BATTLE OF UNBEATENS IN NASHVILLE
The Cards (3-0) have not been seriously challenged in wins over Marquette, Temple and Denver. The Commodores (2-0) have gathered wins over Kennesaw State and Furman.
Louisville looks to continue the "share the wealth" philosophy on the attack. Four Cardinals have six or more goals this season...Kaylin Morissette producing seven and Hannah Koloski, Julia Wood and Cortnee Daley netting six each.
UofL is averaging 12 goals per game while the tough Cardinal defense...led by goalkeeper Brittany Read, Steph McNamara, Emily Howell and Blair Bernhardt are allowing just 4.67 scores a contest. Louisville is #13 in the latest Inside Lacrosse poll. Seven ACC squads are in the top 14.
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ACC TOURNAMENT STARTING TO TAKE SHAPE
Notre Dame (14-0) and Louisville (13-1) are in the catbirds seats for #1 and #2 seeds. The Irish finish with Clemson and Boston College, both obviously easy wins for Muffet. Louisville has a bit tougher road...travelling to Miami and finishing with Pitt at the KFC YUM! Center.
The battle for the final two double-bye slots involves Florida State, Syracuse, Miami and long-shot NC State. The Seminoles have lost their last two and have tough tests remaining against NC State and Miami. Syracuse has just one game left...against BC. Miami has the Cards Thursday and ends against FSU. NC State would need wins over Florida State and Clemson...and some upsets in the rest of league play to get to a double bye status. I'm seeing Syracuse getting the #3 seed and Florida State ending up as the #4.
Seeds #5 through #9 get a single bye and will start action on Thursday. I'm predicting NC State gets the five spot, Miami goes to sixth, Duke winds up in the seventh slot, Wake Forest takes eighth and Georgia Tech or Virginia (with Faith Randolph back) climbs to ninth. The Cavaliers get stumbling UNC at home and travel to Virginia Tech to end the season. Georgia Tech goes to Pitt and ends by hosting Wake Forest...so these slots could be shuffled around a bit.
Four games hit the Greensboro Coliseum on Thursday. If we're on my projected course...NC State would face either Pitt or Virginia Tech. They should be able to handle either and advance. Miami would get the winner of UNC and BC...they should be able to handle the Eagles but might struggle against UNC. Duke would face either Georgia Tech or Clemson (I'll predict Clemson) and Wake Forest and Virginia would battle to advance to the quarterfinals. Let's ride with Virginia.
As far as tackling the quarters...that's a little more than I'm ready to take on today...I'm probably nowhere close so far...so we'll end the prognostications. We'll take a look at these predictions and see how well we do after the Wednesday and Thursday sessions. We'll also offer a free ACC Tournament Challenge here at the site once the brackets become official and award a $25 gift card
to the lucky winner from either Cracker Barrel or Panera.
paulie
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Really looking forward to tourney but gotta take care of business in these last two first. I'm liking Charlie Creme's prediction of a 3-seed in Lexington. Two regular season wins plus a win in the ACC tourney might guarantee that, even if team gets upset in ACC semis by a Florida State or Syracuse. Of course, winning out could/should lead to a 2-seed.
ReplyDeleteOn another note, is there a better player than MHA in the ACC right now? Can't believe how much she has improved her game (witness the 15-to-17 foot jump shots), but almost as important is the emotional leadership that she is providing. What a luxury for Walz to be able to pretty much pencil in 18+ points and 8+ rebounds every night.