Louisville Faces Creighton in the Sweet Sixteen -- THURSDAY CARDINAL COUPLE

2-seed Cards and 3-seed Blue Jays Start at Noon

2-seed Louisville squares off against 3-seed Creighton in the Sweet Sixteen today at noon. The Cardinals and Blue Jays will play at the Fitzgerald Field House, also known as 'The Fitz', in Pittsburgh, where 1-seed Pitt and 4-seed Washington State will also play. You can catch the match on ESPN2.

Louisville's tournament run has featured a 3-1 win over Wichita State in the opening round followed by a 3-0 sweep against Western Michigan. The Cards also defeated Wichita State in their third match of the season, coincidentally a 3-1 win. Louisville did not see the Raiders in the regular season. If Louisville and Washington State both win, then they will play in a rematch from the second match of the season, where UofL won 3-0. If Louisville and Pitt both win, it will be a rematch from twice this season- Louisville won at home 3-0 and Pitt won at the Fitz 3-2.

Creighton's tournament has consisted of sweeps over Colgate and Minnesota. The Blue Jays defeated the Golden Gophers on the road in five sets in September. Creighton went 25-4 in the regular season with all four losses coming by October 6. The Blue Jays have won 17 straight matches.

Ava Martin leads the Blue Jays with 404 kills. No one else on the team has broken 300 kills. As a team, Creighton has tallied 1,626 kills. Kendra Wait has commanded that setter position and has logged 1,158 assists. The back row defense has been shared by many players: Kendra Wait (380 digs), Ellie Bolton (295 digs), Sydney Breissinger (271 digs), Sky McCune (232 digs), Ava Martin (222 digs), and Norah Sis (198 digs).

Louisville and Creighton met once back in August 2015, where the Cards took a 3-2 win.

Louisville Players to Keep an Eye On

We get used to seeing the same names fill up the stat sheet each match, but the Cards have a few players that aren't regularly all over the box score that can affect the result of this match.

Reese Robins is a freshman that has started seeing more and more playing time. The minutes she's seeing on the court have been impactful both offensively and defensively as opponents have yet to figure out how to stop her size and strength.

Brigitta Petrenko transferred in as a setter to run with Elle Glock. While Glock ultimately won the starting position, Petrenko has come in as a serving specialist who can also double as a setter when Glock needs a break or the coaches want to pull her for a moment to go over a couple plays. She helped spark multiple rallies this postseason.

Kamden Schrand is a freshman defensive specialist that has seen plenty of court action. Louisville has had some trouble on passing and serve receive this season and Schrand has been able to come in and help take the pressure of those struggles. 

Happy Thursday and Go Cards!
Jared

Finals Week at UofL -- WEDNESDAY CARDINAL COUPLE

Good morning readers and happy hump day!!

It's Daryl checking in with you midweek as Paul and I traded places on our writing days to accommodate some of life’s happenings.

It’s that time of year that everything seems to speed up and slow down at the same time. Parents are shopping, students are wrapping up the semester and then there’s the rest of us just trying to maintain the requirements of adulting.

Finals are scheduled to take place in the coming week. Good luck to all the students and athletes!

There were no Cardinals games yesterday and none today so we are just taking the time to breathe and get ready for what’s next as a program.



Volleyball

Volleyball is getting ready to head to the Sweet 16 for the ninth time in program history.

The Cards are scheduled to face off with #3 Creighton at noon on Thursday at 12pm.

This one will be available to watch on ESPN2.

Outside hitter Anna DeBeer was voted East Region Player of the Year by the AVCA. The Cardinals placed six players on the First Team All-East Region: Cara Cresse, Anna DeBeer, Elle Glock, Aiko Jones, Charitie Luper and Elena Scott. Phekran Kong was named to the Honorable Mention All-East Region squad.



WBB

And then we have the WBB squad who is preparing for the Battle of the Bluegrass on Sunday afternoon. The Cats are not looking like the nationally ranked squad we’ve seen in recent years as they went on a 5 game losing streak to some questionable opponents. While its not nice to laugh at other’s misfortunes, this is one where we will make an exception. I wont tell Santa Claus if you wont… but I hope the Cards pour in on them and win by 40. No mercy!!

The Cats play Minnesota tonight, if you want to get a pre-game scout on them. The catch is...it's on SECN+, which islike our ACCN+, you goyya pay for the privledge..

Good luck again to the Cardinals this week, on the courts and in the classroom.


