CARDINAL COUPLE

CARDINAL COUPLE
We report on the joy and excitement of UofL women's sports here. Thanks for checking us out! Click the picture of Louie to hear the latest Cardinal Couple Radio Hour Podcast!!
Showing posts with label Texas Volleyball. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Texas Volleyball. Show all posts

Wednesday, December 27, 2023

Cards Still Idle; Transfer Portal Isn't -- WEDNESDAY CARDINAL COUPLE

In Paulie's absence, you may get a bit of whiplash as the writing schedule bounces around a touch. We had hoped to introduce our fill-in writer today, but we haven't quite been able to nail that down, so it will wait for a little longer. We're still wishing Paulie the best in his recovery and hoping you all get the chance to hear from him soon.

Volleyball Transfers Galore


Louisville volleyball hasn't landed any major transfers in the portal since the season wrapped up, but they have seen a player depart. Nina Moorer will transfer from the University of Louisville to Texas State University to continue her college career. Moorer's transfer comes after her first season following a redshirt saw her play just two sets in one match. Moorer had three kills on three attempts and added two digs on September 22nd against Syracuse. While Louisville ultimately turned out to not necessarily be the right fit for Moorer, we hope for her success in a return home. Moorer is from Missouri City, Texas (a suburb of Houston), and Texas State is in San Marcos, about 2.5 hours away between Austin and San Antonio.


In other Texas news, a few players have decided to jump on the Burnt Orange Bandwagon as they work to try to three-peat. Last week, the Longhorns got a commitment from Nebraska transfer Whitney Lauenstein. Lauenstein sat out in 2023 to focus on her family after losing her father. She has two years of eligibility remaining. Yesterday saw Jerritt Elliott pick up a couple of more big names, one that Louisville fans are likely to recognize: Reagan Rutherford and Averi Carlson. Rutherford leaves UK after four seasons, and Louisville fans will likely be glad to not see the outside hitter across the net from the Cards in blue again. Rutherford was slowed by injury a bit this past season, playing in just 78 sets after eclipsing 100 sets in the last two seasons, but she still put up 271 kills and hit .315 on the season. Not too shabby. Averi Carlson is a setter from Baylor who transfers after two seasons with the Bears. Carlson had 1188 assists in 2023 after putting up 1258 as a freshman in 2022. Her season high came when she had 60 against SMU. Carlson will likely be excited to set to Rutherford after watching Reagan smash 14 kills on 19 attempts against the Bears in the NCAA tournament. 

Louisville will certainly have their work cut out for them if they run up against the Longhorns in 2024, and it seems everyone will be chasing Texas to prevent back-to-back-to-back championships. We'll be on the lookout to see who the Cards may add now that the floodgates of the transfer portal appear to have opened. 

Until next time, Go Cards!
Case

Sunday, December 18, 2022

Volleyball Falls Just Short - Sunday Cardinal Couple

Volleyball in the National Championship




The Volleyball squad came up just short of Texas in the National Championship match, losing in three sets 25-22, 25-14, 26-24.  The size and power of Texas, a team almost completely built this year out of the transfer portal, overwhelmed the Cards, and ended the historic run of the first ACC team to reach the National Championship match.

Texas, playing an uncharacteristically quick offense, was able to win the blocking stat, 9-4 versus the Cards.  When the Louisville block did get set up, the Texas hitters were frequently just hitting over the top.  Combine four Louisville blocks with five blocking errors, and the defense at the net just wasn't there for UofL, and the blocking game has traditionally been of critical importance for UofL, so the correlation between the performance there and the match outcome isn't surprising.




The Longhorns hit .371 in the match while UofL was only able to muster .189.  Claire Chaussee led the Cards in her collegiate playing finale with 12 kills.  Other bright spots were Anna DeBeer with nine kills for .316 and Aiko Jones with eight for .304.

So the Cardinal's volleyball season comes to an end one step short of a National Championship, but the season can only be called a smashing success.  31-3 overall, 17-1 in conference, another conference championship, a National Championship appearance, three All-Americans, and nearly a whole city unified in support.

