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!

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Until next time, Go Cards!

Case