As Always

Go Cards!

~Daryl

Cards Climb AP Poll -- TUESDAY CARDINAL COUPLE

Louisville Women's Basketball Jumps Four Spots in Latest Rankings

For Jeff Walz and Co., the wins and tough schedule are starting to pay off. Louisville women's basketball moved up four spots to #18 in the latest poll.

Last week, the Cards went to Oxford, Miss and defeated then-#19 Ole Miss by six in the ACC-SEC Challenge. The ACC and SEC tied, going 7-7. The Cards followed up that win by cruising past North Carolina A&T, 80-40.

Louisville is the fourth highest ranked ACC team right now and one of six in the Top 25. NC State continues to be the surprise of the season as the Wolfpack have moved all the way up to #3. Notre Dame moved up a few spots to #14 while Virginia Tech fell all the way to #15 after suffering their second loss of the season. Louisville is #18.

Florida State fell quite a bit after losing at home recently, and is now ranked #20. North Carolina stayed put at #24.

Miami just missed on cracking the rankings and sit in the receiving votes category. In an expanded rankings system, the Hurricanes would be #26. Syracuse also received a pair of votes.

While NC State is a bit surprising with just how good they are this year (I didn't expect them to be in the top three, especially with Elissa Cunane gone) It is surprising that Duke isn't ranked or even receiving votes. The Blue Devils are 5-3 on the year with losses to #1 South Carolina, #9 Stanford (by three), and RV Davidson. I think Duke is a better team than the rankings give them credit for.

The ACC is loaded this season even more than last year. The voters still are unsure of how good Louisville is yet with a majority of the team being new. A match-up against UConn in a couple weeks will be telling of where the Cards stand against one of the best women's basketball programs of the last two decades.

Next up for the Cards is a meeting with in-state rival Kentucky. The Cards and Cats will face off on Sunday at 2:00pm at the KFC Yum! Center. Obviously, this game is being promoted as a RED out. We encourage you to wear red for this one, as Paulie, Sonya, Daryl, and myself will do. Jeff will be up in the stands hopefully wearing red. Now, if we can talk Case into attending this game we could have a Cardinal Couple full house.

Happy Tuesday and Go Cards!

Jared

Cards WBB Double up N.C. A&T 80-40 -- MONDAY CARDINAL COUPLE

 

FIVE IN DOUBLE FIGURES IN LOUISVILLE WBB WIN

An enthusiastic crowd of 7618 turned out Sunday at noon for Louisville's non-conference tilt against N.C.A&T. And, the Cards roared out against the Aggies with 29 first quarter points and 54 points on the board at the half...leading the foe by 33 at the break. The win pushed UofL WBB to 8-1 on the season

(photo by Michael DeZarn)

A balanced effort from Walz's bunch and maybe some of the best basketball they've played this season, shooting a red-hot 63% in the first 20 and forcing 15 turnovers. 

Starter Nina Rickards left after just three and one half minutes, rested as a precaution the rest of the way after she bumped knees with an Aggie. Coach Walz said that she'd be fine in a couple of days. 

UofL jumped out to a 7-2 start in the first two minutes of this one, an openingthree from Kiki Jefferson getting things off to a good start. Merissah Russell and Jayda Curry three's bumped that advantage up to 17-9 at the first quarter mediabreak, and Louisville ended the quarter on a 12-4 run, the Cards knocked down five three-pointers in the first session. The Cards had built a 29-13 lead. 

(photo by Michael DeZarn)

The defense got even stingier in he second quarter. An 11-4 Cardinals run in the first three minutes of the second quarter had the Cards coasting along a 40-17 after a LeLe Love layup. An Olivia Cochran jumper made the score 51-18 with 1:30 until halftime...Hennie Van Schaik drilled a jumper to give the Cards a 54-21 lead at the half for a crowd that was very vocal in their encouragement for these flying Birds. 

Every Card had scored except the injured Rickards in the first half and Louisville had a 18-0 advantage in second chance points and a 31-6 bench scoring advantage. 

(The annual Baby Crawl Race...photo by Michael DeZarn)

The third quarter began a bit slowly, neither team scoring in the first 2-1/2 minutes, but wtth four minutes gone in the third, Louisville had swelled the lead to 60-25. The Cards held N.C. A&T to no baskets and just three points in the final five minutes of the third quarter...Nyla Harris had five of Louisville's 15 points in the quarter and the squads entered the fourth with Louisville comfortably ahead at 69-30.