There will be spring matches, and of course there will be another season starting in August, and much of this team is set to return.  With only Claire Chaussee and Amaya Tillman exiting from the starting lineup the bulk of the rotation for the Cards will remain the same.  Nena Mbonu and Alexa Hendricks are also departing.  The team has five signees to join in the fall, plus three players that were freshmen this year that all red-shirted.  Three of the five signees play Libero or DS to fill a need in a part of the lineup for the Cards that had essentially zero depth.



We already know the next steps for some.  Claire Chaussee left as the after-match gathering that the athletic department planned for fans, staff, and the team was winding down, to go sign a contract to play professionally, probably in Italy.  Nena Mbonu will be moving back home to play her fifth year with The University of Houston.  Amaya Tillman expects to remain in Louisville and focus on her graduate studies, and promised to join me in leading the C-A-R-D-S cheer next year.

Next year's Volleyball Final Four is in Tampa, and there's a very real chance that this team could be back there again.

Basketball




After a shaky start to the season, Women's Basketball has started to put the pieces together.  Today's opportunity to demonstrate that progress is in Pittsburgh for the ACC opener.

Thankfully there will be no Courtney Buzzerio, or Valeria Vasquez-Gomez on this team.  Pitt is not generally regarded as a quality team in women's basketball, but both Pitt and Louisville will arrive at the Peterson Events Center with four losses to their credit.  Louisville does have more wins, eight vs Pitt's six.




Pitt sports two double-digit scorers.  Liatu King is a 6'0" forward scoring 11.3 points per game, and not even a single attempt at the three point shot this season.  Dayshanette Harris after having spent some of both of the last two seasons dealing with injuries, is back and scoring at a 10 point per game rate.  Roughly a third of her shots are from beyond the arc.

Two other players get close to double digits, with Maliyah Johnson at 9.4 and Amber Brown at 8.3.

The game today is on the ACC Network at 2pm.

Cardinal Couple Radio Hour Podcast




It was volleyball heavy on the CCRHP yesterday, as you might imagine.  Case, Jared, Paulie, and myself were on the call an hour earlier than usual to avoid football scheduling.  Combine that with my presence in Central Time Zone, and just general sleep deprivation from being in Omaha for Volleyball festivities, you'll have to forgive me if I was occasionally incoherent.

All in all it was a great show, with a bit of basketball discussion in the end.  Check it out at anchor.fm at https://anchor.fm/cardinal-couple/episodes/Volleyball-in-the-National-Championship-e1scvv0 or, as always, at any other significant podcast directory.

-- JMcA

Thursday, December 12, 2019

More on Volleyball, Louisville FH update -- THURSDAY CARDINAL COUPLE

More on Volleyball and Their Opponent

Can the Cards steal a couple
in Austin? 
Louisville Volleyball prepares for its fifth Sweet Sixteen appearance in program history, meaning we
will see a fifth black banner raised in L&N Federal Credit Union Arena next fall.

The Cards late regular season woes came following an injury to the lone senior in Melanie McHenry.  She has been and will remain out for the rest of the tournament so the Cards will look to continue their postseason success without her.  The good news?  Assuming we lose no one to the transfer portal we will see the exact same team next year and they will have some much needed tournament experience.

The Cards prepare to face Texas in the Sweet Sixteen on Friday at 4:00 p.m., ET.  If you're in attendance you'll be looking at 3:00 p.m., local time in Austin.

The last time Louisville faced Texas in the NCAA Tournament the team in Orange came out  on top 3-0.  The most recent meeting between the two was in October 2012, where the Cards fell at home 3-2.  The Cards are 0-3 all-time against Texas.

What about Texas?

Paulie gave you a brief rundown of the Longhorns yesterday, especially regarding their height.  They have nine players standing between 6'1 and 6'5.  The Cards do have eight players 6'1 or above, but seven of those eight stand no taller than the 6'2 mark.

