-Big East releases 2011-12 matchups in WBB
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| Doug Bruno, DePaul's WBB head coach has a rowdy home games fan base for the team. |
-We look back at UofL vs. UK in WBB
Louisville is one of ten teams who will face changes in their repeat opponent. Only three repeat matchups remain the same for 2011-12:
-UConn vs. Notre Dame
-Pittsburgh vs. WVU
-Providence vs. Villanova
According to information released from the BIG EAST conference, the determining factors involved in deciding just who repeat opponents are comes from minimizing travel costs, geographical rivalries, television inventory, RPI implications and competitive issues.
We understand the RPI implications part. Both DePaul and Louisville will most likely be ranked in the NCAA Preseason top 20. Cincinnati won't. This would also cover the competitive issues and possible television interest. As far as travel costs...I'm guessing it is less expensive to get to Cincinnati than Chicago. Call me crazy. The geographical rivalry part is another question mark. Cardinal fans have always travelled well to watch the Lady Cards play in Cincy. It seemed like Louisville had more people in the seats in Cincy last year than the Bearcats did for the game up there in the 2010-11 season. Will the travel to Chicago draw the same amount of Cardinal fans?
Cincinnati ended up with Marquette as their doubles partner. Elliott vs. Mitchell in the coaches box. Once again, the geographical and travel costs items don't make sense here...but the good news for fourteen BIG EAST team is that they didn't end up with either UConn or Notre Dame twice.
Louisville's home games in the BIG EAST will be against:
Connecticut
DePaul
Marquette
Notre Dame
Providence
USF
Syracuse
Villanova
Away games:
Cincinnati
DePaul
Georgetown
Pittsburgh
Rutgers
St.John's
Seton Hall
West Virginia
No times, dates or television coverage has officially been released yet.
WE think that the Cards could have beaten Cincinnati twice in the upcoming season and every potential win in the BIG EAST is huge...when you look at the night in - night out level of competition in the NCAA's strongest women's conference. Cincinnati will improve this year over last year's marks...Janelle Elliott is a good coach and has recruiting well...but the talent level in the Queen City still isn't what Louisville has. Against DePaul, the Cards face a team that has some questions marks now that Felicia Chester, Sam Quigley, Deidre Naughton and China Threatt have graduated...but Keisha Hampton, Anna Martin and Katherine Harry return for Bruno's team...who made it to the third round of the NCAA Tournament in 2011 before bowing out to Duke.
Bruno has signed four players for the 2011-12 season, point guards Chanise Jenkins and Brittany Hrynko...both ESPN Top 100 ranked. Wing Alexa Gallagher and shooting guard Negan Rogowski complete the signing class.
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WE LOOK BACK AT:
Sunday, December 5th. Kentucky vs. Louisville in the KFC YUM! Center
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| Becky Burke and Shoni Schimmel combined for twelve 3-pointers in the 26- point win over Kentucky last season. |
UK would manage to get within 10 points of the lead midway thru the final half...closing the gap to 55-45 with nine minutes remaining but the Cards went on another run...13-3...and closed the door on UK, leading 68-48 with six minutes to go.
Becky Burke commented on the win:
"It feels really good. They didn't let up on us last year and we didn't let up today."
Freshman Schimmel knew that her upperclassmen teammates were still smarting from last season's 101-67 loss to UK in Memorial and reflected on the mindset going into Sunday's game.
"Everybody kind of made it a big deal, so I'm thinking maybe it is a big deal. I understood what happened last year. We weren't going to let it happen again."
Defensive pressure was a key element in the 26 point Cardinal win. Intensity on the Cardinal side and lack of defensive hustle from the Cats.The Cats turned the ball over a season high 22 times and time-after-time failed to check the long range efforts of Schimmel and Burke.
"It's the worst day we've had trapping and rotating since we've implemented this defensive style. If you don't hustle...you can look silly out there. Today was a bad day to look silly, but we did." UK head coach Matthew Mitchell commented after the game. "We just did not get pressure on the basketball. Things we normally do, we didn't do."
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Ahh, thanks for the great memory! That was an excellent game and a fun, fun event with the sell out crowd. The final score made it look like a blow out, but I remember being very nervous that at any time the tide could shift, U of K would not go away.
ReplyDeleteI am hopeful that next year will see the upper deck opened for quite a few games as well. Certainly the UCONN game is a no brainer, I would hope that with Notre Dame, Depaul and even Syracuse we could get a sell out crowd.
Do you all have any ideas what the home non-conference schedule will look like? Hoping for some tough games to ready our gals for the rigors of B East play.
Glad to see you two back in the saddle!
Jenny