Happy Mothers Day -- Championship Roundup - Sunday Cardinal Couple

Happy Mothers Day

A salute and shout-out to the moms out there. Today is your day. If your Mom is still alive, treat her very well today. If you are a Mom and reading us today...Happy Mothers Day to you! If your Mom has passed on, hopefully you'll have fond memories of her today. 

Championship Roundup

Several ACC Championships were in action this weekend where UofL was involved, so let's take a look at them.

Rowing

In competition in Raleigh, NC, the rowing team finished seventh overall in the championship.

The Cards won two races in the event, the Petite Varsity Eight, as well as in the Second Petite Varsity Eight.

Track & Field

Also in Raleigh, NC, Outdoor Track & Field finished off the ACC Championship.  The women's team finished overall ninth.

Several school records were set in action yesterday.  The women's 200m has a new school best time by Kiyah Yeast of 23.48 seconds.  Katie Martin set, again, the school record in the 400m hurdles at 57.22 seconds, which was good for a second place overall finish.  And finally, the 4-100m relay again set a school record, the quartet beating their previous record set two weeks ago, finishing in 44.55.  The team consisted of Taylor Herbert, Kiyah Yeast, Olivia Jenkins, and Synclair Savage.

Softball

Unfortunately, UofL was eliminated from the Softball Championship on Thursday in their game against Virginia Tech, but to put a bow on the tourney, Florida State beat Duke in the finals with some 2-out heroics in the 7th inning to walk off the Blue Devils 2-1.

UofL awaits their fate for NCAA Tournament selection with some, but not complete, confidence that they will have a bid.  On the verges of, or just finding their way into the various Top 25 rankings for Softball, and holding a RPI ranking of 34, give the Cards are good resume' to get into the tournament.  A quick scan around various conferences didn't show too many upset automatic qualifiers getting in, so that helps the Cards.

The NCAA Softball tournament is structured as essentially four rounds of double-elimination tournaments.  The Regionals are selected in the selection show with four teams in each region for 64 teams total, where they compete in a double elimination tournament.  The winner of each region advances to a Super Regional of two teams each.  The Super Regional is a best out of 3 affair, which is, effectively, a double-elimination tournament of two teams, if you want to think of it that way.  Advancing from the Super Regionals gets you to the Women's College World Series in Oklahoma city.  Eight teams participate and they are arranged effectively as two four team double elimination tournaments, except that the loser of second round game will "cross over" into the elimination bracket of the other section.  The winners of the four team double elimination brackets then face off in a best of three (again, effectively double elimination between two teams), with the winner being the overall NCAA champion.

The selection show is tonight at 7pm on ESPN2, which is of course, also streamable.  Let's hope for a good placement for the Cards.

Graduation

UofL (and several other schools in the area) held their commencement ceremony yesterday.  Too many athletes graduated for us to have a hope of listing them all, but you can scroll through the Twitter widget on the right side of the site...interspersed with Track and Field results, and see the tweets from the various programs celebrating the graduation of their players.

We would like to call out one additional graduation that you won't find in the twitter widget, however.

Katy Whitesell graduated from Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary with, I believe, a Masters in Social Work.  Katy is, as many of our readers will be aware, is the fiance' of Cardinal Couple writer and photographer Jared Anderson.

Our biggest hurrahs to all of the graduates.

Cardinal Couple Radio Hour Podcast

Four for the show yesterday, as Jared was off cheering on Katy at her graduation as mentioned above.  He really needs to get his priorities straight, ya know?

A great show that started off a bit out in left field of discussion before we brought it back around to have a good discussion about Softball and a missed call at home plate, along with examining the prospects of the team in the NCAA tournament.

You can find the audio at Spotify podcasters: 

https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/cardinal-couple/episodes/Spring-Sports-Winding-Down-e240cgq

and of course at any decent podcast directory.

-- JMcA

NCAA Tournament Prep -- Spring Schedule Released -- WEDNESDAY CARDINAL COUPLE

A Change In Today's Lineup

Paulie has a busy day ahead of him so he and I changed days around.  He'll take over Thursday and Friday this week...plus the coverage and results of Louisville women's soccer NCAA Second Round results. He'll be here with plenty of basketball news and notes including this week's game and some big recruiting news also.

