Sunday Cardinal Couple

Basketball Gameday

Jeff Walz is taking his squad up north.  Or perhaps you prefer "Norse".

The Norse are, of course Northern Kentucky University, a member of the Horizon League, and alma mater for Jeff Walz.  NKU is a relatively new school to Division I athletics, having made the transition from Division II in 2012.  Originally joining the Atlantic Sun Conference (in 2008), they changed to the Horizon League as they completed their transition period to Division I.

The Norse are 4-4 to this point in the season, and perhaps a little amusingly, they started their season with four straight loses, followed by four straight wins.  They dropped decisions against the Samantha Williams led Eastern Kentucky, Saint Louis, and, in a visit to Nashville, both Lipscomb and Belmont.  Wins came against The University of Nebraska at Omaha, Central Arkansas, Jacksonville State, and Florida International.

Based on that competition, I don't expect NKU to put up too much competition for the Cards today.  Who should the Cards keep an eye on amongst the Norse, though?

Molly Glick is a 5'11" guard and the scoring leader, including from beyond the arc with almost 40% success.  The supporting cast is Ivy Turner, and then a committee of Carissa Garcia, Emmy Souder, and Ally Niece.  Souder will be the biggest presence in the middle, a 6'2" forward/center.

The game is at 2pm, and is only available for streaming on ESPN+.  You might prefer to just tune in Nick and AJ on the radio, where they should be on the call, as always.

Volleyball Tournament Update

Thanks to Case for the excellent recap of UofL's win over WKU Friday night.  You can check his article yesterday for analysis and breakdown of that.  He hit on pretty much all of the points and takeaways that I had from watching the match in person.

Let's take a moment and look around at the rest of the tournament.

As of last night, all of the first and second round matches are complete and the sweet 16 is set.  The Cards are, of course, in and will be hoisting another black banner in the L&N Federal Credit Union Arena in the fall.  Back to the present, however, their opponent will be 2-seed Texas, who had a surprisingly difficult time getting past UC Santa Barbara on Texas' home floor in Gregory Gymnasium.  Being the highest seed to advance to the Regional level, they will be hosted the matches this weekend including with Louisville on Friday.  The other half of the Regional bracket includes Minnesota and Florida.  Minn had a serious challenge last night against Creighton, taking five sets to get the win.  Creighton is a very fine team, and was ranked in the top 25 for much of the season.  Florida dispatched UCF is three relatively easy sets.

In other matches of potential interest to UofL fans, Kentucky swept Michigan with relative ease in Memorial Colliseum.  They'll play Washington in the Sweet 16 in Waco with the Regional being hosted by 1-seed Baylor.

Cincinnati, led by US National Teamer Jordan Thompson, who put up 41 kills on the Cards earlier in the season, advanced over UofL conference-mates and 6-seed Pittsburgh.  This was a battle royale, with extra points in sets and a 5th set nail biter that Cincinnati finally won 15-13.  The Bearcats will play 11-seed Penn State.  They'll be hosted by 3-seed Stanford.

How has the ACC done in the tournament so far?  Well, with four teams entering, and only one team advancing to the Sweet 16, I'd say it hasn't been spectacular.  As mentioned, Pitt lost in the upset to Cincy last night, while Notre Dame and FSU both were eliminated in the first round.  ND lost to UCLA, and FSU lost in what could be argued is an upset to UCF, though since neither were seeded or ranked, that's subjective.

So that's where things stand overall.  The Cards will be playing Friday against Texas in Austin, as mentioned previously, though game times will not be set until the TV gods weigh in...probably some time today.

Cardinal Couple Radio Hour

Case and I were able to put together a decent show yesterday, discussing the roller-coaster week that was for the Basketball squad, as well as the successes of volleyball thus far in the tournament.

Speaking of successes, playing Paulie's walk-up music for Case won't be counted among my own, but we had fun with it.

Check out the stream, if you didn't listen live, at:

https://www.facebook.com/WCHQfm/videos/551031325736185/

--

JMcA

Sunday Cardinal Couple - St. Louis Plus 10 Years

St. Louis 2009 Final Four Celebration

OK, it hasn't been 10 years of calendar time yet, but it is the 10 season of UofL Women's Basketball since that improbable 2009 run to the Championship game.

Most of the team and support staff were in town and were honored at halftime of the UofL vs NKU game yesterday.  Some of the team couldn't be there, Mo Reid for example, due to still being active in the pro basketball world.  I believe Coach Walz said that Mo was playing in Israel, "and still not guarding anyone."

Many of the Cardinal Couple favorites were there, including Double-B herself, Becky Burke; the all-star of the team, Angel McCoughtry; pressed-into-point-guard-role, Dez Byrd; Laura Terry; and more.