Texas comes in as the 2-seed.  Baylor is the lone team seeded higher.  The Longhorns went 21-3 in the regular season.  Like the ACC, the Big 12 did not play a conference tournament.  The three losses came to now 3-seed Stanford (3-2), Rice (3-2), and now 1-seed Baylor (3-2).  All three losses came on the road and to NCAA Tournament teams.

The 21 wins feature plenty of high caliber teams.  They have wins over Baylor, Iowa State (2x), Texas A&M, Oklahoma (2x), BYU, and Minnesota.  They surrendered just seven sets in their 21 regular season wins.

In the NCAA Tournament, Texas defeated Albany 3-0 in the first round and had a tough fight against
UC Santa Barbara 3-2 in the second round.

Postseason is where the Longhorns thrive.  They have been to the NCAA Tournament 35 times where they are 97-33 all-time and have never lost in the opening round.  Texas has been to 31 Sweet Sixteens and have made that trip in 15 of the last 16 years, joining Penn State as the only two schools to accomplish that feat.

The Longhorns have two national championships in 1988 and 2012.  The 2012 championship happened down at the KFC Yum! Center where the Longhorns downed Oregon in straight sets.  The Oregon band in the semifinals and finals was none other than your Cardinal Pride Pep Band, hired by Oregon to save travel expenses.


We suspected such nonsense existed and we now have proof
Note: I am 0-2 in national championships in the band.  The 2012 volleyball championship and the 2013 women's basketball championship in New Orleans.

You may hear a familiar tune from the Texas band.  One of their fight songs, "The eyes of Texas", is played to the tune of "I've Been Working on the Railroad".

"The Eyes of Texas are upon you,
All the livelong day.
The eyes of Texas are upon you,
You cannot get away."

Sounds a little stalkerish to me so I prefer my "Fight, UofL!" and "All Hail UofL!"

...for we are with you UofL!


Three All-Americans for Field Hockey


Meche Pastor, Alli Bitting and Carter Ayars received All-American status and I can't think of three more deserving than them for the prestigious honor.

Pastor and Bitting return for next season, Ayars has graduated. Louisville Field Hockey went 16-6 in 2019, a new record for wins in a season, and advanced to the second round of the NCAA Field Hockey Tournament, before that heart-breaking loss to Boston College.

Meche, the wizard with the ball, from Buenos Aires was a first team selection. Alli was named to the second team and Carter the third team. They were three of the 48 named to the All-American list and it is the second year the Cards have had three on the All-American squad.

Justine Sowry on the players and the season:

"This was a historic year for our program, as we hosted a round of the NCAA Tournament and then advanced to the Elite Eight for the first time. The success was a culmination of the team's collective effort and to have Carter, Alli and Meche recognized for their roles they played in our achievements is absolutely amazing. I am so proud to have been part of this season."

And, it was an amazing season. The Cards return a ton of talent and should, once again, be a prime contender to challenge for the ACC title. The task for them, as well as the rest of the ACC Field Hockey DI contingent, is to find a way to beat UNC. The Heels are back-to-back NCAA Champions and haven't lost a match in two years.



Happy Thursday and Go Cards!

Jared

Wednesday, December 11, 2019

Volleyball takes on Texas -- ACC WBB Update -- WEDNESDAY CARDINAL COUPLE


#2 LONGHORNS NEXT FOR THE VOLLEYCARDS



Jeff (center right) on block watch 
In their first Sweet Sixteen appearance since 2005, the Louisville Cardinals are the lone ACC team still alive in the NCAA Tournament. 

The Cards took care of business in Bowling Green last week, knocking off Samford and WKU to advance to the next round. A tough test, indeed awaits them Friday the 13th in Austin, TX against perpetual powerhouse Texas. #2 in the nation and a squad with many weapons and skills.