In case you wondered which days your Cardinal Couple crew takes to these pages to write, the current schedule is me (Jared) on Tuesday and Thursdays, Paulie on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, Case on Saturday and Jeff on Sunday. Occasionally, we switch around ( like today ) when life events or travelling occur.

Soccer Prepares for NCAA Second Round

Soccer landed in Utah in preparation for the NCAA Second Round against BYU tomorrow.  They are the  #4 ranked team
in the latest poll and the Cougars are also the 2-seed in the region.

BYU enters the match at 19-0-1 with a 8-0-1 record in the West Coast Conference.  They were guaranteed in before their conference tournament, but earned the automatic bid with an 8-1 victory over Loyola Marymount.

Here is a video the team released of the arrival in Provo:

LINK:  CARDS WSOC ARRIVES IN PROVO

The Coogs sole draw was a 2-2 finish at Santa Clara at the beginning of October.

BYU had one of the hottest offenses in the country in the regular season.  They scored 73 goals in 20 matches for a 3.65 goals per match average.  They posted eight-goal performances twice and a single seven-goal performance.

Elisa Flake has scored 19 goals on the year while WCC Player of the Year Mikayla Colohan has scored 14.  They are part of a committee of 15 players to record a goal.

Defensively, BYU has surrendered just 10 goals.  Three goalkeepers have seen time in front of the net but it's Sabrina Davis who has done most of the heavy labor.  Although she has been the only keeper to allow a goal, Davis has played in all but one match and has 44 saves.

Louisville will square up against BYU on Thursday at 6:00 p.m.in Provo. NC State and Arkansas play earlier at the same site. That's Mountain time, so add two hours off that here locally -- a 8:00 p.m start in Louisville.  TV is currently listed as BYU TV but there is a chance it may be found online.

Paulie was able to catch up with Louisville women's soccer head coach Karen Ferguson Dayes via phone yesterday for an interview, so that link is below. A thanks to women's soccer SID Kim Pemberton for coordinating the hookup.

LINK:  KAREN FERGUSON DAYES INTERVIEW 11/19/19   (audio only)


Softball Releases Schedule

We're still months away from the start of the season but the softball schedule has been released.  It
features a minimal number of home games with most being on the road or at neutral locations.

As the season draws closer, Paulie will post it on the Right Side of the Site, like he does with WBB,VB, WSOC and other women's sports.

SCHEDULE DETAILS

The season will start on Feb. 7, with the opening weekend featuring a five-game performance in Clearwater, Fla.

They'll head up the coast the next weekend for the ACC/Big Ten Challenge where they will face Michigan and Wisconsin twice each.

Tuscaloosa will be the next stop of the road trip for the Easton Bama Bash.  Louisville will face Penn State once, Wichita State twice, and Alabama twice.

February will conclude in Stillwater and Tulsa for the joint OSU/Tulsa Invitational.  Louisville will face four teams from around the country.

The first visit to Ulmer Stadium is the first full weekend in March- the Red and Black Challenge.  The Cards will host Oakland, Illinois, and Evansville as well as get a rematch against Northwestern.

They then start conference play by hosting Boston College during the Ides of March.

The first conference road trip of the season will be at Florida State the following weekend.  Unlike past years, this series will be Friday-Sunday.  No Monday night prime time spot.  I guess someone didn't like the shocker last year.

Louisville travels to Indiana for a midweek game before traveling to Duke to close out March.

The Cards open April up by hosting Pittsburgh the first weekend and Notre Dame the second weekend.  With Easter on April 12, the Cards and Irish will play a double header on Saturday, April 11, instead of the normal one game per day slot.

The Cards will then head to Lipscomb in the middle of the week before turning east to travel to
Virginia

The final weekend in April will be Senior Weekend when the Cards host NC State.

They then travel down the road to Kentucky on April 29 before visiting Syracuse to start May.

The ACC Softball Tournament is May 6-May 9 and will be hosted in Louisville this year.  Only 10 of the now-12 teams (Duke was new to softball last year) make the tournament so the Cards need to make sure they're in the top 10.  The bottom four seeds will have play-in games while the rest have a bye until the second day of the tournament.

I know, another weird bracket to deal with.


*****************************************************************************

Keep an eye out for Paulie's preview of women's basketball's Thursday night game vs. Chattanooga, more comments on the Louisville women's soccer match and his thoughts on Hailey Van Lith.

