Cards Down Orange -- Spring Sports Weekend -- FRIDAY CARDINAL COUPLE

Louisville WBB squuezes Orange

It took all of four and a half minutes for Louisville to take a double-digit lead en route to a victory over Syracuse, 76-51.

In fact, Asia Durr was the early "go to" for Louisville, scoring the Cards first ten points on the visitors from Syracuse 

Louisville attempted and made more three-pointers than an Orange team that's high in the NCAA on three-point attempts.  The Cards shot 10-27 for 37.0%, easily beating out Syracuse's 6-24 for 25%.

Asia Durr lead all scorers with 15 points, scoring 12 of those in a big first quarter.  She went cold for much of the rest of the game but had help from her teammates.

Kylee Shook posted a double-double with 12 points and 11 rebounds and played a key factor in winning the rebounding battle, 46-38.  After a rough patch early in the season with rebounding Louisville has put the pieces together since mid-January.

An interesting game in several ways. Louisville scored less points in each of the four quarters, starting with 30 in the first, 21 in the second, 19 in the third and...finally...just six in the final fourth quarter.

Syracuse mimicked them in that aspect, with 17, 13, 12 and nine in the breakdown of the forty minutes of action. The Cards did acheive a 30-point lead halfway through the fourth, but Walz gave Robins, Duvall, Robinson, Laemmle and Shook extensive fourth quarter minutes.

Dana Evans reached the double-digit scoring column with 12 points.  Four Cardinals tallied either eight or nine points each.  

Syracuse had difficulty scoring.  Tiana Mangakahia went 1-11, Gabrielle Cooper 1-8, and Emily Engstler 1-7.  Overall, the Orange shot 20-62 from the field.

Turnovers and what was done wuth them was a huge factor in the outcome of this Thursday night test. he Cards forced the Orange into 17 miscues. UofL scored 25 points off these turnovers.

Syracuse got Louisville to make 12 turnovers. The 'Cuse' , though, could only produce three points off the turnovers.

For a team that gets almost 50% of their shots from three point land, Quentin Hillsman's squad didn't fare very well in that aspect of the game. They took 24 threes but only converted on six of them (25%).

Coach Q or Cee Lo Green?

Besides a sloppy fourth quarter that the Orange won 9-6 Louisville dominated the other three quarters.  Jeff Walz referenced a saying that Sam Purcell says during practice when he said that his team took a "smoke break" for a few minutes during the final period.  Instead of bailing them out with a timeout he forced them to play out and figure things out, which they did.

A loud and appreciate crowd of 8521 showed up on a rainy Thursday night in the downtown arena to watch the Cards control the action early and maintain the edge for their 22nd win of the year.

                                                              Jeff Walz Postgame

                                                     Asia Durr and Kylee Shook

Paulie also caught post-game audio from Coach "Q", but the coach did not send out any of his players to discuss the contest. You can hear the audio for that and see his post-game radio interview at the links below.  The website Nunes Magician does a very good job following Syracuse WBB, they provided a excellent post-game recap and the second video

LINK:  COACH Q POSTGAME 2/7/19 AFTER LOSS TO LOUISVILLE

LINK: "Q" POST-GAME RADIO AFTER LOSS TO LOUISVILLE



F-R-E-D Report

Free Throws: Louisville shot 12-15 (80%) from the line in a game where few shooting fouls were called.  Syracuse went 5-8 from the line.  The solid shooting is an easy capital "F".

Rebounds: Another rebounding battle won for the Cards.  Louisville won in offensive rebounds 18-15 and defensive rebounds 28-23.  Shook led the way with 11 while Sam Fuehring had seven, Evans contributed six, and Arica Carter added five.  Syracuse's highest rebounder finished with six.  The Orange managed just 10 second chance points off their offensive rebounds.  UofL's offensive rebounds led to 14 points.  Capital "R".

Efficiency/Effort: 27-66 for 40.9% is great and the high three-point shooting showed that the shots were dropping for most of the Cards.  There were 22 assists on 27 made shots, double Syracuse's assists mark.  The Cards also turned the ball over just 12 times against a team that forces nearly 20 per game.  Louisville capitalized on the Syracuse turnovers, scoring 25 points off turnovers.  That's a good mark that earns a capital "E".

Defense: Yes, the Orange broke the 50-point mark, but just barely.  They were limited to nine points in the fourth quarter where the Cardinal bench played half of the period.  The Cards had six blocks, half of them coming from Shook.  They recorded seven steals with Evans contributing four.  The Orange were held to a three-point shooting mark well below their season average and only one player broke the double-digit mark.  Limiting a Syracuse team that averages 77 points per game to just 51 (-26) is a big WOW! and deserves a capital "D".

This Louisville team has been finding their rhythm lately and my sometimes-generous reports help give them another perfect score,

F-R-E-D.

Louisville improves to 22-1 on the year with a 9-1 in the ACC.  #25 Miami upset #4 Notre Dame 72-65 and #24 Florida State upset #9 NC State 75-70 to give both losers two losses in the conference.

 Louisville takes sole possession of first place in the conference and control their own destiny.  Walz made a point to note that there is still a lot of basketball left to be played and a lot can happen, but at least now the Cards control their own destiny.

As we mentioned yesterday, upsets can and did happen.

The challenging nature of ACC WBB Who knows what the top of the conference will look like when the 15 teams gather in Greensboro early next month? One thing is for sure, there's a new sheriff in town, the sheriff that returns after leading the conference last year, and six more gunfighters in the mean streets of the ACC who will be gunning for the sheriff before they gather for the comprehensive shoot out in Greensboro.  Draw, partner!  .

Here are some additional
photos from Jared Anderson.

Jared moves around a lot during contest trying to provide you, the reader, some great and different angles of Cardinal WBB home contests.

One thing we've learned here at the "Couple"...always be on
your guard. You never know when he might capture you with his camera.

Check out his website for more of his work

https://www.jdaphotos.com/

Caption This: 

Coach Walz (left) has hands extended, has left the "wee" chair and reacting to court action.

What do you think he's saying or reacting to?  

Feel free to list your interpretation below in the comments section. We've had some fun with this over the season and it's amazing how people can look at a photo and come up with so many different captions for one.

Spring Sports Opening Weekend

Softball and lacrosse both open their seasons on the road today.

Scott Teeter's sticks will face Northwestern tonight at 8:00 p.m. EST, under the lights in Evanston, Illinois.

Holly Aprile will have her UofL debut at 4:00 p.m., against Idaho State before turning around to face tournament-host Cal State Fullerton at 8:30.  These games are EST, so will be substantially earlier out west.


Sing It Loudly and Proudly

On a completely separate note away from sports, Seth Spalding and I made a visit to the Hyatt Regency Hotel around the corner.  Currently, the Hyatt is host to the Kentucky Music Educators Association (KMEA) Conference All-State Choir.  The two bands and the orchestra stay at the Galt House.

Per tradition, the choir will gather on the many floors of the hotel and sing the Star-Spangled Banner at 11:00 p.m.  Videos of the performances over the years have gained national attention that has caused the lobby to fill up for the event.

Check out the video here:


(TODAY'S FINE PHOTOGRAPHY AND AUDIO/VIDEO FROM JARED ANDERSON, EXCEPT WHERE OTHERWISE NOTED).

Happy Friday and Go Cards!

- Jared -