Louisville women's basketball -- Cards pull rank on Commodores 79-57 -- FRIDAY CARDINAL COUPLE

Commodores Get Dispatched

If we borrow from the military's use of ranks and hierarchy, and figure out where the rank of Commodore fits in, I guess that makes the UofL WBB squad at least Rear Admiral's (at least based on Wikipedia's telling of it).  The Cardinals dispatched the Commodores back to Tennessee with a 79-57 win at home last night.  Depending on when you checked in on the game, the game was either much more competitive than that score would suggest, or much less.

In any event, the boatload of Tennessean's that ended up on the shores of the Ohio in downtown Louisville were sent back to Music City with the "L" and despite VU's Rachel Bell ringing it quite frequently in the first half, this battle between Birds and the commissioned officers went to the home team.  

At the end of the 1st quarter, Vanderbilt led 24-20, and even about halfway through the second
quarter it looked like this was going to be a very competitive scrap.  But then the Cards flipped a switch.  I have no idea what caused this particular switch to be flipped, but if we could super-glue it into this position, that'd be great.  Beginning about halfway through the 2nd quarter, the Cards started a 28-0 run that would extend past halftime and through most of the 3rd quarter.  A missed defensive assignment on one trip down the floor and the 'Dores found a wide open Rachel Bell (who else?) who predictably dropped the 3-ball into the basket.  The Cards weren't done, yet, picking up another 10 points before before the black and gold got a free one at the stripe.  Many props to the UofL pep band for serenading the Vandy players at the line with bad Christmas songs.  The Cards would win the 2nd quarter 22-9, and the 3rd by a margin of 25-4.

Coach Walz was very disappointed in the 4th quarter though as the second line came in to play and just didn't play up to the standards that we know, because we've seen them do it, they are capable of playing.  Vandy took the last frame 20-12, but it wasn't enough to overcome the lead gained in that 38-3 run.

Paint presence proves positive for the Cards and they controlled the boards 34-26 against Vandy. Myisha Hines-Allen grabbed ten of them for UofL.

(We're an academic school.) 

Three got into double digit scoring territory for the Cards.  Unsurprisingly Asia Durr leads the list with 25, but Arica Carter found the 3 range pretty well and ended up with 15 after dropping 3 of 5 from distance.  Sam Fuehring came up with 14, mostly by constantly running back-door cuts which the Commodore's seemed utterly incapable of stopping.  The only way they figured out to stop the back-door cut scoring was to foul Fuehring, sending her to her usual spot lined up to the left where she dropped 6 of 6.

It was announced in the post-game presser that Loretta Kakala would take a red-shirt for the season.  Somehow, Paulie found out before the game. Must have been his political connection with the "mayor-for-life" Jerry Abramson sitting next to him. 

What About Fred?

Fredrick Douglass. Social reformer, writer
and statesman. 

I'm not going to try to come up with a J-E-F-F report, and I'll leave the C-A-S-E and J-A-R-E-D reports to their respective creators.  I'll take a stab at a F-R-E-D, though.

F - Free Throws. 86.4%.  Lot's of capitals "F"'s being earned this year.  I love it!

R - Rebounds. 34 to 26, I'll take it.  Vandy had 21 defensive boards compared to our 11 offensive.  Defense has something of an inherent advantage, here, but I'd like to see our squad crash the boards on missed shots a little more.  Still good enough for the upper case R.

e - Energy/Execution.  Would've had the upper case here except for that late let down from the 2nd line.  We know they can do better. Small case "e" is the call.

D - Defense.  A 38-3 run through the heart of the game, and limiting the total to 57.  That's a pretty impressive showing on defense.  And 13 steals is always a recipe for entertainment. We'll capital "D" that! 

F-R-e-D.  Not bad at all, but room for growth.

Radio Guest

Jared will be off being a banker-man again tomorrow for the Cardinal Couple Radio Hour, so Paulie
has lined up a real treat for us with Jack Grossman, of WIUX, home of Hoosier Sports, joining us.

Check in for an update from our neighbors to the north.

We'll be on at our usual time of 11am on WCHQ Radio.  That's 100.9 on the FM dial if you're in Louisville, also available via the WCHQ app, or at http://crescenthillradio.org.

Check it out, won't you?

PHOTOS TODAY FROM JARED ANDERSON (except of Fredrick Douglass, of course). 

POST GAME WALZ

POST GAME ASIA DURR and SAM FUEHRING

(don't miss Steve's eloquent but wordy and baffling post game recaps and eventual questions...)  

-- 

JMcA