisville 46

Nyla Harris made her presence known with a handful of baskets early in the third quarter. It was UCLA, however, who found the most success during the middle portion of the quarter as they went on a 9-0 run. The Cards would temporarily retake the lead at 46-45, but the Bruins would score the final five points of the quarter.

Fourth Quarter: 66-59

The Bruins extended their lead to seven just a couple minutes into the quarter, leading to Jeff Walz to call a timeout. He showed his frustration before the cameras cut to a commercial break. Louisville went ice cold and allowed UCLA to push their lead to 10. Louisville was not able to cut their deficit to less than seven after that.

Roberts led the Cards in scoring with 21 points on 8-19 shooting. Williams was the only other Cardinal in double figures with 11 points. 

FRED Report

Freddy Farm Bureau

Free Throws: Louisville shot 5-8 on the game for 62.5%. Even though the free throw attempt is a low mark, the make percentage is below our threshold, so no letter here.

Rebounds: The Cards were outrebounded 47-43. 13 of UCLA's rebounds came from the 6'7 Betts. No one that saw the court for Louisville was taller than 6'4, giving the Bruins a massive advantage in this. The Cards did have 19 offensive rebounds. Due to the tall task of going up against Betts, I think this sneaks in as a small "r".

Efficiency: Louisville shot 32% from the field and 20.7% from three-point range, both low numbers. However, they had 15 assists on 24 made baskets. Those assist numbers could have been much higher, but the shots weren't falling for the Cards. UofL had plenty of clean and open looks, just with no luck on the shots going in. Sadly, no letter here.

Defense: Louisville allowed 66 points on the game with only six of those coming from the free throw line. With the exception of Olivia Cochran, the rest of the team kept their fouls in check. UofL did force 22 turnovers and allowed just six fast break points. Louisville recorded 12 steals. Despite the loss, a lowercase "d" comes into play here.

FINAL FRED TALLY:  _-r-_-d. 

It could be worse, but there is plenty of room for improvement. Isn't that to be expected at the beginning of the season, though?

Six of the 11 Cardinals to step on the court are freshmen. Add Williams and seven of the Cardinals are brand new to the team. There is going to be an expected time period where the team has to gel and get more comfortable with the system. All in all, running toe-to-toe with a top five team for most of the game and losing by single digits at the beginning of the year is not a bad loss.

This year's team shows a lot of promise and all of their visible issues can be fixed in the gym. This Louisville team may have quite a few growing pains, but I would not be surprised to see them pull off some upsets along the way.

Photo by SI Louisville

Jeff Walz enters his 18th season as head coach of Louisville women's basketball. He closed out last season with an overall coaching record of 464-135 (.775). While his total number of wins does not crack the top 100 in NCAA women's basketball history (most of those coaches were in the game for 30-40 years), his win percentage is good enough to rank in the top 20, which ranks higher than coaches such as Muffet McGraw, Wes Moore, Sylvia Hatchell, C Vivian Stringer, Lisa Bluder, and Kelly Graves.

Louisville comes home for a Friday night game against Southern Indiana. This is their only home game in the first four games of the season.

Happy Tuesday and Go Cards!

Jared

Cards open WBB season vs UCLA in Paris -- MONDAY CARDINAL COUPLE

 2024-25 WBB SEASON STARTS TODAY FOR WBB

Believe it or not, the start of women's college basketball season is upon us. The Louisville Cardinals squad will start it up in Paris,France..of all places...against a UCLA Bruins squad  that has been selected either #5 or #6 in preseason polls, depending on which source you want to believe. Louisville checks in at #17, in jeff Walz's 18th season as the Cards head skipper. 

Alice Cooper, who we seriously doubt will be there af or the contest

I guess the old Alice Cooper classic. "I'm Eighteen" won't be played in the pre-game warm ups by the pep bands for Jeff Walz. Let's just hope they don't decide to break into another Cooper classic "Welcome to My Nightmare..." And, I wonder if any of the four schools sent a pep band over for the event?  

Game time is 2:30 pm and ESPN2 will have the broadcast. We have no firm grip or insight on who Coach Walz will trot out to start this opener...but I'll venture a guess and say Olivia Cochran, Nyla Harris, Merissah Russell, Elif Istanbulluoglu and Jayda Curry.

Lauren Bettts

UCLA looks to be a powerhouse on paper.  They return 6'7" center Lauren Betts, Kiki Rice, Charlisse Leger-Walker, Charisma Osbourne and Angela Dugalic. Transfer Janiah Barker will add depth to the Bruins and head coach Cori Close enters after their 27-win season last year.  

One of the big questions for this opener is how heavy a role will the eight freshman and transfer Ja'Leah Willams play for the Cards. A lot of it could depend on how close this contest is and how the refs call the contest. Or maybe Walz wants to see how different combinations look against a challenging, top #5 foe. No one knows for sure how he'll approach this one, except him and maybe his associate and assistant coaches. And, they may not even know..