 

The fourth quarter gave Walz a chance to give Russell, van Schaik, Istanbulluoglu, Love and Curry some extended minutes and it was another slow start to the scoring...two N.C.A&T free throws broke the ice with three minutes already transpired, Louisville's shooting percentage dropped pretty significantly in the final 10 minutes (4-15 for 26.7%) and the Cards only hit one of the six threes they tried, but the crew gained valuable playing experience time together on the court and Russell's three wrapped up he UofL scoring with 2:24 to go, for the Cards biggest lead at 44 points, the Aggies cored the final four points for the game...a 80-40 Cardinals triumph. 

(photo by Michael De Zarn)

A solid win, expected and expecations met. The in-state rivalry against  that school in Lexington is a week away. It should be a thriller in the YUM!

THE FRED REPORT

(An apt Fred Figglehorn for Kids Day at the arena...)

FREE THROWS -- Louisville went 10-13 from the stripe (only 29 fouls were called in this one, a vast difference from the 50 whistled in the Ole Miss contest) Kiki Jeferson was 4-4 and we'll award a small case "f" for topping our standard of 70%. 

REBOUNDING --  45-23 in favor of the home team, LeLeLove leading the way with 10 for the Cards. N.C. A&T had just five offensive rebounds...A CAPITAL "R" HERE, NO DOUBT! 

EFFORT/EXECUTION -- The Cards won the points off turnovers battle 43-8, second chance scoring 25-2 and points-in-the paint 36-22. Committing 17 turnovers is still more than I'd like to see, but 44 bench points shows me everyone was anxious to get out there and show what they could do. A CAPITAL "E" FOR THE 80-POINT EFFORT AND 44%  SHOOTING FROM THE FLOOR. 

DEFENSE -- Allowing just 40 points is a nice defensive effort, forcing 31 turnover prettty awesome and getting 16 steals makes this a CAPITAL "D" here. 

FINAL FRED REPORT:  f-R-E-D

THEY SAID IT: 

POST GAME WALZ:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RIYjRHVWXvA

POST GAME CURRY AND jEFFERSON:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WcltLzezzPo

(photo by Michael DeZarn) 

A special "thank you!" to Michael DeZarn, for providing me with some photos of the game !!

paulie

 

 

A Fairly Quiet Saturday for Women's Sports -- SUNDAY CARDINAL COUPLE

A Quiet Saturday

Not much going on for the sports we cover heavily here at Cardinal Couple.  There was, what I think can best be described as a kicking and punting exhibition in Charlotte on the guy's side, for the women, only Swimming and Diving as well as Track and Field were in action.

We have no updates from the water side, but a few notable results from the Norton Healthcare Sports & Learning Center, where Louisville seems to be poised to do well in jumping events this year.

Synclair Savage picked up a silver in the long jump, while Sophia Day got her college career started with a win in the triple jump.  Autumn Bell and Riley Berger got 3rd and 4th.

Jenna Hensley won the high jump, with another freshman, Aubrey Lane getting her college career going with a 5th place finish.

Kiyah Yeast took 2nd in the women's 60m, with Sinclair Savage right behind in 3rd.  Olivia Jenkins took the 5th spot.

Volleyball Host Settled

After Friday's Volleyball win over Western Michigan, you might have noticed that none of the coverage said much about where the Sweet 16 match would be played.  That's because we didn't know for sure!  There were still 2nd round matches being contested yesterday, and among them was Pitt vs USC (Southern California).

Hosting for Regionals goes to the highest seeded team remaining in the region after the first two rounds are completed.  UofL is the two seed in the region, and Pitt is the one seed, meaning, if USC had upset Pitt - an unlikely, but not unthinkable, idea - the hosting would fall back to Louisville.

Alas, that didn't happen, USC did win the first set of the match, but Pitt hunkered down and got it done in four.  So Pitt will be hosting at the Fitzgerald Field House, and Louisville will have the first match of the day, against three seed Creighton, at noon on Thursday.

Women's Basketball Gameday

A bit of an early start for the Walz crew, with a noon tip vs North Carolina A&T.

Walz was spotted, along with Dani Busboom Kelly, in Charlotte yesterday for the punting and kicking exhibition, but apparently traveled there and back in a private craft, making the travel time reasonable for him to get a pretty good night's rest in his own bed last night.

