Skipping Laundry and Going to Tonights B-ball Game

TUESDAY CARDINAL COUPLE

( Tuesday brings us Sandy Walker's transition fast-break through the world of Womens' Sports at UofL. Our hearts go out to Shawnta Dyer, the versatile Cardinal front-liner done for the season with an ACL and MCL injury to her left knee.)

TONIGHT AT THE KFC YUM! CENTER

Our 9-2 Louisville women return home tonight as part of an away and home agreement with Washington State and also welcomes the return of leading rebounder Sara Hammond.  Tipoff is 7:00 and begins a 3 game home stand which will complete the 2012 calendar of games for this year’s team. The Cougars 3-5 record is deceptive as they are fresh off a Saturday 62-55 upset win over 20^th ranked Ohio State.  Last year it took a Shawnta’ Dyer breakout 16 point game and a late game surge by the Louisville team to pull off a 75-71 win.   

Dyer is done for the season. An ACL and MCL injury to her left knee...suffered in practice Sunday will have her on the sidelines for the rest of the season. A starter of late on the front line, Dyer had 14 points in the Cards loss to Oregon. WE wish her a full and complete recovery.  

 

The women need your attendance and support so take a break from the pre-holiday madness and continue to be a part of the growing national recognition of Louisville as a women’s sports town.  If you just can’t be there you can tune into WHAS (Channels 11.2, Insight 432, Comcast 207 or you can listen in at WKRD 790 and @ www.GoCards.com with Louisville’s own Matt Andrews and Adrienne Johnson call of the game.

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GAMES ON TV THIS WEEK




 

Tuesday December 18

Tennessee at Baylor Tennessee at Baylor Southeastern Big 12 ESPN 8 p.m.

UC Santa Barbara at BYU UC Santa Barbara at BYU Big West West Coast BYUtv 4 p.m.

Ole Miss at Cleveland St. Ole Miss at Cleveland St. Southeastern Horizon horizonleague.com 7 p.m.

Butler at IUPUI Butler at IUPUI Atlantic 10 The Summit HTSN 7 p.m.

New Mexico at New Mexico St. New Mexico at New Mexico St. Western Athletic Mountain West AggieVision 8:30 p.m.

Wednesday December 19

Missouri St. at Iowa Missouri St. at Iowa Missouri Valley Big Ten BTN.com 6:30 p.m.

Georgia at TCU Georgia at TCU Southeastern Big 12 FSSW 8 p.m.

Western Ky. at Wright St. Western Ky. at Wright St. Sun Belt Horizon horizonleague.com 5:30 p.m.

Stanford at South Carolina Stanford at South Carolina Pac-12 Southeastern FSS/FSC 7:30 p.m.

Grambling at LSU Grambling at LSU Southwestern Southeastern CST 8 p.m.

Thursday December 20

Duquesne at West Virginia Duquesne at West Virginia Atlantic 10 Big 12 Root Sports 7 p.m.

East Tenn. St. at Iowa St. East Tenn St. at Iowa St. Atlantic Sun Big 12 Cyclones TV 8 p.m.

Valparaiso at Michigan Valparaiso at Michigan Horizon Big Ten BTN 6 p.m.

Oral Roberts at Nebraska Oral Roberts at Nebraksa Southland Big Ten BTN.com 8 p.m.

UC Riverside at Oklahoma UC Riverside at Oklahoma Big West Big 12 SSTV web stream 8 p.m.

Cornell at Texas Cornell at Texas Ivy League Big 12 LHN 8 p.m.

Akron at Youngstown St. Akron at Youngstown St. Mid-American Horizon horizonleague.com 7:05 p.m.

Oral Roberts at Nebraska Oral Roberts at Nebraksa Southland Big Ten BTN.com 8 p.m.

Thursday 20-Dec Seattle at BYU Seattle at BYU Western Athletic West Coast BYUtv 5 p.m.

Friday December 21

Washington at Georgia Tech Washington at Georgia Tech Pac-12 Atlantic Coast ESPN3 12 p.m.

Xavier at Indiana Xavier at Indiana Atlantic Coast Big Ten BTN.com TBA

Illinois St. at Illinois Illinois St. at Illinois Missouri Valley Big Ten BTN.com 8 p.m.

Southern U. at Ohio St. Southern U. at Ohio St. Southwestern Big Ten BTN.com 7 p.m.

IUPUI at Purdue IUPUI at Purdue The Summit Big Ten BTN.com 12 p.m.

Saturday December 22

Duke at Southern California Duke at Southern California Atlantic Coast Pac-12 Pac-12 3 p.m.

