Louisville Women's Basketball Must Avoid "Pitt-fall" tonight -- THURSDAY CARDINAL COUPLE

CARDS 2-2 IN LAST FOUR VISITS TO PITT

Normally, when a 18-6, 10-1 squad goes to visit a 10-13, 2-8 team, there isn't a whole lot of worry or concern. That's not the case this evening, though, when Louisville goes to play Pittsburgh in women's basketball at the Peterson Center tonight.

The Cards have traveled to the Steel City four times under the Jeff Walz regime and have a 2-2 record. All four have been games that could have gone either way. In the 2014-15 season, Louisville escaped with a 63-57 win after trailing by 10 in the first half. Jude Schimmel led the way with 11 points. UofL visited "The Hill" in the 2011-12 season and went to over-time against the Panthers before leaving with a 71-66 victory . The Panthers led by seven with five minutes to go. It was Shoni Schimmel who bailed the Cards out that night with 16 points. The Cards lost to Pittsburgh in 2010 by a final tally of 72-69 and Pitt beat Louisville 76-67 in Walz's first season.

Mariya Moore, Myisha Hines-Allen, Arica Carter and Cortnee Walton are the only Cards on the roster that have played at the Peterson Center...combining for 29 points in the 2014-15 trip. 

This year's version of Suzie McConnell Serio's Panthers are led by freshman Brenna Wise, a 6'0" guard/forward that averages 10.5 ppg and 7.6 grabs a game. Fred Potvin has contributed 12.5 ppg since entering the starting line up four games back and is the primary three-point threat...averaging 46.9% a game. Stasha Carey and Yacine Diop are threats for the Panthers offensively as well.

The Cards will need to rally from the loss Sunday to Notre Dame and be wary of the shot-blocking skills Pitt exhibits. The Panthers are 10th in the nation (130) in blocks. 

If the Cards can get the M&M girls firing on all cylinders and continued off-the-bench bravado from Asia Durr, then they should be able to leave the Three Rivers city with their 19th win of the season. When a team loses a big game, it's always interesting to see how they come out in the next contest. When the Cards fell to Kentucky back in December, they slept-walked through 2/3rds. of the following contest against IUPUI in the YUM! Center before winning by nine. This one is one the road and against a little better foe. 

It is an ESPN 3 game (7 p.m. start) and Meg Bulger will have the call, along with Jeff Hathorn. If Meg sounds familiar...she was the Cards nemesis when she played hoops for West Virginia from 2005-08. Last year she did color commentary for the Mountaineers on the radio. Talk about walking on the wild side...we were surfing for some player-action photos of Meg and came across this "promo" for...well....we're really not sure what Meg (on the right) is trying to promote here...but we're pretty sure it's not tonight's broadcast of the basketball game on ESPN 3. 

Oh, boy...

paulie
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