NC A&T should prove a good competitor for UofL to continue to congeal this aggregate roster.  The progress so far has seemed to be pretty good, but some more mid-major level competition to tune and hone the rough spots will surely be welcome.

(The annual "baby race" is today at halftime !) 

We can't take the Aggies completely for granted, they sport a 3-3 record with the sort of results you would expect from this sort of mid-major.  They sport a beat-em-down win over Guilford College (114-41), and narrower wins over Wake Forest (56-51) and Liberty (56-47).  Loses are to Georgia by a respectable 59-71 margin, Saint Mary's College of California (65-73), and UT Arlington (76-87).

They have four players scoring in double digits per game.  Maleia Bracone leads the way at 12.3 with Jordyn Dorsey right behind at 12.2.  Chaniya Clark, and D'Mya Tucker come in at 11.8 and 11.5.  Don't expect Clark to be an outside threat, being 6'4" she'll likely spend most of her time posted up, but the rest can hoist them from range with some effectiveness.

ACC Network Extra has the coverage on this one, but of course Nick and Courtnee can be found on the radio (or a radio stream) if your preferences run that way.

Cardinal Couple Radio Hour Podcast

(all but Daryl were on the podcast)

A surprise foursome on the show yesterday as Jared was able to pop in and participate from...somewhere in the Carolinas.

Basketball and Volleyball, I'm sure you'll be surprised to hear, were the topics du jour.  Good discussion for both as we recap'ed past events and discussed what was ahead.  We did talk about what then were the different possibilities for volleyball hosting in the Regionals that hve since been settled, and more.

Check it out:

https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/cardinal-couple/episodes/Volleyball-Advances-to-Sweet-16-e2cnfnc

-- 

JMcA

Volleyball Advances to Sweet Sixteen -- SATURDAY CARDINAL COUPLE

Cards Sweep WMU to Advance

Louisville hosted Western Michigan in the Yum! Center last night in the second round of the NCAA tournament. As Coach Dani Busboom Kelly noted in her postgame remarks, WMU was a good team that lost only two matches all season. Louisville certainly didn't have a walk in the park, despite the final score. While they finished with a sweep, they had to earn it, winning with scores of 26-24, 25-18, and 25-22. The Cards used a good hitting night to put WMU away, hitting .359 as a team with just 10 errors. Their lowest set percentage was still .300 and every hitter with an attempt hit at least .200.

The Cards jumped out to an early lead in the first, led by a 3-kill streak for Cara Cresse that was part of a 4-0 run to move Louisville ahead 7-3. The Cards had to weather a storm, as WMU brought it back to tie the set at 12 before carrying a two point lead 17-15. After Louisville held close, it looked as though they'd be in dire straights when WMU moved to Set Point 3 with a 24-21 lead. Louisville did no less than rattle off five straight points to win 26-24. 

The second set was closer for longer, but Louisville's brief runs were more frequent that WMU's. The Cards led 15-10 before a quick spurt of energy from the Broncos made it 15-14 again. The trades continued, but they were uneven, and Louisville ultimately took the set 25-18. The second was Louisville's best hitting set, as they were .387 in that one. Somewhat surprisingly, it wasn't WMU's worst set, as that came in the first with a .140 percentage. WMU hit .235 in the second, so Louisville was just more advantageous with their points and opportunities. 

Much like the second, the third set stayed close. Unlike the second, Louisville never had a big run to open the score up. As a result, WMU hung around, threatening to take a set off of the second-seeded hosts. After an error by Charitie Luper brought WMU to within one at 23-22, Luper followed it up with a kill to give the Cards a Match Point opportunity. Cara Cresse took advantage of said opportunity, and the Cards closed it out.

Luper was the leader for Louisville offensively in this one. She finished with 11 kills, which was behind only WMU's Anna Calcagno for the match lead. Calcagno had 13 kills. Luper was the only Card in double figures, but Cresse and Anna DeBeer finished with nine, while Reese Robins had eight, PK added seven, and Aiko Jones rounded out Louisville's kills with five. PK continued her strong tournament as she also had no errors. DeBeer nearly finished with a double-double, as she added nine digs to her kills.