This is a Texas squad that may be the most athletic and tallest team Louisville has faced this season. A venue where the Longhorn faithful get loud, crazy and become the seventh player on the court. Louisville will need to be adept at the basics of Volleyball. Clean and accurate passing. Limiting the self-inflicted turnovers. Playing together and contesting each and every point. Getting AVCA East Region Aiko Jones plenty of kill chances and strong efforts from the rest of the "A-Team" -- Anna Stevenson, Amber Stivrins and Amaya Tillman. Maybe the biggest key is how well Claire Chaussee flies against the taller 'Horns.



Why, yes, we ARE still dancing. 
Accomplishing these things won't be easy against a squad that is 23-3 and went 15-1 in the powerful Big 12 conference. The Big 12, Pac 12 and the Big 10 dominate the Sweet Sixteen field with 11 of the 16 teams still playing. Five Big 10 schools: Purdue, Wisconsin, Nebraska, Minnesota and Penn St are still dancing. From the Big 12, Texas, Baylor and Texas A&M are in the field. The rest of the field includes, from the PAC 12, Washington, Utah and Stanford and SEC schools Kentucky and Florida. Out of C-USA, strong Cincinnati is there, and they knocked off ACC powerhouse Pitt to advance. Hawaii and the Cards fill out the 16 schools involved. 

Louisville has faced five of the sixteen squads that have advanced this season and has gone 2-3 against them. Cards wins were against Texas A&M (3-2) and Cincinnati (3-2). The losses came against Florida 0-3, Kentucky 0-3 and Purdue 1-3.


"Whatcha think about UofL Volleyball this year, Dee?"
"Not enough whistles and technicals, in my opinion."
A surprising but well-earned advance to "the dance" and accomplished without senior Melanie McHenry, who was considered the Cardinals biggest strength at the start of the season. The adjustment period post-Mel was a tough and struggling one early on, but Louisville has relied on team play and the ability to stretch out opponents to five sets and finish big.  

We'll have more on the match between the Cards and Longhorns as it gets closer here at Cardinal Couple.

Yesterday's presser with Dani Busboom Kelly, Tori Dilfer and Aiko Jones is linked up below: 

LOUISVILLE VOLLEYBALL PRESSER 12-10-19


ACC WBB NEWS AND NOTES


Ms. WUF has stuff to dance about this season
With roughly 1/3rd of the women's basketball schedule completed, let's take a look at some ACC WBB news. Here's a six-pack of stats for you: 

-- Four teams ranked in AP Top 25. Besides the Cards, who fell to #7 in the rankings, Florida State climbs to #8, NC State checks in at #9 and Miami squeaks in at #25. 

-- Then there were three. After Louisville's Thursday loss to Ohio State, three ACC teams remain undefeated. FSU, NC State and surprising UNC. The three are 26-0 overall. 

--  Thou shall not score. It is Georgia Tech leading the ACC (and the nation) in least points allowed this season. The Yellow Jackets are giving up just 42 points a game. Cortnee Walton, a staunch defender in her Louisville days, is an assistant coach on Nell Fortner's squad. FSU and NC State are tied for #20, allowing a mere 53.8 a contest. 


-- That's my ball. Wake Forest leads the ACC (and the nation) with a rebounding advantage of +16.5 a night. Louisville checks in at #23 with a +11.3 "grabs" edge per game. Eight ACC schools are in the top 50.

 -- I'll make that shot, Coach. The ACC has three scorers who have tallied 31 points per game this season. Freshman Kylie Kornegay-Lucas from Virginia. Jocelyn Willoughby, also from the Cavs and Bea Mompreimer (Miami) are the high scorers. Kornegay-Lucas also is the highest points-per-single-game scorer of all the freshmen in the NCAA with her 31. 

-- Works in progress. Four ACC schools are below .500 in win/loss records so far. Notre Dame is 5-6, Virginia 4-5, Pitt 3-6 and Clemson 3-7. 

With only a couple of actual ACC match-ups in the books so far, it's way-too-early to make bold predictions about how things will spin out in the conference. Maybe Jared Anderson will offer a few of his "yeah, that's probably not going to happen" predictions and prognostications in tomorrow's article. A lot of hoops still to be played, folks.  

