Winter Is Coming? Winter Is Here! - Friday Cardinal Couple

Winter Is Here, at least in one reckoning of it, although I'm still hoping for a return to Summer, I don't think I'm going to get that.

Basketball

Basketball is considered a winter sport, and it gets underway, officially, tonight at the KFC Yum! Center.

The WNIT starts tonight and Louisville starts off with SouthEast Missouri State.  The format of the team isn't a win or go home type of scenario, being in the early regular season, they wouldn't get any takers if you lost games out of your schedule if you lost, so they have consolation brackets...multiple levels of them, so that each team gets to play the full four game schedule.  It doesn't function like a double-elimination, where, if you win in the consolation bracket, you can work your way back to the championship, once you lose a game, you're out of contention for the WNIT championship, but you do get to keep playing games, at least.

So Louisville starts off with SEMO, The Redhawks, and I don't think much of anyone is questioning what the outcome of this one should be, even as a season opener when no one has had any actual playing time yet to evaluate each other.  Other teams in the tournament to keep an eye on, are the top seeds of each part of the bracket, Michigan, who Louisville would meet in the semi-finals, and on the other side of the bracket, Texas A&M and Oregon.

Tip is at 7pm, and you can watch this one on ACC Network Extra or in person at the KFC Yum! Center.  If you're active duty military, there are discounted tickets as part of the Veteran's Day weekend celebration.  UofL will be back in action Sunday in non-WNIT play at Ohio State, with a 4pm tip, and this one is on ESPNU.

The men will get their season underway Sunday at 2pm vs George Mason.  This one is listed as RSN, the Raycom Sports Network.  That could mean a local channel is picking it up in the Louisville area, or it could be on one of the Fox Sports Channels.  The video link on the schedule goes to the ESPN setup, which will almost certainly tell you it's blacked out in the area while the game is going on, though if you want to check out the game afterwards, that would be where you would go.

Volleyball

Also in action tonight, the wide-netters will be defending their spot at the top of the ACC against Virginia (not 3rd place, you silly Duke people), and hoping for a little help from other teams in the conference to claim the top spot alone.  NC State plays a Thursday/Saturday schedule this week, so they already defeated Clemson last night in 4 sets (which technically puts them solo in the lead in the ACC right now, with Pitt and UofL tied for 2nd, but "game in hand" and all that hand-wavey stuff that means we're effectively still tied)  Pitt hosts Wake Forest tonight, and if Wake pulls the upset I'll definitely be shocked.  NC State will be playing Georgia Tech tomorrow evening, and again, I'll be surprised if the Ramblin' Wreck pulls an upset there, but Duke going to Pitt on Sunday is one to keep a little bit of an eye on.  Pitt is clearly the favorite there, but UofL learned Sunday that you can't take Duke for granted.

Back to Louisville's matchup tonight, UVA comes in near the bottom of the conference, ranked 13th out of the 15 team conference lineup.  They're 3-11 in conference, 6-19 overall, so this should be a fun romp for the Cardinals, though it must be pointed out, if you look back up at that NC State result from last night, Clemson took a set from the Wolfpack, and they're dead last in the conference (2-13, 7-20).

First serve tonight vs UVA is at 7pm also, then Virginia Tech  will be joining us in Cardinal Arena Sunday with first serve at 2pm.  Both matches available on ACC Network Extra.

Field Hockey and Football

We'll group the "F" sports together here, as they both play tomorrow.  Football hosts Virginia with a 3:30pm start, and Field Hockey gets their NCAA tournament efforts underway with a 2pm start in Ann Arbor Michigan vs Northwestern.  Field Hockey streaming will be available on Michigan's streaming site at http://www.mgoblue.com/watch/?Live=169, and Football will be on ESPNU.

Field Hockey is looking to make a deep run in the tournament.  If they can get by Northwestern, there's a chance they'll meet back up with familiar foe Syracuse.  Alternatively, they could run up against Michigan.  Of course, in Field Hockey (as in Lacrosse) there's a very good chance that you're going to be seeing other ACC schools as you advance.  With 6 teams in the 18 team tournament, the odds are good (and neither "play-in" game had any ACC teams involved, so it's effectively 6 teams in a 16 team tournament).

In Other Action

Cross-Country will be in action at the NCAA Regional event at UVA.  Action should be underway as this is posted.  The teams are competing to come back to Louisville for the Championships at E.P. Tom Sawyer park on the 18th.

Swim and Dive is also at UVA, with action already underway as of the time of this posting.  This event will continue tomorrow.  Check the Twitter widget on the right side of the site for updates from Cross-Country and Swim&Dive.

Finally, Rowing continues in their string of delightfully named events with e Rivanna Romp in Charlottesville, VA, swelling the Cardinal presence in the UVA area just that much more.

Cardinal Couple Radio Hour

WCHQ continues to graciously host us for the Cardinal Couple Radio Hour on Saturday mornings.

We did a bit of a head fake last week when we thought the football game would be a noon start.  We were preparing to do a pre-recorded show, but later news put the game at 3:30, so we'll be in studio chatting away.

WCHQ is a wonderful host, and they are providing a wonderful service to the Louisville area.  They are beginning the process of moving the studio to a new location.  We won't be able to make jokes anymore about being in a basement, but the new studios should be even better and allow the radio station more flexibility in programming and guests.

We're grateful to be able to "give a little back" to WCHQ every once in a while, but we can only do that when we have your support.  We've had a number of contributions come in already during our November pledge month, and we appreciate it greatly.  We love doing what we do, we love that we can help WCHQ be the best it can be, one of the best low-power FM radio stations around, in my estimation.  To have such a wonderful outlet for all local music, with engaging, fun, and caring hosts like Gavin Caster, Tara Bassett, Charity Radcliffe, and you can never leave out Kevin Cox and Bryce Gill.  There are so many more wonderful people helping out, others on the air, more behind the scenes.

If you're looking for ways to make a contribution to things you love, you can do a lot worse than Cardinal Couple and WCHQ.  I'm very proud to be associated with both.

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JMcA