Louisville women's basketball -- Fast start, balanced scoring lead Cards to 92-48 win...MONDAY CARDINAL COUPLE

CARDS LEAP OVER LEOPARDS BY 44

Getting five players in double figures and jumping out to a 14-0 lead in the first five minutes were a couple of the keys in Louisville women's basketball's 92-48 victory Sunday afternoon over Lafayette at the KFC YUM! Center in front of 7668 attendees. 

Mariya Moore knocked down both her three-pointers in the opening stretch and would finish with 12 points as Louisville stepped on the accelerator and blew out to a 26-7 first period lead over the Leopards...who were held to just 21% shooting in the first half. 

The Cards led 20-2 after Sam Fuehring took an outlet pass from Briahanna Jackson at the 2:24 mark. Louisville had 15 points off turnovers in that first ten minutes and were well on their way to their fifth win of the season.

A scary moment early when Myisha Hines-Allen came out of the game just 16 seconds into the contest and went to the locker room with the Cards trainer holding her right shoulder. She did return later and re-enter the game and assured me after the contest that she was OK..she had just taken a little impact going after a loose ball and had some pain. 

Hines-Allen came back to play 17 minutes and booked seven points and 14 rebounds. 

The Cards continued the domination in the second quarter...Hines-Allen scored in the paint to give Louisville a 36-9 lead at the 7:56 mark and Bionca Dunham...who played only four minutes because of a slight illness...connected on a putback to give UofL a 46-12 edge with 3 1/2 minutes left in the first half.
Moore ended the Cards first half scoring when she sank a layup with 14 seconds on the clock to raise the score to 48-17. 

The Cards scored 22 points in the paint (their entire second period point total) and Mariya Moore led all scorers with 10 points at the halfway mark. 

Coach Walz began the mass substitution patterns halfway through the third quarter...Louisville had increased their lead to 57-20 when Asia Durr went on a five point run...nailing a three and banking in a layup. Her night was done after that...retiring with 13 points. The Cards went on a 16-7 run over the final five minutes of the third quarter and had amassed a 74-29 lead after three frames. It was time to rest the starters and finish the task. 

One of the team's pre-game objectives was to win the fourth quarter...unfortunately they fell a point short...the visitors from Easton, PA taking the final 10 minutes 19-18. Sydney Zambrotta, Kylee Shook, Brianna Jones, Jasmine Jones and Jessica Laemmle saw the final six minutes of action for Louisville...shooting 11 free throws but making just six. Shook sank two free throws for the Cards final points and Louisville won easily 92-48.


THE FRED REPORT

FRED McMURRAY - film and TV star

Free Throws -- Coach Walz seems to take a slight objection when I approach the subject...

( be sure to listen to the post-game press conference when Coach and Paulie cover a wide area of subjects...including cellular device etiquette, The NFL and certain attention span, protocol and comprehension issues.)

but the Cards did go 12-22 from the charity stripe...that's a meager 54.5% and won't buy the bulldog any biscuits. No Card took more than four and no one made more than two. And, no letter for you in this category. (Talk about my concentration? Really?) 

Rebounding -- Holy Guacamole! This Cards win this stat in a huge fashion...out-grabbing the small and skinny Leopards 62-28. Kudos to Myisha with 14, Mariya and Ciera with seven each and how about Brianna JOnes with six grabs in 13 minutes !!  We proudly award the capital "R" here. 

Effort/Execution -- The Cards shot 48% for the game and had only 19 turnovers on a night where everyone that was able saw a lot of court-time. Points in the paint (54-18) 2nd Chance points (26-5) and Points off Turnovers (33-13) point to lots of hustle. Dust off the capital "E" and hand it down .