Today's question is this:

Evaluate how you think these Cards true sophomores in the picture are doing for WBB so far


Have a wonderful Wednesday !

paulie
xxxxx
-- 


Sunday, December 16, 2012

Cardinal Couple - Sleepy Sunday Edition

SUNDAY CARDINAL COUPLE

( Jeff McAdams with the report on Texas' 25-11, 26-24, 25-19 sweep of Oregon in the KFC YUM! Center Saturday Night)

 

Texas Takes the Title

Hosting success

A successful NCAA Volleyball Tournament has concluded.  The first time Louisville has hosted this event, it attracted the 8th highest attendance for a SemiFinals sessions, and the 2nd highest attendance for a Championship match.  If you consider that the highest attendance for a Championship match had the hosting team (Nebraska) playing in the match, that's quite an accomplishment.  Congratulations fellow Louisvillians, I think we represented ourselves well to the NCAA.  Next year we host a regional competetion, and I look forward to announcements of future Championships to be held at the KFC Yum! Center.

Semifinals

Thursday evening saw the semifinal matchups.

Michigan battled Texas to start off the evening with a 7 o'clock first serve.  A mighty battle it was, indeed.  Texas is a big and powerful team, Michigan smaller and scrappy.  This match was a match between a powerful offense, and a great defense.

Texas came out in the first set and dominated the play.  But Michigan had no quit in them.  In the second set, they came out loose and lively and played their game, rather than letting Texas dictate the way the match went.  Taking the 2nd and 3rd sets, they really put the pressure on Texas.  Credit to Texas as well, though, they got back in gear and took the bull by the (long)horns in the 4th again.  The 5th set was competitive, much like the 2nd and 3rd sets were, but Texas managed to hold on to the upper hand and advance.

A really exciting and fun match, but unfortunately Michigan's run had to come to an end.

Because the first match went 5 sets, the scheduled 9pm start for the second match got pushed back to around 10pm, most likely to Oregon's glee.

With UofL's Cardinal Pride filling in admirably in cheering on the Ducks, Oregon took on Penn State and surprised some people.

Oregon was well ranked all year, and playing the brutal PAC-12 conference schedule definitely prepares a team for a good post-season run.  Meanwhile, Penn State always has equally tough preparation with the powerhouse Big-10 schedule.

This match was also a barnburner.  All of the sets had pretty close scores, but Penn State looked like they were in charge in the 1st.  The 2nd, though, certainly woke anyone up that had started to nod off due to the late hour, throwing in some bonus volleyball finishing up at 30-28.  By the 3rd and 4th sets, I think Oregon really played their game and gave a bit of a preview of what was to come stylistically in the Championship match.  The large Penn State fanbase was clearly disappointed by the loss, but you have to credit Oregon with playing their style of play and getting the win.

Two to Tango

So the Championship match last night was between Texas and Oregon.  If the Texas-Michigan match was a storyline about an offensively minded team versus and defensively minded team, the title match storyline was about two very different styles of offense.

Everything is bigger in Texas, including their volleyball players and their sets.  The offense that Texas runs is slow, they set their big outside hitters with very high sets that take a long time to get to the hitters.  That does give the hitters a long time to get lined up and prepared for a high jump and a strong swing, and they take advantage of it.  It also, of course, gives plenty of time for the blockers to leisurely stroll over and put up a good double block.

Oregon, on the other hand, plays like their football team, fast and sharp.  Oregon's sets are flat and quick shots out to their outside hitters.  And while this doesn't give their hitters as much preparation time to line up and get a booming kill, it, crucially, doesn't give the other team enough time for their middle blocks to shift from the middle of the court out to the outside to put up a double block.  The preview of this was in the Penn State match, where you could watch throughout most of the match as Oregon put shot after shot in between the blockers as the middle blocker would almost always be jumping sideways to try to get out to the side of the court, but just couldn't keep up with the speed of the set.  The same thing happened a lot versus Texas, and when the Oregon shots got through the block, they were pretty successful in getting the point.

