Cardinal Couple

THURSDAY CARDINAL COUPLE

( Jeff McAdams catches us up on Lacrosse, Softball, his recruiting efforts and the real MVP of the Purdue game in today's CARDINAL COUPLE edition. Be sure to look for him in the Crescent Hill Easter Parade Saturday on Frankfort Ave...he'll be driving the jeep full of chimps tossing bananas and soft-boiled eggs at the crowd (or to the crowd) lined along the parade route. We're hoping he told parade officials about the entry.) 

Also, today's photo montage is from Austin Lassell's work at The Cardinal -- UofL's student newspaper. We gratefully acknowledge his fine work and thank him and The Cardinal for allowing us to present these action shots of the Purdue game to you! You can discover more of his work at The Cardinal or at his site www.austinlassell.com

 

*** Upcoming Spring Sports Events

*** Good Carl Gets an Honor or Two

*** A Story of a New WBB Season Ticket Holder?

*** Asia Taylor as MVP of the Purdue Game?

Spring Sports Schedule Update

After a multi-game visit to the mid-Atlantic seaboard, tangling with two quality opponents, Lacrosse gets a week break with no games this weekend.  The mid-Atlantic visit included competition with Loyola (Md.) and Georgetown, both ranked teams.  The Cards dropped both games, but both were very hard fought and respectable showings.  With those losses, Louisville Lacrosse has dropped back just out of the rankings once again, but are continuing to receive votes.  The next matchup brings #7 ranked Notre Dame into town for the first Cardinal home Lacrosse game since March 6th.  Almost a month without competing on the UofL Lacrosse Stadium, with the first draw next Friday (not tomorrow), the 5th at 5pm.

Softball, on the other hand, has a busy week ahead of them.  Syracuse comes for a three game visit
starting Friday afternoon with a double-header at 2pm and 4pm, and a followup on Saturday at noon.  Then, Wednesday the 3rd, at 6pm, the Kentucky Wildcats come to play.  With a ranking of 20 or 21, and a first week RPI of 8, our Lexington friends are not a team to be trifled with.  This should be a good game, with Louisville sitting on #11 rankings and a 10th place RPI.  I believe the Kentucky game is a ticketed game, so don't expect to come waltzing into Ulmer like you normally do for a game.

Good Carl Gets an Honor or Two

Caralisa "Carl" Connell has come into some critique from Paulie and I for being hot and cold in her pitching.  Sometimes she's amazing, but sometimes we're glad Rachel Le Coq is around for relief duties.

It seems that we've seen more of "Good Carl" than "Bad Carl" recently, a trend that will get no complaints around these parts, of course.  This week in particular, Caralisa Connell was named to Big East Pitcher of the Week, and has also picked up the CollegeSportsMadness.com National Pitcher of the Week honor.

Here's to hoping we see more of "Good Carl" in the coming weeks.

A Story of a New WBB Season Ticket Holder?

I believe it was at the Women's Basketball Tip-Off luncheon that Jeff Walz encouraged the crowd to bring friends to basketball games, saying that, if we could get people to come to a game, he felt like it would be entertaining enough that people would want to then buy season tickets.  I certainly believe that UofL Women's Basketball is one the best values for entertainment dollars around, and my family has been season tickets holders for a number of years now based on that exact scenario...we decided to go to a UofL vs UConn game back in the days when Katie Olson and Jazz Covington were playing.  We had such a great time that we got season tickets starting the next year.  Despite this experience, I questioned how often that reaction to coming to a game really happened.  I'm more of a believer, now.

I, on Tuesday, was having a water-cooler conversation with a relatively new employee at my place of employment...except we weren't at an actual water-cooler...just having a random conversation in the hallway, so I guess it was a figurative-water-cooler conversation.  Let's, unimaginatively, say this co-worker's name is "Bob".  Another co-worker who's very well known as a UofL fan walked by.  We'll equally unimaginatively call him, "Glenn".  I asked Glenn, as he walked by if he was going to the game, mentioned the $5 endzone ticket promotion they were doing.  Glenn said he wasn't going to be able to make it due to other committments.  Bob, however, perked up his ears at the idea of $5 tickets to the game.  Bob and his wife had already lined someone up to watch the kids and were looking for something interesting, and hopefully not terribly expensive, to do that evening.  $5 tickets to a basketball game at the KFC Yum! Center during tournament time seemed like a great idea.  I filled him in on the details and he said he thought it sounded like a good idea and that he'd suggest it to his wife and that he thought they would probably go.

I made my way by his office yesterday morning (Wednesday) and asked if they had gone to the game.  The response was effusive.  He and his wife and his mother-in-law had gone to the game and had end-zone tickets and they loved it.  They had a wonderful time.  Bob immediately asked about season ticket prices and almost didn't believe me when I told him how little I paid for my season tickets.  He was equally floored when I told him where my tickets were and that other tickets in other sections of seating would be even less expensive.  We then proceeded to talk about the Louisville team, and about how the women's game is a little different from the men's (no 10-second backcourt violation...30 vs 35 second shot clock...generally awful officiating, though not usually as bad as it was for that game...how all of this combined to change the overall feel of the game).  At the end of the conversation, Bob said he thought they would probably get season tickets for next year.

Huh, it really does work.

Asia Taylor as MVP of the Purdue Game?

Maybe the most pivotal moment of the whole contest between Purdue and UofL may have gone largely unnoticed Tuesday night.

Before the game, Asia Taylor was standing near the scorer's table with a couple of the other injured UofL players.  Dee Kantner, the head official for the evening, approached and said something to Asia
that I couldn't hear from my seats.  Asia got a surprised look on her face and made some sort of comment in response.  Dee responded in a way that seemed reassuring.  At that point, Asia picked a couple of basketballs off of the cart of balls used for warm-ups, looked them over, bounced them a couple of times, considered them further, and then handed one of them to Dee.

Dee checked the ball over, bounced it a couple of times, nodded, and promptly went on to use that ball as the game ball.

I think congratulations are owed to Asia Taylor, number 31, who's judicious selection of the game ball, may very well have played a critical role in the advancement of our Louisville Cardinals to the Sweet 16 over Purdue Tuesday night.

Of course, it might have had something to do with Sara Hammond's double-double, but I'd like to think that it wouldn't have been possible without Asia Taylor's critical contribution.

Way to go ATayy, you're tops in my book.

--Jeff McAdams

(Great story on ATayy and the newest Cardinal fans. We're pretty sure...based on the practice reports we're getting...that #31 will be picking up a lot of MVP honors for games in 2013-14 if she can keep up with the progress we're hearing that she's displaying during practice. Good job, Asia and you are still Sonja's favorite Lady Card. And, apparantly the darling of a lot of other fans' out there as well...)