FOUR IN DOUBLE FIGURES FOR CARDS IN WIN
All she did in action yesterday at the KFC YUM! Center in Louisville's 97-50 win over is steal the ball in the first ten seconds of the game, make a layup and then proceed to drain four three-pointers as a part of her team-high 19 points.
In the first ten minutes.
Seems that everyone who was imploring with her last year and in the preseason to "shoot the ball" just may have been on the right track.
A healthy Durr? I asked her about it. Did it feel good to be back out there at 100%?
" I swear...it does. Last year I played through a lot of pain and it feels so good to be pain free now."
The smile on Durr's face was as large as the podium in front of her. Maybe almost as large as Hines-Allen's. When asked about Bionca Dunham and Sam Fuehring's 10 rebound efforts against Lindsey Wilson...the Montclair, NJ junior opened her eyes wide and started to giggle along with Durr. Having multiple board threats is good. Very good.Lest you think it was all roses and champagne in the Sunday tilt, there are things that need work...according to Coach Walz and the players.
Walz addressed free throw shooting immediately. 13-26 is far from the standard this team needs to set. Lack of concentration and consistency the culprits here. Walz also pointed out that there were 15 Cardinal turnovers (Louisville did force 26 LWC turnovers) and that the Cards needed to take care of the ball better.
Lapses in defense and spreading the floor were also on Walz's grocery list to work on before the Cards travel to Martin, TN.
Oh, yeah....we should discuss the game a bit...right?
After the frantic first 10 minutes, the game's pace slowed a bit. The teams got a bit sloppy in ball handling (six UofL turnovers and eight LWC miscues) but Hines-Allen produced six points on 3-4 shooting and had three rebounds in seven minutes. The Cards steadily increased the lead and took a 53-19 to halftime...going on a 12-2 run over the final five minutes with another Durr three, three Hines-Allen buckets inside and Ciera Johnson getting a steal and finding J.J. for a half-closing layup.
Avert your eyes momentarily if you're not a stats fan...I'm giving you five key ones for the first twenty minutes. 28-4 points in the paint advantage Louisville, 27-2 edge in points off turnovers. 19.4% LWC shooting percentage. Durr with 17 (of her team-high 19) points and Dunham with six rebounds and four points in ten minutes of playing time. You may be asking "Where's Walton?" in this equation. Cortnee sat out because of a slight elbow injury suffered in the Ohio State scrimmage and should be back in a week or two. Kylie Shook? Preventative resting of a slight hip injury and could have played if needed and Arica Carter still dealing with a nagging groin injury from the summer...the plan is to bring her back gradually.
No sense in risking further injury with these three in an exhibition game, right?
The Cards continued the runaway in the third stanza. Walz stayed with the same nine who played in the first half. An emphasis was made on getting the ball to Ciera Johnson and it met with success...she went 4-4 in five minutes and the Cards started the second half with a 14-3 run in the first five minutes...after a Durr steal and layup made it 69-22. Taylor Johnson's layup with six seconds left in the third gave the Cards their largest lead at 80-29...a quarter that Louisville held a 18-4 scoring advantage inside.
Durr's 19 led both teams. J.J. and MHA added 15 and C.J finished with 14 to complete the Cardinal double figure list. All 12 Cards that played scored but Zambrotta (0-6, 0-2). Dunham had nine, B.J. eight, Mariya and Taylor Johnson five each, Sam three, and Brianna Jones and Laemmle two each. Furhring and Dunham's 10 rebounds led the way and B.J. was the assist leader with six...Mariya adding five.
Things We Liked
-- Whaddya say, JJ? Jazmine Jones is high energy. Getting 20 minutes and going 7-8, grabbing four rebounds and creating two steals. Her 15 points were part of a freshmen effort that produced 40 for the Cards.
-- Ciera in the midst. Ciera Johnson also saw 20 minutes and went 7-10 from the floor. Jot her down for 14 points. Only one rebound is a bit puzzling but plenty of time to work on that...especially with Sam and Bionca grabbing 10 each.
-- B.J. the point guard. She handled the rock well in her 22 minutes with only one turnover. Credit her for a team-high six assists and four rebounds to go with her 8 points. She has one speed...all-out...and if she can improve on the free-throws (3-6) we envision her out there directing traffic a lot this year.
-- No baskets for you. The Cards held Lindsey Wilson to 25.4% from the floor. That was with a 35% effort in the fourth quarter...and Louisville had eight blocks and 15 steals...while creating 26 turnovers. Dunham with four swats was simply marvelous and narrowly missed a double-double with nine points and ten grabs.
What Needs Work
-- Gotta make the unguarded ones. To paraphrase Coach Walz...13-26 is "awful, pitiful, unacceptable and embarrassment". Anyone wanna venture a guess what Taylor Johnson (1-4), Dunham (1-4), Hines-Allen (3-6) and Briahanna (1-4) will be probably be doing in practice and (hopefully) on their own this week?