All tomorrow on your daily blast of the joy and excitement of UofL women's sports.

Happy Wednesday and Go Cards!

Jared

WBB Dips Chips 76-63 -- WSOC and FH start NCAA Tournament Today -- FRIDAY CARDINAL COUPLE

JONES, EVANS AND SHOOK COMBINE FOR 64 IN 76-63 WIN

Sometimes the old is the best. 

IT WAS SEVENTIES NIGHT...BUT I
DRESS THIS WAY EVERY DAY

Louisville WBB looked to veterans Jazmine Jones, Dana Evans and Kylee Shook last night to win their third game of the season, and the trio combined for 85% of Louisville's points in a 76-63 win over scrappy Central Michigan last night in the KFC YUM! Center. 

Maybe it's fitting on seventies night that the Cards tallied 76 points in a contest where the Cards had their woes in a struggling first half but eventually put CMU away. 

Louisville didn't gain the lead until five minutes played in the first quarter. A driving Jazmine Jones layup put UofL up 10-9. It was part of a six-point run in the quarter where Jones had eight of her career high 25 points and, despite shooting only 38.9%, Louisville forged to a 22-15 lead after 10 minutes. 

The going was treacherous and tricky in the first and, at times, not very pretty...UofL had a battle on their hands

The Chippewas were being the Matt Bevin's of women's college hoops and refusing to secede.  CMU guard Micaela Kelly responded with nine of her team-high 23 points in the next ten minutes and the visitors chopped the Louisville lead to three on several occasions, ending the half with a Kelly jumper at the buzzer. The second quarter for Louisville belonged to Kylee Shook and Jones -- they went five for eight and had 11 of Louisville's 17 points in the second quarter.

Your halftime score = Louisville 39- CMU 36.

Caption This Picture in the comments section

The Cards were having trouble stopping Chips guards Kelly and Maddy Watters on their drives to the basket and CMU forward Kyra Bussell was giving the Louisville front line all they wanted. Walz wasn't happy and had to inspire his guards to get into the game with more passion and hustle.

Out of the break, Dana Evans took heed of those words and took over. 

She owed the third quarter, with 11 points, while Shook took  over on the board with six grabs and four points as the Cards went on a 5-0 run to start the third session and closed it out with an 8-2 run to hold a 59-46 lead. 

Jeff Walz and the 7605 Louisville fans were getting increasing annoyed with the calls from "Godzilla and King Kong" -- refs Joe Vaszily and Carla Fountai... some inexplicable and unexplainable whistles, but the Cards appeared out of danger. Despite Bionca Dunham, "E" Balogun and Jones being in foul trouble.

Wrong. 

Central Michigan opened the fourth quarter on a 7-0 run. It was two-and-a-half minutes of Cardinal frustration until Jaz connected on the first of her eight points of the final quarter. She and Evans had 14 of Louisville 17 points in the fourth and the Cards methodically built the lead back to double digits. Seven free throws -- six from Dana and one from Jessica Laemmle closed out the Cards scoring in the final minute. A minute that seemed to take 10 minutes to play

I can understand CMU's strategy there -- foul and hope for misses -- but when you are down by 11 and 28 seconds remain on the clock...do you really need to commit a foul? Especially on someone (Dana) who was eight-for-nine in the game. 

CMU employs and illegal double team with coach and player
to guard Ya Ya. 

Still wondering here why Ya-Ya Diop isn't seeing more court time. Somehow, they have to find more than eight minutes for her, unless it a case of not working hard in practice or an ailment. 

Seygan Robins did not play -- her foot in a boot -- Walz explains the reason (her heel) in the post-game interview we have for you. 

Nevertheless, Cards win 76-63 !!




THE FRED REPORT

Today's Fred is Fredrick Douglass

FREE THROWS -- Nothing to worry about here. Louisville was 23-27 from the line (Dana 10-11) for 85.2%. They get a capital "F" for that. I'll even award a complimentary "F" to CMU...their 23-28 wasn't too shabby either.