Tex.-Pan American at TCU Tex.-Pan American at TCU Independents Big 12 FrogVision 3 p.m.

Madonna (Mich.) at Detroit Madonna (Mich.) at Detroit No Classification Horizon horizonleague.com 2 p.m.

Northern Ill. at Ill.-Chicago Northern Illinois at Ill.-Chicago Mid-American Horizon horizonleague.com 2 p.m.

New Hampshire at Cleveland St. New Hampshire at Cleveland St. America East Horizon horizonleague.com 2 p.m.

Chicago St. at Loyola Chicago Chicago St. at Loyola Chicago Independents Horizon horizonleague.com 3 p.m.

Stanford at Tennessee Stanford at Tennessee Pac-12 Southeastern SPSO 4 p.m.

Sunday December 23

NJIT at Penn St. NJIT at Penn St. Independents Big Ten BTN.com 1:30 p.m.

 

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ANGEL CONTINUES TO GIVE BACK TO LOUISVILLE

 

Angel McCoughtry, Louisville’s undisputed all time top Louisville player is giving back to Louisville. She has founded the Angel McCoughtry Dream Foundation, who announced a personal contribution of a $15,000 grant to fund educational and learning.  Information is available at her website http://angel35dreamfoundation.com/.  “AMDR is committed to helping youth gain a positive experience by choosing sports as an instrument to compete athletically, as they strive to be enriched as lifetime learners.” Her “Team Angel Basketball Camp included a stop in Louisville last August.

 

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2013 FULL COURT TOP RANKED RECRUITS

 

Full Court has published their updated top 50 player rankings for the 2013 class.  The top 10 are indicated below with the remainder found at http://www.fullcourt.com/prep/2013players. Rankings are determined by the independent, panel of Clay Kallam, Bob Corwin, Dan Olson, Kelvin Powell and Kelly Kline  One interesting observation is that Diamond De Shields has taken over the number one class ranking from former Louisville recruit Mercedes Russell.

1	Diamond DeShields	Guard	Norcross, GA
2	Mercedes Russell	Center	Springfield, OR
3	Kaela Davis	Guard	Suwanee, GA
4	Taya Reimer	Forward	Fishers, IN
5	Oderah Chidom	Forward	Oakland, CA
6	Tyler Scaife	Point Guard	Little Rock, AR
7	Linnae Harper	Point Guard	Chicago
8	Rebecca Greenwell	Guard	Owensboro, KY
9	Kailee Johnson	Forward	Portland, OR
10	Erica McCall	Forward	Bakersfield, CA

2014 FULL COURT TOP RANKED RECRUITS

The Full Court Fresh 50 for the 2014 class is interesting in that only 8 are currently indicated as having given a verbal commitment to a college and none of the top 10 have done so.  The complete list can be found at http://www.fullcourt.com/prep/2014players.

1	Brianna Turner	Forward	Pearland, TX
2	Aja Wilson	Wing	Hopkins, SC
3	Jordin Canada	Point Guard	Los Angeles, CA
4	Kelsey Mitchell	Point Guard	Cincinnati, OH
5	LaJanna Drummer	Forward	Inglewood, CA
6	Jatari White	Center	Charlotte, NC
7	Azura Stevens	Forward	Raliegh, NC
8	Gabby Green	Guard	Oakland, CA
9	Bianca Cuevas	Point Guard	Bronx, NY
10	Sierra Calhoun	Guard	Brooklyn, NY

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SOFTBALL

 

Saturday January 26 at 7:30 is scheduled for the 2013 Softball Team’s Class Act Federal Credit Union Bullpen Club Dinner. Olympian Danielle Lawrie will be the keynote speaker which will be held at the Hyatt Regency Hotel.
 

Last year’s team completed a program-best 55-5 season which included winning  of the BIG EAST regular season and tournament titles.   10^th year head Coach Sandy Pearsall’s team opens this year’s season at the UNLV Sportco Kickoff Classic Feb. 8-10. Louisville returns seven starters and 12 letter winners.
 

Banquet, team and season information can be found at http://www.gocards.com/sports/w-softbl/spec-rel/121012aab.html.
 

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LACROSSE

 

I know it sound crazy but it truly is not too early to add to your 2013 calendar the Lacrosse teams first match will be against Canisius on February 10, 2013 which will be held at the U of L Lacrosse Stadium.  Coach Kellie Young has announced her 2013 schedule at  http://www.gocards.com/sports/w-lacros/spec-rel/121012aaa.html which includes 9 home games.

