Friday Cardinal Couple -- Bobcats Declawed....Louisville 90 -Ohio 33

FRIDAY CARDINAL COUPLE


- Dyer's 15 points leads balanced UofL attack in win

Ohio University WBB came into the KFC YUM! Center with the reputation of being a good shooting team with a propensity for hitting three-balls.
 
The Bobcats went 10-53 for the game from the field (18.9%) and 2-25 (8%) from beyond the arc.

Good defense? Absolutely, yes...but wide open looks got no closer to the rim than contested efforts. Kiyanna Black... she of 35 points off the bench against Xavier...went 2-14 from the floor and 0-7 from the deep.

Louisville jumped on the Bobcats early and led 10-2 with four minutes gone in the game after a Jude Schimmel layup. The Cards would stretch that out to 20-4 when Megan Deines scored in the paint at the 12:55 mark. Fast forward (Louisville was doing a lot of things fast Thursday night) to Shawnta Dyer's basket inside and Louisville enjoyed a commanding 31-6 advantage with 8:53 showing on the clock.

Photo by Charlie Springer - UofL Card Game

The Cards hit a brief lapse for about five minutes as time ticked off the clock in the first stanza...going scoreless with Asia, Sara, Monny, Megan and Jude in the game until Bria came in and hit a couple of free throws. No major catastrophe, though...her charity tosses made it 33-10 UofL with four minutes left in the first half. Louisville picked the pace back up...outscoring OU 10-7 the rest of the way to take a 43-17 lead into the half.

Bria had 10 and Shawnta 8 to lead the Cards scoring and Louisville was hitting at a 53.1% (17-32) and 9-12 at the free throw line. The only thing the Cards weren't doing was canning threes (0-4) but they were stopping them...the Bobcats floated 15 toward the rim in the first 20 minutes and didn't hit one until just three seconds remained in the half.

The onslaught continued in the final twenty minutes. The threes started falling also. Nita started the barrage from long range to open the half. Shoni drilled three straight from the deep and sister Jude added one and suddenly it was 60-19 Cards and 14:39 remaining in the game.

Ohio gained a moral victory by outscoring Louisville 5-0 over the next three minutes to make it 60-24 but the Cards clamped down after that and went on a 30-9 run to win going away. Ohio made just one basket (and seven free throws) over those final 14:39 ticks off the clock and Walz played 'em all except Tia Gibbs (who deserved the rest after the Oklahoma game), Starr Breedlove (concussion) and the Diamond from Bowling Green.

Cortnee Walton grabbed 10 of the Cards 54 rebounds in 18 minutes and Emmonnie Henderson put in a hard working 16 minutes with eight points and five boards.

Bobcats declawed and spayed. They never gave up, though and Quiera Lampkins delivered 13 of the Athens, OH. school's 33 points.

Shawnta Dyer, Bria Smith and Shoni were made available to the media for post game comments and were humble and matter-of-fact about the victory. They discussed Coach Walz becoming the coach with the most wins in Louisville WBB history with tonight's victory and admitted that they needed improvement from the free throw line. Bria is gaining more and more confidence with her mid-range jumper and Shawnta was happy with her performance.,..indicating that the knee isn't 100% yet. The brace she wears on it is HUGE...could probably house a family of four...but she contributed a solid 7-8 from the field.

We won't discuss her free throw floundering. She's working on it.

Coach Walz was complimentary to his squad in his post game words...and humble in discussing the fact that he is now the winningest coach in Louisville WBB history. He has recorded 153 wins in his seven years at Louisville. He credits the good players he has had for that.

Walz's wins will continue to stack up...the coach indicating again last night that the only way he ever leaves Floyd Street is either by firing or retiring.

Our money is on retiring.


Quotable Walz


"The only thing that can bring this team down is themselves."

Clips to watch below. The post game Walz has Coach instructing me on proper media room question-asking etiquette. Maybe I'll start interviewing the guys from Venue Services instead of Jeff...

FINAL STATS

POST GAME WALZ





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THE FINAL WORD



Thursday night was an expected win over an opponent that failed to produce a serious challenge to the Lady Cards. It was good to see that all that played got at least 13 minutes for Louisville and the Cards dominated the paint scoring 46-14.

Things to work on?

We'll go easy on the squad. Shawnta Dyer needs a free throw 101 refresher course. Even I would feel confident about hitting more than her in 10 attempts. Monny Niamke needs to look for her shot (although she and Jude led in assists tonight) and Emmonnie will eventually learn that bulldozers are great for road construction but tend to pile up fouls in the paint.

I fully agree with the philosophy of resting Gibbs when not needed...although I think maybe a minute or two on the court to let the crowd acknowledge what she did in the Oklahoma game with a round of applause might have been cool. She was a good bench cheerleader tonight...as all the Lady Cards are when they aren't playing. No pouty, whiny women on this squad.

Florida State visits the YUM! Sunday. The NCAA runner-up banner will be unfurled around 1:40 p.m. or so...so be there for that.  