I thought it was a nice touch to honor everyone that was involved with team, including managers, and even radio play-by-player extraordinaire Jim Kelch who was in town doing ACCNE play-by-play and radio for The Norse.

The game, frankly, was largely an afterthought.  NKU came in and played well, including out-rebounding the Cards 39-33 (No "r" in the Fred report today.), and with defensive aggression.  Ultimately, however, they were no match for the Cards, falling in the final tally 92-59.

The Cards were lead by Dana Evans, who poured in 21, mostly by just flat out running past the defender assigned to her and getting lay-ups.  She also dished it out a bit, with a team leading 6 assists.  Sam Fuehring and Kylee Shook shared the spotlight in the paint, with 15 each.  It should be noted that Shook and Evans, despite my description of their primary activity, both also dropped a three.  Asia Durr had a relatively quiet night, with only 11 points

The Cards have a quiet stretch ahead of them. They travel to Mount Pleasant, MI to match up with Central Michigan on the 20th to wrap up the non-conference slate, with one very notable exception. Then they're off until January 3rd, when they start conference play against UNC here at the KFC Yum! Center.

A great late morning and early afternoon of hoops, remembrances and, perhaps,  a moist eye or two in the almost 8,000 in the KFC YUM! Center. 11-0 and in the top 3/4 in the nation.

(PAULIE NOTE: I CAUGHT UP WITH ONE OF THE 2009 PLAYERS AND ASKED HER THOUGHTS ON THE "CURRENT SQUAD". SHE SMILED AND REPLIED THAT IT WOULD BE FUN TO SEE ASIA GO UP AGAINST ANGEL. GIVE IT TIME, IT WILL HAPPEN, GIVE IT TIME. TODAY'S PHOTOS FROM JARED ANDERSON AND A FEW OTHER SOURCES.)


They Said It: 

POST GAME NKU -- JEFF WALZ. (Walz issues an order but is countermanded by Nick E.) 

POST GAME NKU -- KYLEE SHOOK AND DANA EVANS (Kylee wants a new body for XMAS).




The Fred Report

Mr Rogers would have said "It was a
beautiful day in the "Cardinal"-hood. 

Free throws -- 16-21 is 76.2%. In Paulie parlance, that's good for a capital "F". It is Worldwide's article today, though, and he sees it small-case "f"'since it isn't 80%. Small case 'f' it is.

Rebounds -- The Cards were out-rebounded 39-33. This won't get any letter. Walz specifically mentioned that this was something to work on.

Effort/execution -- Hustle stats were all in favor of the Cards. They did win by 33 points. We'll celebrate the 2009 squad, who always came out with excellent effort and execution, and go with the capital "E". 

Defense -- 21 opponent turnovers, 10 steals and 41.7% NKU shooting is good, mind you, but the third quarter standing around and watching warrant a small-case "d".

FINAL FRED TALLY: f-_E-d .


Caption this Picture

Coach Walz either forgot something, is wondering where he is on Saturday afternoon or is debating about needing a shave?  

Caption this picture in our comments section, if you'd like. No prize or nothing  For what Paulie thinks is the best, you'll get nothing...and like it!!

Sonya saw the picture and started laughing...commenting "He's probably trying to make sense out of the last question you asked him." 

Just Keep Swimming

The UofL swimming team, or in the past few days, to put it more accurately, members of the team @UofLswim_dive account.
current and past, continue to do great things. Several current and past members of the team have spent the week in Hangzhou China continuously setting American and World records...at least you'd think that was the case based on the

As a side note, how about a little respect also for the folks manning that twitter account, keeping up with the rapid fire successes, particularly when combined with the wicked timezone difference that means most of the action happens at...let's say inconvenient...times of the day for those of us here in EST-land.

Kelsi Dahlia nee Worrell and Malory Comerford have been representing, as they so often do, the Cardinals well on the women's side of the events. I've long ago lost track of all of the American records they have set this week, and throw in a few World records and it's all a whirlwind of results.

On the guys side of things, Carlos Claverie (Venezuela), Zach Harting (US), Marcelo Acosta (El Salvador), and Grigory Tarasevich (Russia) are competing for their respective countries.

Cardinal Couple Clip Show

The bulk of the Cardinal Couple Radio Hour crew was down at the KFC Yum! Center yesterday to watch the Cards beat up on the Norse in the unusual 11:30 a.m. start time and to celebrate the 2009 crew, so we weren't on the air live yesterday. Paulie did put together a "Best of 2018" show (which I haven't yet had the opportunity to check out).

Because it wasn't a live show, it's not on Facebook Live, but you can catch the audio at:



https://soundcloud.com/chradio/cardinal-couple-20181215-best-clips-of-2018

It is also at our station website at

www.wchqfm.com

We should be back on the air next week with our usual shenanigans.

--
JMcA