REBOUNDING -- The Cards got tough when they absolutely needed to on the boards, but, the 42-34 edge against a considerably smaller squad wasn't what I expected. With Liz Dixon seeing just 14 minutes, the rebounding title went to Kylee with 12. A double-double for the "Rocky Mountain Rebounder". Good, but not great for UofL overall. I'll award a small case "r" 

EFFORT/EXECUTION -- Louisville was playing hard -- no doubt about it -- but something has to be done about the Cards close-in shooting. Liz, Kylee and Bionca were a combined 8-25 and that's not going to win you a lot of games in the ACC. Still, the brilliant efforts from Dana and "J.J." were spectacular to watch. Dana, with a career high 24 points had NO assists, though. Liz was 1-7 from the floor. I'll grudgingly hand out a small case "e" here...and, in my opinion, CMU out-hustled the Cards for a great portion of the contest.

DEFENSE -- Holding an opponent to 38% shooting is good. Forcing them into 19 turnovers gets a thumbs up. The Cards allowed just 49 shots, compared to taking 67 of their own. Winning the points-off-turnovers 21-18 and the second chance points 15-6 is a plus for UofL. They couldn't stop CMU guards Kelly, Watters or Davis for most of the game, though, and that has to get better. I'll give a small case "d" here, because CMU tallied just 63 points. 

FINAL FRED TALLY:  F-r-e-d

All in all, an exciting contest where a visiting team came in swinging and the Cards survived the punches. Walz has a lot to work on, between now and next Thursday, when UofL brings in UT Chattanooga...granted....but he can point to Jazz, Dana and Kylee and tell the rest of the squad "Give me efforts like this if you want court minutes." 


THEY SAID IT

-- Link to post-game presser with CMU head coach Heather Oesterle (a delightful person, actually)...  HEATHER HAS HER SAY 

--Dana and Jazz had the podium for players' post-game. Insightful words out of those two for sure and a bit of humor... JAZZING IT UP WITH DANA AND JJ 

-- Coach Walz had calmed down considerably from the contest and was as eloquent as I've heard/seen him. You could tell he was still a bit frustrated, but, for once...didn't call me out about anything. Maybe it was the blood pressure medication... WALZ WORDS 


FIELD HOCKEY AND WOMEN'S SOCCER BEGIN THE NCAA


A wild day on Floyd Street today, beginning with Louisville Field Hockey vs.Michigan at noon, in first-round NCAA Tournament action  more NCAA first-round action at Trager with Northwestern vs. Boston College after that. Then, to Lynn Stadium we go for NCAA first-round action for WSOC...taking on Lipscomb at 6 p.m.

There's also Volleyball at the LNFCU tonight with UofL looking to avenge their earlier road loss to Syracuse in a rematch against the Orange at 7 p.m. We'll have reports on all three Saturday here at the website and on THE CARDINAL COUPLE RADIO HOUR at 11 a.m. on 100.9 FM and Facebook Live. 

C'mon down to the campus and "get some"! Leave work with a "headache" at 10:30 a.m. , grab some food and head to Floyd for fun on Friday ! 

Have a fantastic Friday! Be kind to people on Twitter and Facebook. Not everyone is as "brilliant" as you and, what do you gain by making fun of someone's struggles? 

(GAME PHOTOS FROM JARED ANDERSON..WHO WASN"T AROUND IN THE "SEVENTIES")


paulie
xxxxx

Cards Field Hockey, women's soccer and women's BB pressers and predictions -- Walz Words later today -- WEDNESDAY CARDINAL COUPLE

BUSY TUESDAY FOR PAULIE

A busy Tuesday with press conferences by Louisville Women's Soccer and Louisville Field Hockey at the Planet Fitness basketball facility. More fun today as Jeff Walz holds a Wednesday presser there that I'll add to today's article shortly after the 12:30 scheduled talk. 

But, before all that. I'm gonna brag a bit.

I've been on the silent auction committee
for the Central Cardinal Club the past few months, creating awareness and asking UofL sports programs for auction items and activities. Committee chairman Brenda Stout, plus Judy, Deb and I, the other committee members, had ever organized a silent auction before. 

I'm proud to report that the silent auction was held last night at the monthly meeting/dinner over at the University Club and it netted over $4,000 !! 

We had so much stuff donated, we're holding an additional silent auction in the spring for the items that didn't make this auction.

The silent auction proceeds go to help support the non-revenue sports at UofL. All you directors of operations for UofL athlecic squads who secured merchandise, tickets and activities for us...plus, all the restaurants and places of business that donated...thank you again!

I slept pretty good last night. 

OK, on to pressers. 

