Monday Cardinal Couple - BracketTime

BracketTime

We've closed the books on another Women's Basketball regular season, and the conclusion was about what we expected.  The Cards got the win over Wake Forest 75-46.

As we discussed on The Cardinal Couple Radio Hour yesterday, Walz and crew needed to take care of their own business against Wake Forest to ensure the 5 seed in the ACC tournament.  With a little help from Virginia they could've jumped up to the 4 seed, but alas, the Demon Deacons couldn't get the deed done vs NC State, so UofL was still playing to stay in 5th.

Some of the story lines of the game are pretty familiar at this point, as they should be wrapping up the season.  Myisha Hines-Allen picks up a double-double with 22 points and 12 rebounds.  Asia Durr has her 33rd consecutive game with a 3pt shot, though she did score "only" 15 points.

Beyond those two, we mostly had a bunch of players scoring in mid-single digits, though there were a lot of them that scored that much.  Sydney Zambrotta made it out of single digits with 10, but otherwise we're looking at a bunch of 4pt scorers, a 6 from Ciera Johnson, and a few 2pt scorers.

For CC readers, the most exciting story may come from the free throw line.  After a first half with no free throws even being attempted by the Cards (sideeye look at officiating, there, WF had 14 attempts).  In the 2nd half, however, the Cards get to the line 9 times, and sink all 9 of them.  That's the sort of free throw prowess we've been looking for.  The breakdown on those are 5 to Durr, 2 to Hines-Allen, and 2 to Taylor Johnson.

The game started out with a pair of points from foul shots for Wake, but then UofL went on their first run, out to 14-2 getting it back to 17-11 before closing out the first quarter 21-13.  While UofL opened the 2nd quarter with 4 points, the Deacs would win the 2nd quarter overall 14-10 to go into halftime only down 4, 31-27, having gotten it as close as 2.

UofL exploded in the 3rd quarter, stretching the lead out to 20 in the 10 minutes.  They would continue to stretch that lead out in the 4th quarter reaching the final margin of 29 with the 75-46 win.

The Cards mostly got it done in the middle with a 44-14 advantage in the paint, as well as getting points off turnovers, taking the 31-12 advantage there.

FRED Report

With 100% free throw shooting, there is no doubt of the capital F, never have we been more enthusiastic to award an F.

Rebounding is a swing and a miss, however.  Wake outrebounded UofL 46-38, but the most painful part was the 22 offensive rebounds for Wake.  Fortunately, they were incredibly undersized to handle going back up for shots in the paint with the Louisville bigs, only scoring 13 second chance points.  While the results of this one could've been a lot worse, they certainly don't get the R.

Execution/Effort looked good for the Cards.  I don't think there was ever any real doubt about getting this win.  The Cards didn't look like the sharp team we know they can be in the 2nd quarter, but in the 3rd and 4th, it was clear they were ready to play.  We'll give the full capital E, here.

Defense definitely gets the letter awarded.  Wake was held to 19.4% from the field, and 16.7% from beyond the arc.  Special commendation to Kylee Shook here, with 5 blocks in the game.

So, in the final tally, that's F-ED.

Tournament Bracket

So, with the 5th seed, UofL will play at 11am on Thursday against the winner of the first round game between Virginia Tech and Clemson.  Advancing from that game will see us playing #4 NCState.

In Other Action

Baseball finished their sweep of Omaha to run their season record out to a still-perfect 7-0.  The Mc's - McKay, McClure, and McAvene - are getting it done on the mound for The Cards during the weekend.

The Women's Tennis Squad got a solid conference opening win over Pitt, 6-1.  The Cards got the doubles point with two courts getting 6-2 wins and leaving the 3rd court unfinished at 5-3.  Louisville won 5 courts of singles in 2 sets, with the only loss coming in a 3 set tangle.

-- JMcA