Unfortunately for Oregon, they weren't as effective at hitting through that blocking hole versus Texas as they were against Penn State, particularly in the 1st set.  The Ducks made a lot of shots right into the single blocks in the 1st set, both in the middle and outside, with disastrous consequences.  In the 2nd and 3rd sets, they did adjust and started hitting in between the blocks, but Texas was just too much for them.

I thought Texas would be in trouble because they play such a slow offensive set that Oregon would basically always have double blocks up on Texas...and they did...but it didn't matter.  It doesn't matter if you have one, two, or seventeen blockers up in front of a hitter if they're tall enough to just hit over the top of them, and that's exactly what Texas did.  Rarely did Oregon get solid blocks on hits, mostly they just watched as the hit sailed over their heads and into the backcourt.  Credit Oregon's defense with getting digs on a lot of the shots, but when the shots are flying as fast as they are off of Texas kills, you just aren't going to be able to get to all of them.



So, in the end, Texas takes the sweep and the 2012 NCAA Volleyball Championship.  Congratulations to the Texas Longhorns on a well played weekend.  Congratulations are also in order, of course, for the Oregon Ducks for advancing to the Championship match, as well as to Penn State and especially Michigan for making it to the Championship weekend.  That was a fun weekend of volleyball, all four teams and fanbases represented their schools well and I hope that everyone had a good weekend in Louisville.  Its a long time to the next first serve in August, but of course we have other team sports...basketball, softball, and lacrosse...to keep us busy for a large part of that time.

( Great report on the action over the last three days, Jeff! Louisville is now a volleyball town, too -- just another reason why we are the best college sports town in America!)
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Friday, December 14, 2012

Friday Cardinal Couple - More BIG EAST Changes

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FRIDAY CARDINAL COUPLE

(Game final from Colorado...Buffs 70-66) We'll have more later on this wild finish)
 
- Non BCS schools vote to leave BIG EAST.

-Texas, Oregon advance in NCAA Volleyball Final Four

-WBB travels to Boulder for showdown with Buffs

On the never ending carousel that also goes by the name the BIG EAST...another development. It looks like Providence, Villanova, Seton Hall, St. John's, Georgetown, DePaul and Marquette have decided to leave the conference that they founded and try their luck elsewhere.

The seven catholic-based schools would retain the automatic bid to the NCAA Basketball Tournaments...should they either decide to go form a new league or go as a group to a different conference. Could the Atlantic 10 become the Atlantic Whole Bunch of Teams? Might they form the Papal Conference and pick the Pope as the new commish? How about from BIG EAST to BIG PRIEST...

What this does is open the possibility and the door for Louisville and Notre Dame to join the ACC a year early. Aren't you glad we've already started our ACC womens' sports reviews early ?

And, just what does all this mean for womens' sports at UofL? A possibility that the Lady Cards might not play Rutgers and UConn in hoops next year? Justine Sowry and Karen Ferguson-Dayes speeding up their look at future conference opponents? Gotta believe Sandy Pearsall is grinning ear-to-ear with the distinct possibility of not having to worry about below freezing temperature games in Storrs, Providence, South Orange and Queens.  

Also, what now for Cincinnati and Connecticut, who desperately wanted to join Louisville in the latest ACC acquisition and now find themselves in a football division without Louisville?

The move by the 'Catholic Seven' has been talked about for several weeks now. It is now a reality. Tired of being driven around as passengers in the economic-engine football sedan, they've stopped by the dealership and bought a new ride.