Ja'Leah Williams

The contest will be the first ever between UCLA and UofL WBB. The contest is the opener in the Aflac Qui Play event, USC and Ole Miss will do battle after the Cards and Bruins. 

We'll recap the contest in the Tuesday Cardinal Couple. 

paulie

Volleyball Cruises Past Notre Dame - Sunday Cardinal Couple

The Irish Unlucky in Meeting Louisville

The Cards were casually dominant in the second half of the home and home meetings against Notre Dame, winning the sweep; 25-12, 25-16, 25-12.  The Cards advance to 19-3 overall and 11-1 in conference.

For the moment, that puts the Cards in sole possession of first place in the ACC, but that's only because our matches were Wednesday/Saturday this week rather than the ty
pical Friday/Sunday of conference play.  Pitt and North Carolina will be playing later today to return to the tie for 1st place.  Pitt should have an easy time at Virginia Tech at 1pm, but North Carolina has their work cut out for them with Georgia Tech paying a visit at noon.  If you're itching for some volleyball to watch this afternoon, UNC/GT should be a good one to catch.  Of course, lots of eyes will also be on Stanford at FSU after Stanford's loss to Miami Friday.  UNC/GT is on ACCNx, while Stanford and FSU are getting the prime ESPN 1pm slot.

Back to the Cards, though.  I initially thought to say that the Cards were in control from the first point of the game, but the reality is that the Irish won the first two points of the match, led at 6-4 and it wasn't until the match was tied at seven that the Cards really began to assert themselves.  Starting at 6-7 the Cards ran off a 5-0 run to 11-7, and really never looked back.  The rest of the match featured ND scores between another 5-0 run, a pair of 4-0 runs, and a final 2 points to win the set.

In a moment of amusement during the first set, the score graphic overlay for the jumbotron in the arena flashed up near the beginning of the set, about three points in, showing a score of 25-12 with Louisville in the lead.  It would take the operators a few minutes to work out the glitch and get the correct current score displayed.  And then Louisville won the set by that same 25-12 score.  Maybe a little bit of left over Halloween spookiness?

 

The second set was the closest by the Irish, as you can see from the set scores, but Louisville was able to steadily gain and increase the lead throughout the set, with the exception of a 5-0 ND run that brought them back into semi-competitive score at 16-13.  Louisville would get their foot back on the accelerator pedal, including a 5-0 run of their own, to take the set 25-16.

 

By the third and final set, the crowd had grown very quiet.  Even the Louisville crowd (about half of which were friends and family of Cara Cresse, who hails from Fort Wayne, IN, an under two hour drive to South Bend) couldn't muster up much motivation to cheer too terribly loud as the match took on the proverbial air of beating a dead horse.  The Cards jumped out to a 7-2 lead and that just seemed to take the fight out of the Notre Dame squad.  It just continued from there, with Louisville lead checkpoints at 16-6 and 20-8 on the way to the 25-12 win. 

 

It was a pretty easy victory over the Irish at Purcell Pavilion.  Louisville held ND to a whopping 0.000 hitting percentage...meaning they had as many hitting errors as they had kills.  Some credit there does go to Louisville's block, with six in the quick three set match that clocked in at a mere one hour and 15 minutes of playing time.  Louisville hit at a respectable .321 clip with a very well spread offense.

Charitie Luper led the Cards with 12 kills, hitting .417.  Anna DeBeer had six kills, Cara Cresse and Hannah Sherman balanced each other well with five kills each, as did Reese Robins and Sofia Maldonado Diaz with four each.  Sherman tallied a pair of solo blocks and shared a pair with Cresse getting a solo and a share of her own.  Luper, Robins, and Alanna Bankston all got in on the blocking as well.  While we're singing Sherman's accolades, it's only fair to mention the efficiency of her kills, chalking up an eye-popping .714 percentage.  Cresse was a bit less efficient, but still very good .417.  Maldonado Diaz, who never gets enough attention for her contributions, in my opinion, hit at a very fine .429 clip as well.

Kamden Schrand shone from the service line as well as doing a fine job digging, claiming three points through aces.  That eclipsed Elle Glocks pair with Luper, Elena Scott, and Sam Untiedt each getting one as well.

The Cards stay on the road for the coming week traveling to the northern extremities of the ACC, visiting Syracuse on Friday, and Boston College a week from today, and back to the familiar pattern of Friday/Sunday play.

Cardinal Couple Radio Hour Podcast

(the c.c. crew...pre daryl)

As I was on the road heading to South Bend, we didn't have the live broadcast of the CCRHP, but Jared, Case, and Paulie did get together for the recording and posting to podcast directories as Case typically takes care of that side of the CCRHP technical duties.

I have not yet had a chance to listen to it as I was tuned in to the big Louisville Football win last night (Clemson fans really rushed the field after a loss?  That's weird.  Hat tip to Mike Rutherford for that multi-year running gag that continues to pay dividends.)

Check out the trio podcast at:

https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/cardinal-couple/episodes/Two-Fall-Sports-Wrap-Up-e2qfdtf

 

-- 

JMcA