Louisville Women's Basketball heads West

WEDNESDAY CARDINAL COUPLE

( Three categories in tonight's ESPY Awards at 9 p.m. on ESPN have current and former UofL hoopsters involved. Jenny O'Bryan catches us up on the BIGGEST UPSET OF THE YEAR category and the LADY CARDS nomination for their win over Baylor in the NCAA regionals. You can also vote for Pitino as Coach of the Year and Angel as best WNBA player. All three are deserving. Go vote! )  

IT is the eve of the ESPYs  (as I write this) and a contingent from Louisville Women’s Basketball has headed West.  If you are on twitter and follow the team basketball account, or any of the player’s accounts, you are seeing a photo montage of the trek. 

Bria Smith shared a Vine (for those of you not in the social media know, this is a 7 second video clip) in the wee hours of Tuesday morning announcing the departure.  Pictures and regular updates ensued from the coaching staff, each of the players heading out, as well as the basketball account. 

Coach Walz posted a picture of his new baby girl Lola, as they touched down in LA.  Sara Hammond posted a picture of an attendant waiting outside the gate with a placard with her name on it.  Pictures of lunch at Johnny Rockets, lunch on the beach, star sightings, and a pool party with all the celebrities have been captured all day long by Bria Smith, Antonita Slaughter and Sara Hammond.  Shoni Schimmel will also be arriving in LA, though she seems to have missed all the early arrival fun going on.  I have also read Jude Schimmel will also be in attendance. 

What an incredible time for these young women, and this program.  Well deserved, no doubt.  The Year of the Cardinal keeps on keeping on and I hope these young women are savoring every minute of it.  What an incredible opportunity for them, and what incredible exposure for this program! 

As much as I want and believe the win against Baylor is deserving of the biggest upset award, I am wary because it is a women’s game going up against 3 male sporting events, one of which was a football game.  Let’s keep that Ugly Duckling, Party Crasher mentality alive for one more event.   

Regardless of what happens tomorrow at the awards, Louisville takes the big stage with 3 nominations in total, the women’s team, Coach Pitino for Best Coach and Angel McCoughtry for Best WNBA player.   That is an enormous amount of exposure for one program, exposure that money can’t buy.  It is the reward of success!

Today marks the last day you can vote for our Louisville connections.   If you have not done so yet (why the heck haven’t you?),  here is the link:
 

http://espn.go.com/espys/2013/

Voting remains open until 9:00 p.m. today.  You can watch the awards this evening starting at 9:00 p.m on ESPN.    Go Cards!


-JENNY O'BRYAN

( EDITOR NOTE: We have an interview with Jeff Walz that reveals his feelings toward the nomination and other aspects of the importance of the award that will play on our Saturday Radio Show on Crescent Hill Radio. WE hope you'll tune in to catch it Saturday @ 11 a.m. or you can catch it on the Sound Cloud archived broadcast area on the home page. Link is www.crescenthillradio.com and you'll find three months of our archived broadcasts there. We wish all the Louisville entries the best of luck and success tonight in the ESPY's!)

-Paulie








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