The Tuesday presser at the facility opened with MBB head coach Chris Mack around 1:25 p.m. I did not record any of that, many more "experts" on hand to do the questioning than I, so I just sat back and listened. 


WOMEN'S SOCCER

Karen Ferguson Dayes and the WSOC squad begin their NCAA Tournament at Lynn 

against Lipscomb. I'm afraid I tripped Coach Karen up a bit about strategy, strengths and weaknesses during the interview, but...I suppose...it's what you've come to expect out of me over the years. A good amount of other media on hand asking questions as well, including a lot of television talking-heads and such. They stuck around after Mack's talk and it is kind of nice for once not to have to share the questioning with another "sports expert" that usually attends these things. 

Game time:  6 p.m. Friday

(NOTE: my clips are audio only.  IF YOU PREFER TO WATCH AND LISTEN, GO TO THE GOCARDS.COM SITE) 

LINK:    DAYES AND PLAYERS FOR WSOC


Paulie Prediction: I am not overly worried about Lipscomb, the WSOC squad's first opponent. I do think the Cards will need to be on their toes and attack with passion, but this UofL defense is rock-solid, Lipscomb had to go through two overtimes and a penalty
shootout to solve a 1-1 tie in the ASUN conference tournament.

These Nashville Bisons haven't seen a defense this talented all season and if Ekic, Rivers, Whitfield, Snyder and L'Esperance can manage a goal (or more, preferably) the Cards advance. What does worry me is if BYU downs Boise St., the Cards will have to travel to Utah and play on Sunday against the #2 team in the region. I'm a blue-turf, Boise St. Bronco fan for the matchup. Bring them to Louisville instead of the Cards going to Utah.

 SCORE PREDICTION:  CARDS 3 - BISON 0.


FIELD HOCKEY

Justine Sowry's stick swingers are the #4 seed in their region. They'll host 1st and 2nd rounds Friday and start the day's Floyd Street action off against an always-tough Michigan squad in Trager. 

Sowry brought Bethany Russ and Alli Bitting with her to the presser and, quite frankly, the conversation I had with Coach after the presser was more interesting than the actual press conference. I wish I'd recorded that. It's always great to have a lot of people at pressers, and this assortment did a great job of peppering Sowry with questions. So good, in fact, 'ol Paulie didn't get a chance to get a question in. That's OK, though, Justine has probably fielded more questions from me over the years than she cares to remember. A bit of fun for me to listen to the other pups play...

Coach did make a comment at the end which I caught part of where said I was pretty quiet today. I just smiled and said that I couldn't get a word in edgewise. 

LINK:  COACH SOWRY FIELD HOCKEY PRESSER


Paulie prediction:  This will be a tough one for the Cards. Michigan fared well against the squads two common opponents: Iowa and Indiana. Michigan plays am attacking, aggressive and hard-nosed game, like most of the Big 10's sports squads do. The Cards have faced this style twice this year in IU and Iowa. They won. What I really want to see is the Cards score more than one goal in the match. If they do this, they'll win...Louisville Field Hockey also has a stellar defense. Here's hoping Meche, Bethany and the field hockey Cards can attack the net and keep the ball in front of the Wolverines net. I think they will. 

They'll get either Boston College or Northwestern on Sunday. B.C. is a squad Louisville knows and has beaten, but, the Cards have performed quite well against the Big 10 in 2019, going 5-0 against Iowa. IU, Penn St., Ohio St. and Michigan St. in the season. 

Louisville has also outscored the Big 10 18-4 in these matches.  Bring me the the Wildcats from Evanston for the "great eight". 

SCORE PREDICTION: LOUISVILLE 2 - MICHIGAN 1 


WALZ INTERVIEW 11/13/19

Cards WBB faces Central Michigan at 6 p.m. Thursday

Before anything else, Coach Walz wanted me to remind our readers that the Central Michigan game is at 6 p.m. Thursday. 

This is an earlier start that normal for Louisville women's basketball. Co-existing with the ACC Network has it's ups and downs and derivation from normal start times is part of the price the fans pay to receive the coverage. 

With that being said, today's 12:30 p.m. presser with Walz covered a variety of subjects, as they usually do. Central Michigan, the team's practices, substitution patterns and more are discussed. 

Enjoy, it's linked up below and...remember...THE GAME THURSDAY IS AT 6:00 p.m.