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Louisville Volleyball is in action tonight at the YUM! to host Cincinnati. First volley is 7 p.m. The Cards look to push their win streak and undefeated record in the AAC to 16-0 against the less than stellar Bearcats.

Be there.


paulie

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Thursday Cardinal Couple -- Ohio U next for Cards

THURSDAY CARDINAL COUPLE


-BOBCATS bop into YUM! to test UofL WBB

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Beware the Bobcats?

Ohio University comes into town sporting a 2-0 record and recently defeated the Morehead Eagles and Xavier Muskies.

Their RPI is 4th in the nation.

They do have weapons.

-Sophomore forward Lexie Baldwin had 19 points in the overtime 64-56 win against Morehead...a career high for her. She also had 10 points in the 94-88 win over Xavier. It was the first time Ohio scored over 90 points since 2008.

-Freshman guard Quiera Lampkins recorded seven points and seven rebounds against the Eagles.

Black can score

-Off the bench, sophomore guard Kiyanna Black totaled 35 points against Xavier. Eight trifectas in that total. She also pilfered four steals.

-Junior guard Mariah Byard knocked down three treys as part of her 16 points against XU. She drilled three more against Morehead and finished with 12 points.

First year head coach Bob Boldon appears to have some shooters. We'll see what they accomplish against #3 in the nation tonight.

It'll be on CARDS TV and WKRD 790 AM with A.J. and Matty doing the broadcast if you can't go. Or, for fun...you can see if you can pick it up on WOUB 1340 AM, which we figure is based in Athens, OH. Michael Garr has the play-by-play on the Bobcats network.

Terri Garr in "Young Frankenstein"

We're 99% sure he isn't married to Terri Garr.

On paper...it looks like the UofL WBB team shouldn't have much of a struggle against these invaders from the Buckeye state. Their tallest player is 6'2", they are heavily guard-laden and they only have two seniors on the squad.

Hmmm...sound like anyone we know?

The MAC Conference, which Ohio University is a part of, released their early power rankings yesterday. The Bobcats are ranked seventh. Here's the skinny:

7. Ohio Bobcats (2-0)

Previous: Xavier (W), at Morehead State (W)

This Week: at Louisville (11/21), at Eastern Kentucky (11/23)

Don't worry, Bobcat fans -- your team isn't being punished per se in being ranked in the middle of the pack despite winning their first two games. If they keep winning, they'll move up, but at this juncture, I did not want to penalize early-season conference favorites for losses against tougher competition. Wins over Xavier and Morehead State (on the road) are nice, but Xavier is really down from where they were two or three years ago. And frankly, MAC teams should be beating Morehead State. Ohio needs to beat Eastern Kentucky on Saturday and show well against Louisville this week.

Nevertheless, the Cards can't afford to be looking past the Bobcats and with Jeff Walz at the helm...it's doubtful they will. The team has to be feeling really good about the body of work they've presented so far this season. Overcoming a 15 point deficit early on against Oklahoma shows me that, although this squad is still capable of disappearing for significant stretches in games...like last year's group...they do have the tenacity and desire not to throw in the towel.

We hope that tonight's game is a chance for Walz to give all the Cards about the same minutes on Denny Crum Court and maybe some extended looks at Monny Niamke and Emmonnie Henderson. We'd also like to see Starr Breedlove make her first regular season appearance and our Marshall from Bowling Green saddle up and ride onto the court. Concussion recovery can take time, so Breedlove may not be fully recovered yet.

I should know. I write these columns five days a week pretty much brain dead and with concussion-like symptoms.
 
Let's also hope the Cards can draw about 8,000 or so for a weeknight game against a non-big name foe. Without any Walz-fueled promotions.

I'm still waiting for the free Italian sausage giveaway or a promotion like Jenny O'Bryan mentioned to me the other night that I'll let her describe the next time it's her turn to tickle the keyboard and provide her views for Cardinal Couple.

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For the first time since we took to the airwaves, this Saturday's CARDINAL COUPLE RADIO hour will be a re-run.

We tried to pre-record the show last night. We showed up. Monkeyberry Moon Delight and Dead Air Al didn't, though...so no words were spoken into microphones.

So, it's summer rerun time. Or, maybe a live remote Saturday morning featuring Paulie and Sonja at UofL football tailgaiting.

Nah. Bad idea there. The radio waves aren't ready for that yet.

Maybe Jeff McAdams will saunter by the studio and discuss his worldwide accomplishments, plans and sing some Buddy Holly.

Maybe Bill the Goat will trot in and headbutt all takers live on the air for an hour. We're still not sure what happened in regards to the "lockout"...but I did brave the tumultuous journey of trying to go I-65 South to 1-64 West during rush hour to do the pre-record.

 

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in tribute to the visitors, this clip of CSNY singing "Ohio" below (in London, England and on Japanese video) I have no idea what the commercial before the clip is about :

HOW CAN YOU RUN WHEN YOU KNOW?


-paulie


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