-- Taking Care of the Ball. Fifteen turnovers are a lot, given the competition. It's a controllable and will hopefully work itself out. "Bigs" accounted for nine of them...so the guards (with the possible exception of Taylor and her three) can't be held too responsible here.
-- Spread out, you knuckleheads! Borrowing a phrase from Moe of the The Stooges...the Cards were a bit clumped up and too-close together in the early going. That eventually got better, and they were playing with two new starters, but spacing leads to mis-matches and scoring opportunities.
Walz post-game presser LINK: WALZ POST-GAME LINDSEY WILSON (Wait for it at the 4:40 mark...Coach critiques my performance on Sunday)
MHA and Asia post-game LINK: MYISHA HINES-ALLEN AND ASIA DURR
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VOLLEYBALL GETS OUT THE BROOM
Kudos to Anne Kordes' Wide-Netters for a strong performance Sunday at Wake Forest...sweeping the Demon Deaconesses 25-21, 25-17, 25-23.Melanie McHenry with the "Mc-effort" in the kill department, slamming home 12 to lead the Louisville attack. And, all this without Kali Eakin.
Kordes comments:
"This win had special meaning for us in light of the lineup change we had to make this morning when we found out Kali couldn't go. Lyndsey Palmer and Morgan Miller did a great job to set us to one of our highest hitting percentages of the season."
Great to see Janelle Jenkins bak on the right side as well. Worldwide will explore the "W" in much more depth in his Tuesday column.
Louisville (8-16, 3-11) gets their third ACC win and comes home to host Notre Dame Wednesday night.
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FIELD HOCKEY HEADS TO DUKE FOR NCAA TOURNAMENT FIRST/SECOND ROUND
WE found out last last night that Justine Sowry's Stick Girls will be facing #9 Delaware in the first round of the NCAA Tournament. #8 Louisville would face the winner of #1 seed Duke vs. the winner of the play-in game between Kent. State and American.
Surprisingly, only six of the seven ACC teams got in the total of 18 participants....Wake Forest receiving the snub. Upon further review, the committee considered the 0-6 conference slate and 11-8 overall record didn't quite have the *oomph* needed to join the dance. The Cards (15-6) and Blue Hens do battle in Durham on Saturday at 2 p.m. Delaware comes in with an impressive 19-2 mark...losing only to Princeton and Old Dominion. The Tigers made the Big Dance...the Monarchs did not.
We'll have more on this as the match draws near, including (hopefully) an interview with Coach Sowry about what lies ahead.
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NOVEMBER IS CARDINAL COUPLE DONATION MONTH
To those of you who have rocked the donations this month, we salute you. We know there are a lot of very worthy and charitable donation opportunities out there. We'd be honored if you included us in your list in a very small way.
In our writings, we're not trying to curing cancer, helping the homeless or giving our veterans support at Cardinal Couple...(although we DO financially support all three of those things privately and massively)...
We are just trying to support the joy and excitement of UofL women's athletics and bring you the news surrounding it.
We've been fortunate to see cancer patients and veterans having the time of their lives at these activities. We're so honored that they also read and comment on our web-site.
Bless you and we salute you. For serving, battling and over-coming.
paulie
xxxxx
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I was surprised with the low attendance but a blow out to start the season is OK. Durr has a chance to be special this year.
ReplyDeleteI wasn't impressed with Walz's presser comments on free throws...laying it all on the ballers and them not practicing enough. No doubt that reps are important but his clubs have a track record over the past several years of being very "non-top tier" free throw shooters.
Check our stats and then compare them with the top WCBB programs, UConn / Notre Dame etc...Significant gap. There's a pattern there and it comes back to coaching. Maybe it's mindset, maybe it's mechanics, maybe it's them not taking it seriously but whatever it is it's the coaching staff's responsibility to coach through it. Bill Sharman wrote his shooting mechanics masterpiece in 45 years ago and nothing has changed when it comes to basic shooting, particularly when it comes to free throws. Maybe the ULWBB coaching staff should pick up a copy and share it with their kids.
The only really good free throw shooters I can think of that did much volume over the past several years were Shoni and Moore. Other than that it seems like we have a bunch of kids that were so talented in club ball that they never developed the stroke that all good free throw shooters master. We used to call that Basic Basketball. Less than 80% isn't acceptable and won't get the program where they want to go.
I think the lackadaisical air on the bench about the misses and the actual misses were weighing pretty heavily on his mind. Free throws could come back to haunt them this year in a close one if the percentage don't improve significantly. That being said, it was an exhibition game and never close.
DeleteWe'll see...
Paulie
Burn Brother you are spot on about free throw shooting. That Sharman book is a must read for any basketball player. I share it with my seventh and eighth-grade team every year and we have never averaged under 70% from the line. I've been head coaching 22 years at junior high and junior varsity level as well as being a varsity assistant and interim varsity head coach.
DeleteMechanics and serious practice are a must.
Just a note here...I think the book is now out of print and there is a limited availability of them at e-bay and such. I never read it but Sharman was an excellent coach.
DeletePaulie
Hey Anon - Nice to hear from a coach. Anyone that can mentor seventh & eighth grade ballers has my respect. I was a full blown pain in the whatever at that age. To me junior high and high school coaches are the purest form of the craft.