LINK: WALZ INTERVIEW

Have a wonderful Wednesday ! 
PAULIE 
XXXXX

Louisville Women's basketball -- Cards #4 in nation, still projected as #1 seed -- WGolf -- Asia Taylor -- TUESDAY CARDINAL COUPLE

LOUISVILLE NOW #4 IN RANKINGS, STILL HEADED TO CHICAGO

Another Monday night, another release of the NCAA DI Women's College basketball rankings. The Cards not falling as far as a few thought they might, checking in at #4 behind Baylor, Oregon and Connecticut. Notre Dame rounding out the top five and Miami, who knocked off the Cards on Sunday ... climbing to #14. 

As the Ducks fans were rejoicing in this ranking, they were losing to Oregon State 62-67 in "the Civil War" -- the moniker assigned to the games between these two schools. It was at Oregon State and payback for the Ducks quacking past the Beavers on Friday night in Eugene 77-68. 

One bracketology projection for the Cards revealed/updated last night has the Cards as a #2 seed and going there with Connecticut. Another has Louisville still as a #1 seed and going still to Chicago. As Jeff Walz says, and we echo, it doesn't matter where you are in mid-February...being alive in April is pretty important, though.

How will the recent loss to Miami affect the WBB squad on Floyd Street? One would think that it motivate them (along with a few tough practices) to rebound at Virginia on Thursday and come out motivated and firing. Asia and Sam have come out publicly and said they knew it wasn't their finest hour. 

It's been suggested that the Cards needed this loss, to show them that you have to bring it every night, every game. I'm unsold on that theory. You don't want conference losses that directly affect your seedings and opponents in the tournament. 

We'll see how the Cards respond on Thursday at a Virginia team's lair where they are 7-8 overall and 3-4 in conference. At 10-15, they're probably not a team that will be inn the Big Dance, unless they pull off a major miracle in the ACC Tournament.


LOUISVILLE WOMEN'S GOLF LEADS MOON GOLF INVITATIONAL 

Louisville women's golf successfully landed on the moon, disembarked from their shuttle and space-suit hopped to.....wait, wake up Paulie!!....The Cards are NOT on the moon, but in sunny Florida playing in the Moon Golf Invitational being held in Melbourne, FL. 

And, Louisville leads the way at -7, tied with UCF. 

They played 36 holes yesterday and Lauren Hartlage emerged on top of the list with an -8 under performance. They'll finished it up with 18 holes today.


HOORAY FOR ASIA! 

This is a segment about a different Asia that "nite-nite". You remember Asia Taylor, right? 

She continues to find unqualified success in "the land down under". Now in Perth, on the western side of Australia, "A-Tayy", she's been named to the WNBL's "Super Five" list for the third straight year. She joins Lindsay Allen (Las Vegas Aces, Notre Dame, Melbourne), Kelsey Griffin (Nebraska, Canberra), Nia Coffey (Las Vegas Aces, Northwestern, Adelaide) and Bec Cole (Australian Inst. of Sport, Dandenong). 

The Cardinal great has shown that she can continue to excel no matter which Aussie squad she plays for. 

Asia is back from her season down under and here in the states, preparing for another WNBA season and working with her Hoops With A Purpose organization. She has not yet decided to return to the WNBL next year yet nor undergone contract negotiations with anyone "over there" yet. 

Sonya's favorite player in women's basketball continues to shine brightly. 

More on Asia at the link below: 

https://thewest.com.au/sport/basketball/perth-lynxs-asia-taylor-in-wnbl-all-star-five-again-ng-b881109933z




paulie
xxxxx

WBB Overall One Seed -- Spring Sports are Here -- WEDNESDAY CARDINAL COUPLE

UofL WBB Projected as Overall One-Seed

ESPN quietly came out with their latest bracketology for women's basketball.  Maybe the fact that neither Notre Dame nor UConn took the top spot caused the limited fanfare.  It's also still a long way until the Selection Show- five and a half weeks. Coach Walz has said in he past he doesn't pay much attention to the projections. Still, being #1, as UofL is -- a nice honor to a team that has looked fantastic since the Notre Dame game.

The four sites where Sweet Sixteen action will take place are Albany, NY, Greensboro, NC, Chicago, IL. and Portland, OR.

