Softball Picked Fourth... WBB Hosts Clemson... WEDNESDAY CARDINAL COUPLE

Softball

If you are hanging out in Louisville, then you know the weather is dreadful.  However, if you are traveling down to Orlando with softball consider yourself lucky.

They begin their season at the UCF Softball Invitational this weekend.  They will hang out southeast for the first 14 games of the season before coming home to Ulmer.

It was announced yesterday afternoon that Louisville softball was predicted to finish fourth in the conference.  Florida State was a near-unanimous pick to finish first.  North Carolina received the only other first place vote.  Since teams cannot vote for themselves in this case FSU would have had to select UNC.  Notre Dame was picked to finish third and Boston College fifth with the Cards sandwiched between.

UofL finished fourth last season with a conference record of 7-8.  Their overall record was 23-18.  My prediction is that the Cards finish top three in the ACC.  I’d be dumb not to list the Seminoles as my number one, even with the loss of their star pitcher to graduation.  I think Louisville has the potential to make it to number two, but do not foresee them falling below fourth.

Women’s Basketball

Women’s basketball returns home tonight to host Clemson.  The Tigers are dead last in the ACC at 1-10.  They’re on a five-game skid and most likely won’t receive a bid to the NCAA Tournament.

Jeff Walz constantly speaks of there being no easy games in the ACC.  The results of some of those games say otherwise but I can’t blame him for taking things one game at a time instead of looking too far into the future.  This could be a good game to clean up a few things.

The defense has started having a few holes.  Yeah, you can’t expect to hold opponents to single-digits every quarter and you can’t always stop lights out shooting, but with different lineups in the game there has been an occasional defensive miscue or miscommunication.

Rebounding has digressed in the past few games.  DOO-BLAY is still getting her double-double but there hasn’t been much help for her.  Bionca and Sam have both had some good games on the boards, but neither is consistently hauling in seven or eight rebounds.  Offensive rebounds have looked good lately.  They have provided opportunities for second chance points so now the defensive rebounds need to start coming more often.

As much as I love watching our dynamic duo put on a show I would like this game to be one where they can let other players do most of the work.  UConn is only five days away and NITE-NITE and DOO-BLAY need to be fully rested for that.  This is also a good chance to let other players take leadership since, sadly we are getting close to the end of the season and MHA can’t stick around forever.

My prediction for the game is pretty straight forward: we win by 30+ points.  Louisville is excellent, and Clemson is below average.  This game will be an all around well-balanced performance and all 10 active players on the roster will log at least three minutes.

Louisville has had three straight home games with over 10,000 fans in attendance.  In fact, it has been an average of 12,333 fans per game the last three games.  Can the fans do it again and keep the attendance streak going?

Make sure to come on down to Second and Main and (hopefully) see Louisville improve their series record with Clemson to 5-3!

LINK:

WALZ DISCUSSES CLEMSON, SYRACUSE, MYISHA

Happy Wednesday and Go Cards!

Jared