At the net, Louisville was dominant. WMU finished with just three blocks. Louisville had ten. Louisville was even at the serving line, finishing with five aces and five service errors. They lost the category by the narrowest of margins, as WMU put up seven aces and just six errors. Elena Scott, Elle Glock, and Brigitta Petrenko were all busy. Petrenko had 12 assists and two digs, while Scott finished with seven assists to go along with her 22 digs. Glock finished with a double-double as both setters were targeted. Glock had 26 assists and 11 digs, trailing WMU's Logan Case in both categories. Case had 36 assists and 14 digs. That would be part of the reason that DBK said Case and the libero Andelyn Simkins (who also had 14 digs) could play anywhere.

There may have been a couple of spots for improvement, but Louisville will need performances more like last night's than the one on display against Wright State if they want to make a deep run in this year's tournament. As it is, they can only take one match at a time.

Louisville played the only Friday match in their region, so they await tonight's results to determine a location and opponent. The Cards will get either Minnesota or Creighton and they'll plan in either Pittsburgh or Louisville. The match to determine Louisville's opponent is at 7:30 and the one that determines the location (Pitt vs USC) is at 7:00 PM.

Cardinal Couple Radio Hour Podcast

We'll be without Jared this week as some big game is happening in Charlotte or something. We'll have plenty to cover with the knuckleheads on hand, though. We'll talk volleyball, basketball, and whatever else strikes Paulie's fancy. As always, you can check out the live stream of the show by going to the Cardinal Couple YouTube page and clicking on the live video. Jeff usually creates that about an hour before the show, which officially starts at 11 AM Eastern. If the live time doesn't work for you, there are plenty of playback options, so be sure to check out whichever is best for you!

Cardinal Couple YouTube: Link

Anchor (podcast host): Link

Apple Podcasts: Link

Google Podcasts: Link

Overcast (free account required): Link

Pocket Casts (free account and app required): Link

RadioPublic: Link

Spotify: Link

Until next time, Go Cards!

Case

Volleyball roars back on the Raiders 3 -1 -- FRIDAY CARDINAL COUPLE

FRIDAYS WITH DARYL

Hello again everyone and welcome to the month of December and the weekend! I hope everyone is staying warm.

There’s some post season action going on in town this weekend as Louisville plays host to another NCAA Tournament at the KFC Yum! Center. The VolleyCards begin another quest for a national championship. Actually, if you ask the squad I’m sure the quest began when they lost in the finals last season...

So lets hop right on into it!


Volleyball

UofL had the second time slot for volleyball action at the Yum! Center last night where they faced Wright State in the first round.   The first match began at 4 p.m. (and UofL's next opponent) featured Western Michigan and Auburn University where the Broncos dominated the #7 Tigers in a surprising 3-0 sweep.

But first, the hostess with the mostessssss, our Louisville Cardinals. 


Final       UofL 3 WRI 1 (22-25, 25-18, 25-20, 25-20)   

The Cardinals opened the NCAA tournament with a win over a tough and familiar Wright State team. UofL faced the Raiders earlier in the season more than 3 months ago on August 27th where the Cards walked out of L&N Arena with another 3-1 victory.

This go around, it was in the Yum! Center with more than 5,000 in attendance.

Cara Cresse lead the attack for Louisville hitting at a .500% 👀 clip with 13 kills and 5 blocks. UofL got alot of support from the middle of the court with Phekran Kong also leading Louisville with 9 kills and 9 blocks. As a team, the Cards had a 15 - 6 block advantage over Wright St.

Wright State was able to hold the Cards to a .192 hitting % as a team. The Raiders were in the right spots at the right time A LOT of the time throughout the match, It was not an easy task to take down the Raiders as they came out ready to rumble. I thought the team looked a little winded to begin and struggled to 'find their sea legs' in the first set but they didn't really warm up it seemed until the end of the second set.

Our photographer Jared Anderson, at the event,  said he wasn't nervous.   I will say it did not look like the Louisville team we've watched all season.. making silly errors or swinging too strong and out of bounds.  But every point in this match felt hard earned.   

The Cardinals need to get in their nest early tonight and get ready for a Friday night match in the second round.  

Lets look at the next opponent.... 


About Western Mich

Head coach Colleen Munson has spent 19 years in Kalamazoo leading the Western Michigan program. This year, her Bronco squad is just one of two teams to boast 30 wins entering the NCAA Tournament. 

Senior setter Logan Case leads the charge for WMU. The MAC Player of the Year and Setter of the Year averages 11.87 assists per set, the second-highest mark in the country.