Louisville sits in the overall top spot.  Notre Dame, Oregon, and Baylor round out the final 1-seeds.
  UConn, Stanford, Mississippi State, and NC State are the projected 2-seeds with the Huskies in the Albany region with the Cards.

Obviously this is just a projection by the four-letter sports network, is it accurate? The joke going around is that Charlie Creme, the guru of ESPN'S bracketology, hasn't gotten location sites for teams right in years.  A lot can change in the span between now and then with several of the top teams still having ranked opponents left on the schedule.

In other women's basketball news Jeff Walz announced on his show last night that Yacine Diop has shown interest in returning to the program next season.  Diop, a graduate transfer from Pittsburgh, was supposed to help with the rebounding and post presence, went down early in the season with an injury.  It isn't guaranteed that Diop would be granted an extra year but if approved she would be a huge asset to a team losing multiple key players. The process has been more favorable over the recent years. Clemson has a seven-year player in Simone Westbrook.

You can read the Louisville-Syracuse preview tomorrow from Paulie.

Spring Sports are Ready to Start

We are two days away from three spring sports team starting season play.  Two won't be at home for quite some time with the inconsistent Louisville weather playing a factor in outdoor games. Lacrosse, maybe an exception in weather conditions, will play three opponents on the road before bringing in Mercer on Saturday, Feb. 23rd

-- Track and field opens their outdoor season Friday.  The team will split up and head to Indiana and Iowa State.  During the indoor season the track and field team found success during the indoor season and are ready to move outside.

-- Softball kicks off their first season under Holly Aprile by traveling out to California in a tournament hosted by Cal State Fullerton.  They'll play five opponents in 48 hours.  Two of the teams are in the receiving votes category but no one is ranked.

Aprile has experienced pitching returning and two ACC preseason team members in Sidney Melton and Megan Hensley. They'll play 14 games on the road before hosting Indiana State in the Cardinal Classic on March 1st.

-- Lacrosse is set to start their second season under Scott Teeter on Friday at #7 Northwestern.  They
then head over to Marquette on Sunday.  Seven of their 17 opponents are ranked and two are in the receiving votes category.  Just one senior and nine freshmen on the 2019 Louisville roster.

Spring Sports are here. We hope you'll get out and attend them!



PLAY FOR KAY FREE THROW CHALLENGE

3 minutes ago

We pledged $2 per free throw to University of Louisville Play4Kay Free Throw Challenge on http://PledgeIt.org ! https://pledgeit.org/louisville-play4kay … via @pledgeit Join Cardinal Couple in this worthy cause @coachjeffwalz @uoflwbb

We're in. How about you? UofL won this challenge last year. Let's go for a repeat.

Happy Wednesday

Jared

0 replies1 retweet3 likes

Illinois Eliminates VolleyCards from NCAA Tournament -- WBB facing Tenn. State today -- SUNDAY CARDINAL COUPLE

ILLINOIS BLOCKS CARDS PATH IN NCAA SECOND ROUND

(Our regular Sunday columnist "Worldwide" Jeff McAdams is...you guessed it...travelling back from the game and will do the Volleyball season recap on Tuesday for CARDINAL COUPLE. Here's Paulie's take on the match.) 

Despite 17 kills each from Melanie McHenry and Amanda Green, the University of Volleyball team fell in second round action to Illinois, in Champaign last night in four sets. The Cards won the second set, but were handled by the Big Ten school the rest of the way with a four set total of 25-22, 26-28, 25-17, 25-18. 

They do support their wide-net action on the Illinois campus. 4400 showed up for the second round match and there wasn't much "red" shown by the BTN2GO network in the orange clad crowd. 

One thing I will remember about this contest was Illinois' superior ability to block at the net.  The home team used a 19 -5 advantage in stopping shots at the net to subdue the Cards and move on to the Sweet Sixteen. 

First set action found the squads tied at 12 before "Abe Lincoln's other state" pulled away and held a 19-17 edge. Undaunted, the Cards roared back to capture a 20-19 lead before the Illini took control again and finished the set on a 6-2 run to win the set. a perilously close net ball fell the home team's way for the final point. 

Louisville came out strong in set two and led 10-7 after a McHenry worm burner. Still up 15-12 at the media break, the Cards stumbled a bit later on and looked on as U of Ill erased a 17-14 Cardinal advantage and grabbed a 18-17 edge. The Cards were not through yet, though, and successfully held off set points at 24-22 to force extra action. Once again, McHenry "rose" to the occasion and her kill shot gave Louisville the 28-26 win. 



