Cards get #2 seed in BIG EAST Volleyball Tournament

TUESDAY CARDINAL COUPLE PRESENTS:


-Volleyball #2 seed in BIG EAST Tournament

-UConn vs. Baylor tonight

-We catch up with Tise...

-Preview of Houston Baptist

The University of Louisville Volley Cards will open BIG EAST Tournament play against #7 seed Seton Hall (13-17, 7-7) on Friday at 3:30 p.m. in Pittsburgh at the Peterson Event Center. A dangerous first round opponent for the Cards...Seton Hall defeated Louisville during regular season play in Cardinal Arena in five games back on Sept. 26th. Emily Juhl, pictured here played one of her best games of the year against Seton Hall in the defeat.

Louisville has improved dramatically since that early season match up but cannot take the Pirates lightly. The Cards (16-7, 12-2) would advance to play the winner of the #3 Marquette vs. #6 Pittsburgh match on Saturday if they can defeat the pesky Pirates. The final will take place on Sunday and will be shown on ESPNU. All other matches will be available on BIG EAST TV and streamed free of charge. You can find BIG EAST TV online at http://www.bigeast.tv/

The rest of the first round action:

#1 Cincinnati vs. #8 South Florida

#4 Villanova vs. #5 Notre Dame

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ESPN has started their 25 straight hours of college basketball. As I write this Central Michigan is in a dogfight with home standing Hawaii. Both ESPN and ESPN 2 are showing games. A hoop junkie's dream if I ever did see one. What WE don't like about this is that in the 25 hours of action there is only one women's game. It's a goodie, though. UConn vs. Baylor. It'll show on "the deuce" at 6 p.m. Tuesday night. Should make for a good night of hoops, since the UofL men's team plays Butler at 8 p.m. on ESPN.



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WE ran into former Lady Cards center and one of the most popular Lady Cards of all time...that being Tise Wright...at the Tennessee game Friday night. Still has the big smile and hug for everyone. Tise is still living here and working. She was excited to be there for Angel's big night and excited about the prospects of this team. She plans on trying to get back into some kind of competitive basketball once her knee fully heals. She's working on getting back in shape and still talks with her former teammates quite a bit...in addition to the current crop of Cards.


It was good to see Tise again. In her prime, she was an unstoppable force in the paint. She led the BIG EAST in shooting percentage during the 2007-08 season and is second all-time in Cardinal shooting percentage at .579. She led Louisville in shooting percentage in 2006-07 and 2007-08.

She also led the Cards in blocked shots in 2007-08. Tise sat out the 2008-09 season with knee problems and returned briefly to play in the 2009-10 season but continued knee problems forced her to hang up the jersey for good.



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The University of Louisville women's basketball team will face Houston Baptist on Wednesday night in the KFC YUM Center at 7 p.m. The Huskies come to town 0-1 after losing to #23 TCU 96-38 in Fort Worth, TX. Destini Texada led the way for HBU with nine points and eleven boards. Brittany Maxey, Mele Leasau, Joselyn Pugh and Tia Jackson are the other starters for Houston Baptist...who went 1-10 from three point range and shot 27.5% for the game.

This game should be a good chance for coach Walz to do some further on-court experimentation with his lineup combinations and develop the transition game. The Cards need to show a strong performance on the boards Weds. night as well. Despite the weak opponent and weeknight game, try to get out for this one if you can. The players always appreciate the fans packing the stands and it should be fun to watch the Cards in this probable rout of HBU.