DeleteI was lucky as a kid as even though my dad had polio and couldn't walk or show us how to shoot by example he was smart enough to buy us "Sharman on Shooting" and make sure we read it. Between those clear and basic fundamentals and lots of reps good things happened.
I was also lucky enough to have a bright young HS assistant basketball coach by the name of Doug Ferguson. He had played small college ball in California somewhere but he was a Montana native and a great guy. He introduced the team to a book called "Psychocybernetics" by Maxwell Malz that has since become a motivational classic. Among other things it discussed visualizing success and doing "mental reps".
I attribute the exposure to those two books and the discipline and positive habits they taught me with much of the success I've had in life.
Doug ended up becoming the Athletic Director at Montana State University in Bozeman and eventually the commissioner of the Big Sky Conference for more than ten years, retiring just this year.
There's a special place for good coaches. They frequently don't understand how positive their influence has been on their kids.
And I agree...even forty years ago in the slow white boy league that was Montana basketball if you didn't hit 80% of your free throws in games you were running lines the next week.
I got into coaching on a bit of a dare. A colleague was coaching at another school and I went to watch one of her games. I had some, what I felt, was some constructive criticism for her and she responded with the old -- if you can do better then why don't you get in to it -- response.
DeleteSo I volunteered the next fall. I have done it ever since. She eventually got out of it to become a social worker and has become invaluable to me over the years when I have a player or two who don't have it going so well at home or in life.
I'm proud to say that one of my young seventh/eighth graders went on to make $5,628,000 in the NBA last year. And still stops by to give my players a clinic or two a year.
Pretty cool that one of your kids made the pros...you and Sharman get some credit too for helping teach him how to shoot the rock.
DeleteOMG Paulie! You have just got to improve your game! Love it. You and Coach must have a special relationship. The Deb Factor
ReplyDeleteBetter get you a$$ in the gym and get to work Paulie. We can't have any slackers on the team this year. Walz said he's got plenty of options and he'll put Worldwide or Case in your spot pronto if you don't shape up.
ReplyDeleteIt's a freakin' conspiracy...I'm hear to tell ya. First off, any time any coach pulls a goalkeeper...Worldwide and Case make sure I know immediately. Everytime I make a statement, Justine Sowry disagrees with me. I go to the store and the cashier disagrees and is disappointed in my purchase. I don't have enough game for Coach Walz, I get dirty looks for my driving skills and when I make a well-intended suggestion that it's CIERA...not CIERRA Johnson, a hack journalist rips my head off.
ReplyDeleteI've chucking this site, moving to Tibet and joining the monks in belly button meditation for the next 4 months.
The traffic light changes...it's my fault
Cable goes out? Blame Paulie.
Leaves are falling? You know who caused it.
I mean it....I'll sell this puppy to Howie faster than you can say "Held ball" and start a site about fall cultivation tips in Northern Nebraska.
Disgruntled and infuriated,
Paulie
Paulie, you have a greatly underestimated level of snark in your comments sometimes. If you do decide to go to Tibet, wouls you take Sonja? I'd be glad to watch over her if you don't
DeleteYour buddy Electric Bob
Paulie don't go! A great write up today, sir. I listened to the new guy "Curren"? do the radio call and think I'm going to like him.
ReplyDeleteYou and Jeff and Case are always excellent on your reviews. Thanks for putting them out there.
--The Real Joe Hill --
Walz radio show starts Wednesday at Chili's at Brownsboro Crossing. I was impressed but not overwhelmed by the women yesterday. They slumped a bit in the second and fourth quarters. You wouldn't see a UConn nor a Notre Dame team doing that.
ReplyDeleteNick O.
What radio station in Walz show on? I hope it is streamed online.
ReplyDeleteHe'll be on 93.9 FM. Here's a schedule:
Deletehttp://www.gocards.com/news/2016/11/7/womens-basketball-jeff-walz-radio-show-schedule-released.aspx?path=wbball
Paulie
It's a great time! We go early, have dinner and a few beers and enjoy it. I think Nick Curran will be good but will miss Matt Andrews.
DeleteCurtis Franklin
Nice job on Howie's show this morning Paulie! Are you a regular on there? I normally listen to "someone else" in the mornings but like what I heard today. The Deb Factor
ReplyDeleteThanks, Deb! Usually on Tuesdays...time can vary from 7:40 a.m. to 8:40 a.m. It just depends on what the boys have going on. Very grateful to have the chance to discuss the joy and excitement of UofL women's sports with them. Howie and Matt have been very good to Cardinal Couple over the years and we appreciate that.
DeletePaulie
Here's a great clip of Walz talking hoops:
ReplyDeletehttp://dishnswish.libsyn.com/in-his-own-words-is-this-the-year-jeff-walz-leads-louisville-back-to-the-final-four-0
Paulie
hi i really like your website and we are excited to have the cards coming here to play on friday i think we will give u a good game and go skyhawks
ReplyDelete