Monday, February 24, 2020

WBB Cruises by Pitt -- Softball Falls -- Tennis Goes Down -- MONDAY CARDINAL COUPLE

Short-Handed Cards Cruise Past Pitt


Playing without two starters in Dana Evans and Elizabeth Balogun, Louisville women's basketball showed no setback en route to a 79-47 victory over Pitt.  Evans and Balogun were both out with injuries, but are hopeful to return by the season finale.

Louisville's five seniors were the five highest scorers for the Cards: Kylee Shook (17), Yacine Diop (15), Jazmine Jones (12), Bionca Dunham (10), and Jessica Laemmle (9).

The beginning looked rough with Louisville starting the game with three missed shots and a turnover before a jumper by Jaz got the Cards on the board more than two minutes in.  They scored the next six points to continue the 8-0 run before Pitt called a timeout.  The Panthers cut the score to 10-9 before the two teams traded three-pointers to close out the quarter.

The second quarter started hot for the Cards.  A 16-0 spurt helped the Cards soar to a 29-12 lead.  The Panthers cut the lead to eight before Jeff Walz called a timeout to regroup his team.  UofL scored the next six points, proving the timeout useful, and held a 39-24 lead going into the half.

Louisville came out of the break playing their best quarter of the game with a 24-5 advantage.  Mykasa Robinson's only two points of the game came on a fast break layup off a turnover.  The Cards had their second 16-0 run of the game.  They closed out the quarter holding a 63-29 lead.


Pitt actually won the final quarter by two after Louisville hit the brakes hard.  All nine of Laemmle's points came in the fourth quarter- two three-point shots, a two-pointer, and a free throw.

Shook had another strong outing on the defensive end with five blocks.  Her 10 rebounds helped her achieve another double-double.  The senior now has 80 blocks on the year, extending her UofL single season record.  The single season NCAA record is 223, set by Britney Griner.

Ya-ya added five rebounds, five assists, and four steals as she had no problem filling the stat sheet.

Robinson added eight rebounds and eight assists while limiting herself to one turnover as she filled in for Dana as the on-court captain.

Molly Lockhart scored three points, all at the free throw line, while adding four rebounds, one assist, one steal, and one block in 12 minutes played.

Liz Dixon scored four points, all of hers also coming from the free throw line.

Lindsey Duvall posted a nine-point game with a made three-point basket in the mix.

F-R-E-D Report

Frederick Douglass / Library of Congress Photo Archives

Free Throws - Louisville attempted just 21 free throws on the game.  They had a hard time converting and made just 14.  The 66.7% is below the three-quarters mark but still above 50% so we can award a lowercase "f".

Rebounds - 40 total rebounds with 14 coming on the offensive glass that helped lead to 13 second chance points is a good mark.  They also out-rebounded Pitt 40-35.  Kylee had a big rebounding day and had surprising help from Mykasa.  Capital "R".

Effort/Efficiency - Louisville had 21 assists on 30 made shots.  Their turnovers were limited to nine and had a +13 mark there.  The 13 second chance points on 14 offensive rebounds, 22 fast break points, and 26 points off turnovers all help contribute to a capital "E".  E+ if we were allowed.

Defense - Pitt was held to 47 points including a six-point quarter.  They shot 29% from the field and UofL forced them into 22 turnovers.  Pitt's only bright spot was a 35% three-point shooting.  No debate for a capital "D".

f-R-E-D is a near perfect score.

The Cards hit the 25-win mark and are now 25-3.  Their 14-2 conference record keeps them in first place.

Louisville returns home for a 6:00 p.m., tip against Boston College on Thursday.  A victory will guarantee the Cards at least a share of the regular season title and the 1-seed in the ACC Tournament.

Softball Falls to Alabama


The Bama Bash ended with a loss to host #10/13 Alabama.  The Cards fell 10-0 in five innings.

Louisville had runners in scoring position in all but the third inning including multiple runners on in the first but could not capitalize.

Alabama put a three-piece on the board in the first inning that featured a throwing error and a sac fly.  The Crimson Tide added two unearned runs in the second inning and third inning each to push the score to 7-0.

Alabama walked the game off in the fifth inning on a three-run home run.  The mercy rule is eight runs after five innings but a score book will give credit to all runs scored in a home run.

Chardonnay Harris (2-5) took the loss.

Carmyn Greenwood, Cassady Greenwood, and Harris were all named to the Bama Bash All-Tournament Team.

Louisville fell to 5-9 following the loss.

Louisville hits the road to Stillwater and Tulsa for the OSU/Tulsa Invitational next weekend.  They will face Illinois-Chicago, Oregon, and Oklahoma State (twice) in Stillwater before closing the weekend out in Tulsa against Tulsa.

Tennis Falls to NC State


Louisville started conference play with a 5-2 loss to #4 NC State inside the Bass-Rudd Tennis Center.

The Cards got the doubles point when Diana Wong/Raven Neely won 6-3 and Nikolina Jovic/Dina Chaika won 6-4.

Chaika was the only one to win a singles point, winning 4-6, 6-2, 7-5.  Four Cardinals got swept in straight sets with Neely going in three sets.  She trailed in the final set 1-0 before retiring from the match for unspecified reasons.

The Cards fall to 8-2 on the year.


Paulie will be back in action tomorrow.  He and Sonya took a trip out of town over the weekend to celebrate Paulie's birthday this past Saturday, plus Sonya's birthday Monday.  They finally hit the big "30" from what I hear!

Happy Monday and Go Cards!

Jared

7 comments:

  1. Took care of business yesterday. Glad to see Duvall, Laemmle and Lockhart get some meaningful minutes.

    On my way down to the Yum to get NCAA tickets.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Wow, new nickname for Jared, "Generous Jared" on the "f" in the FRED report today. :)

    ReplyDelete
  3. Total "feel good" game. EVERYONE who played contributed. Really happy for Jess, she deserved that 4th quarter offensive output!
    And what a great gesture to Yacine before the game. Classy😊.
    Now, on to two more, finally win that conference championship outright!!!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Yesterday's Cards game was the most fun game of the season to watch. Loved seeing the subs get in for the whole 4th quarter+.

    BC keeps on rolling. Despite Mompremier returning (15 pts 6 boards) the Eags pushed back Miami and now are in a three-way fourth place tie. If Duke loses tonight the Eags will be in a four-way third place tie. The non powerhouse BC program remains in the "next four out" ESPN Bracket. BC front line shot 21-37 and controlled the boards all day. The Eags backcourt shot 4-30 as they continue slumping. Cards will destroy the Eags on Thursday but the Eags have a shot on the road verse Syracuse Sunday. If they can beat Cuse the ACC may have 7 tourney teams as the Eags find themselves on the outside looking in.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Duke beats NC St and now has sole possession of 3rd place. Wes Moores reaction “If you want to be great, you'd better be able to handle the heat. We're not hungry enough. We're not tough enough. I recruit great kids. But when you step between the lines, at some point, you've got to get down and dirty. You've got to compete. I just don't feel like we're doing that well enough."

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. And that's surprising considering how talented they are.

      Delete
  6. As claimed by Stanford Medical, It is indeed the ONLY reason women in this country get to live 10 years longer and weigh an average of 42 pounds lighter than us.

    (And realistically, it has NOTHING to do with genetics or some hard exercise and really, EVERYTHING to do with "HOW" they are eating.)

    BTW, What I said is "HOW", and not "WHAT"...

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    ReplyDelete

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