In women's hoops, we've met some pretty interesting coaching characters over the past eight years in the BIG EAST. Some favorites have been "Q"...Quentin Hillsman,
of Syracuse...who has stormed the court like an enraged K-Mart shopper on Black Friday, passed out on the sidelines and danced in front of the visitor's bench with the precision moves of one of Gladys Knight's Pips. Who could forget Harry Perretta...dressed in the white shirt and tie...untucked by the midway mark of the first half and giving the appearance of a frazzled, stressed out accountant instead of a basketball coach. Doug Bruno, institutionally clad in that blue DePaul logoed long sleeve shirt. C-Viv. Geno. Muffett. Gonna miss some of these folks. A couple will join us out on the Atlantic Coast.

The BIG EAST brought Louisville women's sports titles in volleyball, softball and track. The Cards made a Final Four women's basketball appearance while a member of the BIG EAST. We said goodbye to Collen, Yelin, Clark-Heard, Ord and Bustin in the BIG EAST. We welcomed Walz, Kordes, Sowry, Newbauer, Williams and Trimble.

We started Rowing and Lacrosse in the BIG EAST. We moved from Freedom Hall to the KFC YUM! Center in the BIG EAST. We found out just how horrible it is to tailgate and attend a football game or the BIG EAST WBB Tournament in Storrs and Hartford while a member of the BIG EAST. 

As we like to say here...interesting times ahead. Sit down, buckle up, adjust your seat and close the door. This trip continues...

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Semi-final action from the KFC YUM! Center in the Final Four NCAA Volleyball Tournament provided a thriller in the first match...with Texas needing a fifth game to finally dispose of pesky Michigan. It looked like the upstart Wolverines were poised for the upset, going up 2-1 in games...but the Longhorns used some pretty impressive blocking at the net to slow down the Wolverine offense and advances to the finals Saturday night.

They'll meet Oregon there, who upset #2 in the nation Penn State three games to one. Hopefully, Jeff, Sandy or Jenny will stop by and add comments on this one. Truth be told, I was watching at home on ESPN2 and fell asleep at the halftime break with the games 1-1.

They announced on the "Deuce" about 13,000 in attendance. Not enough to break an NCAA record, but a nice crowd from all reports. Staff columnist Sandy Walker notes that there was  massive confusion over seating for the games...with many duplicate seat tickets printed for the evening that resulted in some last-minute seating shifts and long lines at the will-call and event services stations.

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Lest we forget in all this hub-bub and drama, the UofL WBB squad is in action tonight in Boulder, CO. to face the Colorado Buffaloes at 9 p.m. EST. The Cards will be without the services of Sara Hammond (last we heard) because of the death of her grandmother. Her board prowess will be missed. Time for Vails, Dyer, Walton and Reid to step it up one notch and let's hope the Rocky Mountain rare air equals lots of net-swishes for Shoni and Nita from beyond the arc.

We have a report from Sandy that we may be able to see this one on TV. The link is:

Louisville v Buffs

http://pac-12.com/ScheduleResults.aspx#networkId=Live%20Stream

Also from Basil G. Brooks, out of the CU sports information department, this link (for ALL CU home games).

Colorado Women's Basketball broadcasts


You know how we roll here...turn down the video feed sound and listen to our own Matt Andrews and A.J. with the call on 790 WKRD AM.




The Buffs are not to be taken lightly. 8-0 and striving for some national attention by knocking off #8 Louisville. This matchup eerily reminds of us the 2008-09 season...when 5-0 Louisville went to Nevada and dropped a 85-82 decision. The Cards went on to win their next 14 games.

6'1" forward and redshirt freshman Arielle Roberson, who leads CU with 16.5 ppg, talks about the ramifications of a Buffs victory:

" I think more people would definitely recognize Colorado women's basketball...it would be a big boost in a lot of areas, especially in recruiting. I also think it would give our team a lot more confidence and it would really give something to the fans."

Armageddon in the aspens? Clash in Colorado? Beatdown of the Buffs? Rock steady, Cards.

We'll be back tonight with the recap.

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Finally, fingers crossed and good thoughts, all, for staff columnist Jenny O'Bryan...in for a little out-patient surgery today. The rumors that we're having a tracking chip implanted in her or transplanting her brain with Timmy the Intern's are totally false...




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