After the break, it turned into an Illinois block party. 

Louisville never held a lead in the third set. Falling behind 14-6 after the #3 ranked Illini sprinted off on a 8-0 run, the Cards would battle back to get within four...but the rally was successfully quelled and 20-12 eventually became 25-17 in favor of the Champaign-Urbana school. 

(Sidebar. We assigned Worldwide the task, since he was there, to check out Urban Urbana after dark. We suggested he drink champagne in Champaign before doing so. Film at 11...if he managed to make it out of the lobby of the Hilton.)

The Cards did not recover from the third set drubbing. Confident and having fun, U of Ill continued to throw the "block party" and built a 10-4 lead on the Cards in set four. Although the school has not yet named a replacement for the recently forced retirement of mascot Chief Illiniwek, the Volleyball team had no trouble going on the warpath against the Cards and built that lead to 20-11. McHenry and Green kept swinging and narrowed that a bit, but the scalping party squad held the scared ground with a seven-point win for game, set and match.

This was a good season for UofL Volleyball.

Not quite the ACC Championship caliber of last year's...but the Cards did advance further in the NCAA tournament than last year and have quite a bit of talent returning in McHenry, Roe, VanDyke, Scott, Sloan and others. 

They also lose a great deal of talent in Green, Sauer, Rivera and Bennett. 



Louisville finished the season at 22-9. 


WBB TAKES THE TIGERS BY THE TAIL TODAY

Meanwhile, back on the banks of the Ohio River, the University of Louisville women's basketball team prepares to put their season opening seven game win streak on the line when they try to cage the Tennessee State Tigers today at 2 p.m in the KFC YUM! Center.

OK...no need to cue up the Civil Defense sirens.

The Nashville school saunters in with an 0-8 record on the season. With four starters returning from a 6-21 team in 2017-18, one would speculate they might be a little better that "0 for season" but they have faced an arduous schedule that has included Vandy, Arkansas, Wisconsin and Pittsburgh. 

Last time out, TSU took a 78-56 loss to South Alabama. These felines did face the Cards last year in the YUM! in December and fell 95-56. 

For Louisville, a performance of the basics and solid, smart basketball should be enough to improve to a "snowman" record (8-0) on a day that promises to be sunny and in the 60's.

"TV Dee" won't be blowing the whistle today in the downtown arena but there will be an all-woman officiating crew with Paulani Spurlock, Felicia Young and Tommi Paris. 

A chance, perhaps, for Coach Walz to give a little extended playing time to the "R & R" girls (Seygan Robins and Mykasa Robinson), plus Lindsey Duvall and everyone's favorite Attack Yorkie...Jess Laemmle, if the other seven on the Cardinal roster can take care of business sufficiently and rapidly. "Run, Forrest, run" is the Cards go-to and if they can successfully couple accuracy to go with the speed, they should have a great deal of success scampering up and down Denny Crum Court. 

Hopefully, the Cards can quell their turnovers early, force a bunch of them by the Tigers and commit acts of theft. We'd like to see the Tennessee State bakery open and Louisville's closed on Sunday. Letting "threedom" reign from "Durr-able", Arica and others is another way the Cards can roll up the score and give the fans a chance to get loud. 

In the all-time series, the Cards are 4-2 against Tennessee State. They went 2-2 in the 1985-86 and 1986-87 seasons, each team winning at home back in the Peggy Fieher days. The Cards recorded romps over the Tigers in 2012 and last year. 

Can't be there? Shame on you, but, don't despair. ACCNE will bring the video feed with "Jumpin' Jim Kelch and the esteemed, former paint-prowler Cortnee Walton handling play-by-play and color analysis coverage. On the electric radio, may we suggest the excellent coverage of Nick Curran and Adrienne Johnson on CARDS RADIO 790 AM WKRD. 

And now...today's song is a classic from the 1960's...the legendary Buck Owens performs with his Buckaroos band and tells you about "getting a Tiger By The Tail".  Check out the excellent guitar work by the vastly under-rated Don Rich and those gaudy monkey suits at the link below.



A feel-good country song for what we hope will be a feel-good afternoon: 

LINK: Tiger By The Tail



paulie
xxxxx







                                              ###################