A Football Game was Played... Kinda; Women's Basketball defeats NC State 55-47 -- Sunday Cardinal Couple

Escaping Reynolds with a win -- Paulie report

It was a spectacular first 15 1/2 minutes for Louisville women's basketball Sunday in the Reynolds Coliseum in Raleigh, NC but a-nerve-racking, sense of impending doom final 24 1/2 for the Cards as they held on to down NC State 55-47 Sunday afternoon. 

Louisville rolled out to a 26-1 lead after Kylee Shook connected inside off a nice Dana Evans pass with 5:26 until half-time. Sitting in the end zone near the UofL bench, Sonja and I were amazed, tickled and in disbelief on NC State's shooting inefficiency. The Wolfpack were 0-23 from the floor to start the game. Yes. 0-23

Coach Walz did point out in the post-game presser that he didn't expect Wes Moore's team to stay cold and they did show signs of coming out of hibernation by the end of the first half....outscoring UofL 11-2 to end the half and getting a mock-standing ovation when Armani Hawkins finally connected on a three ball almost 17 minutes into the contest. 28-12 at the half was impressive but you could feel that maybe a slight momentum shift had occurred. As the Cards walked by us to the locker room, the previous grins and shouts had been replaced by somber faces and maybe a bit of frustration. 

I got my fantasy fulfilled with a picture with Ms. Wuf at the half. Her nosy husband insisted in butting in but they were good sports and played around some...him covering my pullover that read LOUISVILLE. That was fun. More fun was ahead but it was NC  State having most of it in the final 20 minutes...

As the game went on, it only got worse for the Cardinals. A 12-0 run by the Wolfies to end the third quarter set the tally at 41-30. I looked at Sonya and told her that the coaches needed to get the front line involved in scoring again. She told me I was worrying too much, it was a 11 pt. lead. Eventually Louisville did inside performnce...but had to withstand a 13-6 NC State start to the final period that got Moore's club within four at 47-43 on a steal and layup by the Pack from Sam Fuehring. A silent and sullen crowd had steadily 'amped' it up to rock concert decibel level and there were three minutes yet to play., 

Asia Durr then missed a layup, the swell of the crowd rose again but Hines-Allen made the play of the game for the Cards when she blocked a Aislinn Konig jumper, grabbed the ball and drove down the court to make a uncontested layup.

 NC State would get no closer.

Arica Carter's two free throws with 42 seconds put the cap on this bottle. Hines-Allen and Fuehring had eight of the Cards final 14 points.

Maybe the early blowout gave the Cards a false sense of confidence. One could hardly blame them...but Louisville seemed "back on their heels" (sorry UNC) for a lot of the second half, with NC State being the aggressor. A win on the road is golden in ACC play. An eight-point win against an NC State that played the Cards very close last year is huge, no matter how they got there. After all, the Wolfies went 1-1 last year against Walz with a win over Louisville in the KFC YUM! Center by two points and a loss to UofL in the ACC Tournament by just one..

I'll "Fred" you quickly and get on with my New Year's Eve in Raleigh. On a personal note, we drive back to the Ville Monday. Happy we saw two crucial ACC wins on the road for the Cards and were in 50 degree weather for at least the part of one day.

I even gave Sam Purcell early in the game my ink pen after his stopped working. He did return it at the end of the game. I used his, it was sporadic but occasionally did produce ink. Once again, I blame Sam Purcell for the close game. It's become fashionable to do so.


THE FRED REPORT

This one as scary as a
Freddy Krueger movie
at the end....

F - Free Throws. 70% still works for me here and the Cards went 7-10 to match that. They were at 7-9 until AC missed a couple with 29 seconds to play.  We award the capital "F" here. 

R- Rebounding. Despite the height advantage that the Wolfpack held, Louisville won the boards battle 42-37. Dooo-blay Hines-Allen led all grabbers with 12. It's what she does. We bestow a capital "R" for the category. 