Case has a trio of experienced attackers to choose from offensively. Graduate outside hitter Maggie King paces the team in kills per set (3.69) and points per set (4.10). Keona Salesman and Anna Calcagno aren't too far behind. Salesman averages a robust 3.45 kills per set while Calcagno comes in at 3.00.

Western Michigan's defense is captained by Michigan native Andelyn Simkins. The senior libero took home MAC Defensive Player of the Year honors, averaging 4.89 digs per set.


Western Michigan (31-2) in the first round

Western Michigan 3,  #7 Auburn 0

The victory is Western Michigan's first NCAA Tournament win since 2008 and eighth in program history. That season, the Broncos won a pair of matches to reach the program's MAC-record fifth regional semifinal. Thursday's win also extended WMU's winning streak to 21, its longest streak since 1983.

Logan Case had 44 assists, the Broncos hit a blistering .367, with Calcagno and King pacing the attack with 14 kills apiece. Mary Clare Brusek added nine kills, with Salesman contributing eight to the cause.

WMU also used the service line as a weapon, tallying a season-best 11 service aces.  Simkins led the way with a career-high six aces, one shy of the single-match program record.

Simkins anchored Western Michigan's defense with a match-high 25 digs, while Reeghan Boyer pitched in nine digs and King added seven.




As Always,
Go Cards

~Daryl

CARDS WBB DOWNS OLE MISS -- THURSDAY CARDINAL COUPLE

 JEFFERSON LEADS WAY FOR 7-1 WBB WIN 64-58

Louisville WBB used a second half surge to roll past Ole Miss and then hung on for dear life in the ACC vs. SEC contest Wednesdy Evening on the Ole Miss campus. Kiki Jefferson led the Cards in scoring for the second staight game with 16 points and Nina Rick"Cards" added 15. 

The late start (9:15 p.m.) was even further exacerbated by "the network" not showing the game until halfway through the first quarter, because of a earlier scheduled event. The Cards held a 12-6 lead when we finally got to see the action on ESPNU, but would shut down after that and end the first quarter trailing the Rebs 16-14. Thank goodness for the UofL radio feed...What I saw was a UofL team having a hard time getting out ofthe gate and not responding well to the UM pressure. 

"Back and forth" was pretty much the way the second quarter went. Both teams started very slowly in the second quarter, with no one scoring for the first three minutes. The half featured no thrilling offenses sequences and both teams struggled to get 14 points each on the board  This was a heavyweight fight with two sluggers exchangng thumps...Ole Miss held a tenacious 30-28 halftime lead...each team had 11 turnovers already. The Cards major bright spot was the play of Kiki Jefferson, who had 11 first half points. 

The Cards finally grabbed the lead early in the third qurter and were able to hold onto it the rest of the way. Ole Miss would cut deeply into it, but the Cards managed to find a way to extend it back out to semi-comfortable margins each time. Louisville held a 50-44 lead after three quarters and Jefferson was getting offensive support from Nina Rickards and Jadya Curry. 

The fourth quarter had Louisville leading the entire way, but the Cards got a major scare with two minutes to go. Up 62-54, the Rebs hit a couple of free throws to cut the UofL lead to six. A Cards turnover gave it back to Ole Miss and they scored with a minutes lefft to make it 62-58 Then, the Cards turned it over again, and Ole Miss had the opportunity to cut the Cards lead to 1 or 2, maybe even take the lead... but they missed two shots and two attempts from the free throw line. Finally, Rickards sank two clutch free throws for the Cards and neither team scored the rest of the way...Louisville winning 64-58. 

THE FRED REPORT

(We bring favorite Fred G. Sanford back for today's Fred.).
"Turn off the TV Lamont..these Cards are raising my blood pressure!".

FREE THROWS -- The normally good crew of Joe Vasiliy and Puhlani Spurlock must have decided to accept commision pay for this contest, 50 fouls were called. Coach "Yo" for Miss. got so incensed by one, she looked like she was doing a remake of THE EXORCIST movie and drew a technical. The shooting of the free ones was abysmal...The Cards were 25-36 for 69.4% and Ole Miss went 13-28. NO LETTER AWARDED HERE. 

REBOUNDS -- Louisville narrowly lost the boards battle 36-33. Louisville only managed to graab nine on the offensive end. You lose the rebounding battle...you GET NO LETTER.

