Sunday Cardinal Couple - The Empty Schedule Edition

The GoCards calendar is empty today.

This is the first time, on a Sunday, that this has happened in quite a while.  It's just the latest piece of evidence that fall sports are wrapping up (even if fall weather decided to finally pay a visit here in Kentuckiana...65 degrees today?  I'll take it!).

There is news past, present and future, though, to discuss and here it is.

Volleyball Selection on Tap

As Jared was sure to point out yesterday, there is one thing of import that is happening today for
Cardinals sports, and that's the Volleyball Selection Show.  At 8:30 on ESPNU, the general consensus is that Louisville will have our name called to be a participant.  The big questions are who the matchups will be and where.  In NCAA Volleyball, the top 16 teams are seeded and have the opportunity to host 1st and 2nd matches, while the rest of the teams get placed in those 16 sites, generally, regionally.

So let's take a look at teams that will likely be hosting in the region.

Closest to home would be Kentucky.  Ranked 11th, it would be a shock if Memorial didn't get to host 1st and 2nd rounds.  Purdue is ranked 12th, so they'll almost certainly host as well.  Louisville has played a number of 1st and 2nd round matches at Purdue over the years.  Approximately a 3 hour drive, Purdue is an easy road trip to watch some matches.  A little farther afield, you get Illinois and Pitt, 4th and 10th ranked, respectively.  Both still in relatively easy road trip distances, about 6 hours to each.  UofL has played NCAA matches in Illinois, but to my knowledge, never in Pittsburgh.  Of course, UofL is no stranger to Pittsburgh, having been conference-mates for a number of years and played in Fitzgerald Field House a number of times, including earlier this season.  Marquette, in Milwaukee, is also about a 6 hour drive, but at 16th ranked, they're questionable for a hosting gig.

If Louisville gets disrespected (again) by the NCAA, we could find ourselves in Madison, Wisconsin, or State College, PA (Penn State) at about 8 hours each, or like last year, Minnesota, which is about 10-11 hours.

Regardless, we'll be watching the selection show this evening with anticipation.  I hope you'll consider a road trip to cheer on this team, it's always great fun.

Football

I think they passed a law that every UofL sports site has to mention Football and Jeff Brohm this
week.

So, with that obligation out of the way...

Women's Basketball Home Opener Monday

Women's Basketball started the season as road warriors, reminiscent of the days of playing in Freedom Hall when they had to be on the road for the first couple of weeks of the season because it always conflicted with a rodeo event.  They're opening their home season tomorrow evening at the KFC Yum! Center against Miami (Ohio).  Tip-off time is a typical 7p.m., but if you can't make it out for some reason (still shopping online?), you can catch this one at the ACC Network Extra.

The Redhawks are undefeated, but they haven't played much real competition, yet, either.  Their biggest margins of victory are by 19 over Detroit Mercy (78-59), and 16 over EKU (60-44).  They squeaked out a come from behind win over the Canisius Golden Eagles (62-59), and got a solid 13 point margin over High Point (68-55).  Miami will be looking at this game as their first real test to find out what their team is really made of.  Louisville will be getting re-acquainted with their home arena, and their home crowd.

Louisville WBB downs Hartford

Fred G. Sanford. The "G" stands for "game". 

Louisville WBB did win on Saturday, an 86-69 triumph over the Hartford Hawks. The Cards
overcame a slow start where they trailed early and were led by Asia "Nite-nite" Durr's 20 pts and Sam "I am" Fuehring's 19.

They started this one early, so I'm guessing the majority of on-line viewers missed that less-than auspicious start. That's probably good, considering the way Louisville played early. Listless, un-motivated and with little emotion.

Fortunately, they woke up and out-scored the Hawks 37-18 in the second quarter. And, cruised in with the win.

THE PAULIE "FRED" REPORT:

F- Free throws. 24-31 is 77.4% Asia was 8-9 and Sam 8-8. Worth a capital "F" 
R- Rebounding. 32-25 Cards favor. Pretty evenly distributed. Worth a capital "R"
E- Effort/Execution. A nice second half in effort and execution. Not so much in first. Small case "e".
D- Defense. Forcing 18 turnovers good. Allowing 46.3% shooting is bad. I award no letter

FINAL FRED TALLY  F-R-e-_

We'll be looking for an excellent preview of the Redhawks in tomorrow's article.

Cardinal Couple Radio Hour

We had a full house, with jokers high (what?  that's not really a poker hand?  There were lots of jokers in the house, though), at the magnificent, media mansion on Mellwood that is WCHQ FM.

We had great discussion about volleyball, and selection possibilities (I'm less confident than most, it seems), a run down of the Women's Basketball against Hartford and Arizona State, and evaluated some quality snark, for all of your snark needs.

You can check out the Facebook Live replay, including a checkin comment from Daryl in Missouri (she has safely returned home to the 'Ville as of this writing) at:

https://www.facebook.com/WCHQfm/videos/2350053011734510/

Keep Cardinal Couple Functioning

We appreciate our Clemson and other ACC readers! 

This will be my last article of Cardinal Couple donation month this year.  I want to thank our community that we've got here.  We've got what appears to be an almost unique site and community, and it's all built on a niche of sports media that's almost completely un-served.  It's such a rare type of community that we've managed to attract and get regular readers and listeners from supporters of other schools.  I think that's wonderful, and if you're one of those, thank you so much for adding to the richness and color of our community.  Thank you to all of you for your roles in building a positive and supportive community for supporting women's athletics.  So many corners of the Internet become toxic and hurtful, and it takes a strong community to resist that.  I'm hopeful that we can keep this up and grow this in a healthy way for years to come.

This is a hobby for us, We do what we do for love of sport and program and do not get paid...but there are costs involved.  Hosting, domain name registrations, on-line security protection, mailings, parking for events, travel to away games for coverage, fees for broadcasts, subscription to SoundCloud and other media relay and recording on-line sites...and so very much more.

All of that costs money.  None of the costs are huge, Paulie has done a great job of finding a sustainable way to run the site while keeping costs extremely low, but there are some expenses.  Your contribution helps make this more viable and sustainable going forward.

Thank you.

-- 

JMcA