E - Effort/Execution. Such a spectacular start and then a nearly total collapse. The effort early insists we give something, so we'll toss a lower case "e" for the overall effort/execution. 16 turnovers too many. Over half were unforced. 

D- Defense. Once again, early on it would have been a huge letter awarded here but the Cards allowed the two main threats that NC State has (Nelson and Leslie) to have their way late and they should have found another way to guard Kaila Ealey besides fouling her. We'll award a lower case "d" to close out the Fred report.

FINAL FRED TALLY:  F-R-e-d


THEY SAID IT

Jeff Walz after game:  https://soundcloud.com/user-748907999/dr0000_1318mp3

Wes Moore after game:  https://soundcloud.com/user-748907999/dr0000_1319mp3

Happy New Year everyone!   16-0. Hell, yeah. 

Paulie
xxxxx

Football

I figured I'd play on Case's article title from yesterday, but honestly, the football game yesterday was
much closer and more competitive of a game than the Basketball game Friday.  That being said, there was quite a bit in there that wasn't particularly encouraging.  Mississippi State won the game 31-27.

Lamar...well, he did Lamar things, but he also made some uncharacteristically bad throws, getting intercepted 4 times during the game.  At the same time, he showed why he won the Heisman last year and should have won it this year with some spectacular plays.  Alas, some of the real highlight material for Jackson came from massive breakdowns in the offensive line and protection.

On the defensive side of the ball, I'm not enough of an expert to critique defensive schemes and game plans, but I do know when tackles get missed when the player should've been able to wrap up the ball-carrier, and I saw a lot of that yesterday. A freshman quarterback making his first start looked like a first round NFL pick and the Cards couldn't stop anyone from running up the middle most of the game. 

UofL Football just wasn't a top-tier team this year, and that's not the end of the world, it happens, but it sure is a lot easier to be a fan when they're playing well and seeing greater success.

Basketball

OK, so we've had two days in a row of rather downer type games.  It's time to see some success, so let's move on to Women's Basketball.  So far the shining star of UofL Athletics for the year currently tied with their best start ever at 15-0.  You can probably put a quite successful Field Hockey season, and a surprisingly successful Volleyball season in 2nd and 3rd place.

Today's matchup is against NC State...a team that has seen more success in the past couple of years and could be a real threat to this hot start for UofL.  With a win today, the Cards will secure outright the best start in program history, and tie the overall longest win streak in program history.

NC State is 12-2 overall with a single win here in early conference play.  Their loses came to Rutgers, and South Dakota State...the latter of which all UofL WBB fans can understand.  In conference, they started with a victory over Virginia Tech.  Otherwise, none of their wins are all that impressive thus far, with the most notable probably being over Vanderbilt, and perhaps Georgetown.  The big threats from NC State look to be 6'2" Forward Chelsea Nelson and then a inside-outside committee of Center Akela Maize and a pair of guards Kiara Leslie, and Aislinn Konig.

Paulie is expected to be in attendance for this one as well, wrapping up his southern states swing. He tweets as @CardinalCouple, and I try to keep my game tweets on @CardCoupleRadio though you can find me responding to other UofL WBB fans on my personal account @JeffMcAdams. So look for commentary from him and myself on twitter. 

Let's hear your predictions in the comments.  Game time is 2:30pm today on Fox Sports (you should be able to catch the replay on the ACC Network Extra streaming platform if you can't catch it live.  My prediction will be 75-63 UofL and while I expect the play to be cleaner than what we saw at Georgia Tech, there will still be some rough edges to clean up.

WCHQ

We received a report from the WCHQ station manager that the new studio space is just about put together and ready to go, with just some details to finish up.  They expect to restart doing live DJ shifts and the like on schedule on the 2nd.  We'll be back with you for the Cardinal Couple Radio Hour this coming Saturday as normal on the 6th at 11 a.m.  We're super excited to get into the nice new studios and are looking forward to getting back in gear with the CCRH after a two week break. We should have plenty to talk about, right? We'll see what excuse Jared comes up with for not being available.

-- 

JMcA