Defense -- Louisville got after it early. They had 16 steals, created 25 turnovers and held the Leopards to 48 points and 30% shooting for the game. True, Lafayette probably isn't a Final Four contender...but, given the wide variety of Cards on the court and effort exhibited...we'll award a capital "D" 

Final Tally:    _-R-E-D


THINGS WE LIKED


Don't bogart that ball my friend...pass it over to me...Sonja pointed it out to me (and my short attention span) that there was a lot different scorers last night.  And, 12 of the 13 Cards that played did score (sorry... lil' attack Yorkie Jessica Laemmle no points...but she was busy with three fouls, two assists and two turnovers...) Fuehring and Asia were the tops in scoring with 13 each and three more reached double digits...Mariya 12, Briahanna 11 and Kylee 10.  

"D" em up, Cards! Coach Walz will tell you...defense wins games and Louisville displayed a dominant one last night. The Cards held Lafayette's leading scorer Anna Ptasinski to 0 points and 0-5 shooting in 21 minutes. Cut off the head and the rest of the snake dies, right? No doubt the Leopards are wistfully looking for the upcoming Patriot League schedule and the Colgate's and Bucknell's...they've suffered 25 and 44-point losses in Louisville...with Bowling Green yet to come. 


THINGS NEEDING WORK

Not so fine at the free throw line. I don't want to be a GIF about this...but if you're an All American basketball player...don't ya think you might be able to shoot over 60%? 

Take the final ten. Louisville has had trouble winning the final 10 minutes in games this year. That really doesn't mean a whole lot now...with the assortment of cupcakes on the buffet line...but it might against the Maryland's of the world. Maybe even against a good Chattanooga team. Chances are, it'll be a whole different fourth-quarter line-up than we've been seeing so far...close strong, Cards! 


In summary, a great, feel-good win where the Cards took care of business in fine fashion and they shared the wealth pretty well. (Insert the trivia question time. Where did ESPN's Beth Mowins play her college ball? Why, it was Lafayette!) 

The Cardinal road to Dallas gets a lot tougher from here out. Chattanooga has won both of their games here in Louisville...beat Rutgers to start the season and took top 25 Indiana and Florida to the wire. Jim Foster is one of the tops in the coaching business and the Mocs will be ready to do this bird battle tonight at 7:30 p.m.

This one looks to be a bit tougher than the Saturday and Sunday games. We may see less Cards on the court tonight and more time for those who do play. After tonight, Louisville takes a bit of time off for the Thanksgiving holiday (although I'm sure there will be some practices) before they travel to Springfield, MA to face South Carolina on Sunday, Nov. 27th.

HEAR THE WORD: Audio from the post-game below

MARIYA AND SAM POST-GAME

COACH WALZ  POST-GAME (AUDIO ONLY)


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MEN'S SOCCER ADVANCES WITH 2-1 WIN OVER UCLA

Ken Lolla's UofL men's soccer team took a 2-1 overtime win over UCLA Sunday night at Lynn Stadium to advance to the 3rd round and host Notre Dame next Sunday. 

It was sophomore Tate Schmitt getting the game-ender three minutes and fifty five seconds into the extra session...Louisville tallied first in the defensive struggle and held off the Bruins to get to the extra session. 

The Cards, the #4 seed in the NCAA Tournament, improve to 13-5-2 on the season.


VOLLEYBALL SWEEPS AT CLEMSON

Cardinal Volleyball played their final road match of the season and downed Clemson 25-18, 25-23, 25-17 in straight sets to pick up their 10th. win of the year.

Melanie McHenry led the Cards with 14 kills in defeating the Tigers...who have only had one ACC win this season. 

Louisville heads home for a match against Syracuse on Wednesday night at the KFC YUM! Center. 


KORDES PRESSER

We did get word, rather belatedly this morning and by our direct e-mail questioning to an un-named staffer, that Anne Kordes' press conference to discuss her resignation was today at 12:30. It was a matter of Paulie dropping everything he was doing and getting to campus in time. 

Our e-mail address and text is pretty simple to figure out. 100's of people access it each day. It's listed here on the site. Plenty of assistant SID's on campus use it. Some don't. I suppose the thinking is that if the local TV guys show up, all is well. Were they covering her since her arrival and as completely as CARDINAL COUPLE has over the years? 

Just sayin'...

Anyway, we posted a special edition on the informal presser and gave you audio. I'm glad I check my e-mail frequently...

paulie
xxxxx