EFFORT/EXECUTION -- 18 TURNOVERS a bit high for this Cardinals bunch and oly eight assists on 18 made baskets not  gret thing wither. Louisville did hit 3-6 from three-point range and took the second chance battle 12-4. It's a win, the Cards didn't look great in getting it, but this wasn't meant to be a beauty pagents, it was a back alley, bare knuckled fist fight. I'll give a sm

all "e"

DEFENSE -- 43% hooting by the foe isn't a great defensive performance, neither is the 28-22 advantage to Ole Miss in points-in-the-paint. Louisville did enough to win, and I would imagine there are a lot of teachable moments that'll come out of this game film. Ole Miss did go 1-11 from three=point range, I'll attribute that to stellar UofL defense and not poor Ole Miss shooting and shot selection. It's a "W", I'll hand out a small case "d".

FINAL FRED REPORT:  -_-_e-d

JARED'S NCAA VOLLEYBALL TOURNAMENT PICKS

yOU KNOW hpw Jared is around ANY torunament time and, lo and behold, he has done a selection bracket for the NCAA Volleyball Tpournament. Think ypu can beat him? Here are his picks below,,,

Sorry about the quality here, had to pull it off an antiquated (my) cell phone...

paulie

WALZ PRESSER -- WBB TO FACE OLE MISS -- WEDNESDAY CARDINAL COUPLE

 WALZ PRESSER 11/28/23

I was a bit under the weather Tuesday (and not feeling much better today) and did not get a chance to attend the weekly Walz presser. It is below, though, for those who want to hear Coach's thoughts and reaction to a variety of questions. He is never boring, that's for sure, and loves it when the local TV station cameras are on him.

And, before you ask...no, this is NOT Sam Purcell's new team (that's Miss State) that UofL faces tonight in women's basketball.. Ole Miss is in Oxford (northern Mississippi) and not the one that is noted for the cowbell ringing. 

OK, now that we got that out of the way...onto the presser an the game preview. 

WALZ PRESSER 11/28 23

CARDS WBB TO TRAVEL TO OLE MISS

Louisville stays out of conference Wednesday night when they take on the Ole Miss Rebels. Ths one will be a 9:15 start (yeah, I know...too late. TV wins again) contest and it'll be shown either on ESPN or ESPNU. Maybe both? Both outlets have been listed in different articles I checked at and promos about the contest...my advice is tune in around 9:10 p.m. and figure it out. 

The Rebs are 6-1 on the season (like Louisville) and are coming off winning the Battle 4 Atlantis, in the Bahamas...knocking off Michigan in the title game. The Ole Miss WBB head coach is Yolette McPhee-McCuin. They play their conference hoops in the SEC and they love to call their head coach "Coach Yo". She and the Rebs knocked of #1 Stanford last year in the NCAA Tournament to reach the Sweet Sixteen... where UofL sent them home by 10 points. And, as you may recall, In 2022, they got bumped in the first round of the tournament by South Dakota.

Their only loss this year has been to Oklahoma...where Peyton Verhulst ended up...80-70. Verhulst only had six points against the Rebs. Wins for the Rebs have been over Michigan, Little Rock, Arizona, Howard, Temple and Queens (NC). 

So, this year's Ole Miss squad is led by Marquesha Davis (11.7 ppg) and Madison Scott (10.9 ppg)  Davis is a senior transfer guard from Arkansas and is in her second season with Mississippi. Scott is a former SEC Freshman of the year and a senior now. They also get offensive firepower from Snudda Collins and Kirsten Deans but Deans is out for the season, injuring a knee in the Battle 4 Atlantis. 

Miss. averages 69 poins a game and allows 54.6. They shoot 41% from the floor and have made 26 threes on the season, averaging 25% on those. 

It should be a challenging game for Louisville, as Walz continues to put together the puzzle that is the 2023-24 Louisville women's basketball squad. It was good to see Olivia Cochran bust loose against Gonzaga, and she'll be a key component in the Cards rest of the season, along with Nyla Harris...if the Cards are going to have any inside impct on the rest of the opponents they play this season. 

The good thing about the roster is there is a wealth of experience on it and we continue to see Elif Istanbuluoglu get more comfortable with the American game each time she hits the floor. The Cards will need her and others to make a successful ACC run and acquire a good bid for the NCAA Tournament. 

We see one or two of the players who transfered this season usually step up with big games. and, if I were to guess...Nina Rickards might have a big game tonight, she saw a lot of Mississippi when she was at Florida...and Syd Taylor can rack up a dozen or so pretty quickly if she's "on" from three-point range.  

paulie