 

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ROWING

 

This month Rowing announced the signing of 9 new additions during the sports early signing period.  Write ups of each new player in the 2017 graduation class can be found at  http://www.gocards.com/sports/w-rowing/spec-rel/120512aaa.html.

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SWIMMING AND DIVING

 

Ralph  Wright Natatorium

The swimming and diving team continues their season with Lindsey Stephens being selected as the Louisville Student-Athlete of the Week.  Check out the teams Media Guide @ http://www.guide.provations.com/louisville/swimming2013#pg1.  Their season continues at home on January 12 vs. Cincinnati at the Ralph Wright Natatorium.  

Arthur Albiero

Coach Arthur Albiero is in his 7^th season. 

Something  you may not know is that the Ralph Wright Natatorium is available for use by the public for daily, monthly, semester or annual fee amounts.   Membership information can be found at http://louisville.edu/athletics/natatorium/membership.html.

 

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TENNIS

Coach Mark Beckham

Not to be outdone by swimming’s cold weather schedule, the Tennis team features their next match on January 20 vs Xavier and Morehead State.  It will begin at 10:00 at Louisville’s Home court, the Bass-Rudd Tennis Center.  Recruiting has been a part of Head Coach Mark Beckham

recent schedule as he has announced the signing of Cassie Pough of Miramar, Florida and Gabrielle Paul of London, England. Check out complete current team information at http://www.gocards.com/sports/w-tennis/spec-rel/112912aaa.html.

 

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TRACK and FIELD

 



Michelle Theophille

Margret Harris

At the team's December 7 first meet of the year Louisville’s Margret Harris won the 60m finals behind a collegiate-best 60m mark of 7.38. Her time is currently the third fastest at the Division I level. The Lancaster, Texas, native also took second with a leap of 5.60m/18-4.50

Earlier this month Margret Harris and Michelle Theophille

 

swept the BIG EAST track and field's weekly awards with Harris being name as the BIG EAST Women's Track Athlete of the Week.  The indoor schedule for Track continues on January 11 as our team will compete in the Kentucky Invitational at Lexington, KY.  Team information can be found at   http://www.gocards.com/sports/w-track/spec-rel/121112aaa.html
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Monday Cardinal Couple -- WSU next for Louisville WBB

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MONDAY CARDINAL COUPLE

-Lady Cards host WSU Tuesday night

The University of Louisville women's basketball team will try and shake off a Friday night loss at Colorado against another PAC-12 opponent when the Washington State Cougars roll into town Tuesday night. WSU (3-5) comes off a home court victory in Pullman Saturday night...defeating #20 Ohio State 62-55.

Liz Galdeira led the Coogs with 15 points in the upset win...13 of them in the second half... as WSU led at half 28-23 but saw that lead disappear early in the second half before rallying behind their defense to pull off the win. Head WSU coach June Daughtery was a standout player for the Ohio State Buckeyes back in the 1970's when she was June Brewer. Her husband Mike is an associate coach on the team.

It was the first time the Cougars had defeated a top-20 opponent since 2001.

Despite the 3-5 record, WSU is a team to be feared and also returns Ireti Amojo, who lit up Louisville for 22 points last when when the Cards visited the Beasley Coliseum in Pullman, WA. Lousiville won that game on Dec. 19th. 75-71...getting 16 points off the bench from Shawnta Dyer. The Cards trailed 35-26 at the half. Amojo is fighting back from a knee injury that ended her season last year a couple of games after her big night against the Cards.

WSU has other wins over Monmouth and BYU this season and losses to Minnesota, San Diego State, Wisconsin, UC Riverside and Fresno State. They are led by Galdeira's 15 points a game and Tia Presley also hits for double figures for the Coogs at 11.9 a game. Presley didn't score against the Cards last season and Galdeira is a freshman out of Hawaii.

It's the first of three road games for Daughtery's squad...WSU travels to Syracuse after playing the Cards and then takes on Gonzaga (not a very far road trip for them) before going into conference play.

Louisville, meanwhile, is looking for some answers after losing two of their last three. We'll know later today, but the Cards are likely to fall out of the top 10 after the loss to Colorado.


The Cards fell to #15 at College Sports Madness.com (LINK BELOW)

Top 25 WBB rankings

 They need to find a way to get guards Shoni Schimmel and Bria Smith involved in the offense and the front line needs to improve on rebounding.

The Cards ( 9-2 ) are expecting Sara Hammond back for this one and that should help greatly with the Cards front line rebounding woes. The Cougars are -5.5 in rebounding against opponents this year. UofL is +7.2 on the boards against the opposition but was out-rebounded by 12 against Colorado.

Game time is 7 p.m. at the KFC YUM! Center.

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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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