Wednesday Cardinal Couple...On Asia, on Charlyn, on Nora...on academics

WEDNESDAY CARDINAL COUPLE

- A Tayy signs to play Euroball after WNBA season

- Soccer's Charlyn Corral signs contract

- Nora Kiesler: Paulie's take

- Louisville women's sports GPA: 2013-14


We'll look at four current topics surrounding UofL women's sports in today's CARDINAL COUPLE.


PLAY AWAY....A-TAYY!

Photo by Charlie Springer - UofL CARD GAME

Despite being the last pick in the WNBA Draft, Asia Taylor has proved her worth with the top team in the league.

Others are watching.

Italian club CUS Cagliari has announced the signing of American forward Asia Taylor for the upcoming season.

Taylor is a rookie having graduated from Louisville this spring. She was drafted as the last played in this year’s WNBA draft by the Minnesota Lynx, where she made the final roster. She currently a teammate of another Cagliari signing Tricia Liston.

In 8 games in the WNBA Taylor has averaged 2.9 points and 2.1 rebounds. In her senior year in college she averaged 10.8 points and 7.2 rebounds per game in the NCAA.


We approve here at CC. Go get 'em, A-Tayy...stay healthy and do what you love...playing hoops!

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Charlyn Corral to play professionally

Those who watched Louisville women's soccer over the last

two season know the following to be true...

A)  Charlyn Corral knows how to shoot and score.
B)  She was a game changer

She'll have a chance to build upon those skills on the professional level.

Former Louisville standout midfielder Charlyn Corral is continuing her
professional soccer career as a member of the club Merilappi United in the top
division of the Women's League in Finland. Corral joins former Louisville
midfielder Jennifer Jones on the team.

"I chose to play in Finland for the opportunity to grow personally and
professionally," said Corral.  "I knew that by coming here it would be a new
adventure and a new challenge that I can learn and succeed from."


( We wonder here at CARDINAL COUPLE how they yell "GOAL!!!" in Finland?)

We're pretty sure they'll be yelling it a lot with CC on the Merilappe roster.

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NORA, NORA...KNOCKING AT THE DOOR?

We hear that Louisville Assumption WBB standout Nora Kiesler has narrowed her choice of college choices down to five schools and Louisville and Stanford are the top two.

Cardinal and Cardinals. Interesting.

6' 6" Kiesler will be a senior in the upcoming Kentucky Girls Basketball season for AHS and played for the Kentucky Junior Team in the annual battle against Indiana. Recruiting services have her listed at the 10th. best center the 2015 recruiting class.

We've received more than a few e-mails about "Nora the Explorer".

CARDINAL COUPLE will be watching her senior season closely to see what kind of numbers she puts up as a Assumption Rocket. Whether she's a player that can impact the UofL program or not is something that can't be determined at this juncture. If she ends up here at all.

6'6" is good. An effective 6'6" is even better. What ya got, Nora?

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ATHLETIC ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE

The results are in on the 2013-14 UofL Athletic teams' academic performance. We do women's sports here at CARDINAL COUPLE. Here's the tally on the overall GPA's for the 13 women's athletic programs:

 Basketball         2.67
 Cross Country    3.48
 Rowing              3.36
 Field Hockey     3.37
 Golf                  3.64
 Lacrosse            3.30
 Softball             3.43
 Soccer               3.41
 Swimming          3.23
 Tennis               3.25
 Track&Field       3.28  (includes Indoor and Outdoor)
 Volleyball          3.52

Grades to be proud of....for sure. Ol' Paulie would have been proud to call the folks about any of the numbers above when I was an undergraduate on the Belknap Campus.

We get e-mails. Some of them commented on the WBB GPA.

Here's my take. It's a passing GPA. UofL WBB was ranked higher than any women's sports program on campus in the the NCAA final polls.

I'll say it again. Went further in NCAA postseason competition and was ranked higher in the final polls than any program on campus. #5. 

Rhodes Scholars or WNBA stars? I'll take the latter, anyday.

I do know this. Jeff Walz hates to finish at the bottom of the pack in anything. Personally, I think the WBB GPA is fine. My guess is Coach may challenge the girls to raise it for 2014-15.

I can attest to the fact that one of Jeff Walz's main missions is to prepare his players for life after college. 

He does it well. 

I can't think of anyone else I'd rather have in charge of the program and as guardian of these young women's futures than Jeff Walz and his staff.

And, THANK YOU!!! to all our hard-working student-athletes.

paulie