Louisville WBB steals the victory at Virginia Tech -- FRIDAY CARDINAL COUPLE

DANA DELIVERS DOWN THE STRETCH -- 71-67 CARDS 

GOOOOooooood Friday mornin' to everyone! It's victory Friday and that means its already a good one.  Have you looked outside yet?! Hehheh   

And today will be my first FRED report with the site.  While I do not already have my grades yet decided, I do know that overall, this will be a positive report because the Cardinals were able to get another ACC game in the books and remain undefeated on the season.  

 

It was a barn burner in Blacksburg as the Hokies gave it everything they had to try and take down the #2 Cardinals late Thursday evening but they would not succeed.  Louisville scratched back to win 71-67, led by Dana Evans who led all scorers with 22 points.  

Olivia Cochran, "O" as Coach Walz refers to her, got the scoring started for Louisville as Kianna Smith, HVL & Dana would follow to put the Cards up 15-6 midway through the first quarter.  Dana started the game with six points through the 1st quarter, four points and a couple assists in the 2nd quarter and I believe she got poked in the eye at one point & had to fetch a new contact from the sideline. But she would not be denied in crunch time. 

 

As a team, the Cards were able to push it to a 16 point lead with 3:51 left in the first half.  In the post game conference, Walz mentioned that he thought the team played sloppy in the final three minutes of the first half and that's where the team saw their lead dwindle to make it close down the stretch.  Tech was able to cut it to a single digit lead, 42-33 Cards, when Asiah Jones grabbed a missed 3 point attempt and put it right back up in underneath the basket at the buzzer.  They took that momentum into the halftime break.  

It was an uncharacteristic third quarter and one I imagine Coach Walz would like to forget...Louisville had six turnovers before the five-minute mark of the 3rd quarter. They then had two more which let the Hokies take the lead 51-50 before Louisville was able to secure a 54-53 lead at the end of the quarter. 

10 turnovers in one quarter. Hardly what we expected.  

The game went back and forth in the 4th quarter before Dana came up huge to tie it up and then take the 69-67 lead with :23 to go. She then came out of the timeout to steal the ball from Tech's freshman guard Georgia Amoore and seal up the victory for the good guys. HVL's two free throws clinched it and the Cards improve to 9-0 and 2-0 in the ACC. 

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POST GAME thoughts from Coach Walz:

On having Dana down the stretch:  "Nobody (was taking the shot) taking it but Dana.  (We've got) Kianna, excited about having her.. she's gonna get better.  Balogun & Dixon were not in these tight situations last season, HVL and Olivia are freshman.. so having Dana is exciting.. and she's gonna be the one to have the ball."

When Dana getting the steal, checking the clock and holding on:  "We were actually trying to foul.. we had one to give. Overall really pleased how we handled the last minute of the game."

And now...for the FRED Report.. !! 

William Frawley (Fred Mertz)and Lucy
 after watching the third quarter last night...

Free throws You're going to love this discrepancy.. Louisville attempted only seven free throws on the evening while VT managed 26 of them, making 17.   Two very clutch ones by HVL at the end of the game to put the Cards up by four and the game out of reach for the Hokies . 6-7 overall was good for 85.7% from the stripe. That's more than our 70% standard and VT attempted 20 more than the Cards made so that gets a CAPITAL F. (It was a Dee Kanter-led officiating crew, did you expect the Cards would actually get any breaks?) 

Rebounding Louisville was outrebounded by the Hokies 34-33. "O" managed to grab just two rebounds in her 23 minutes on the floor.  Haley Van Lith came up huge, leading the team with seven rebounds in 38 minutes.  Her 38 minutes matched Dana for most on the team.  She also had 15 points.  As great as it is that HVL was able to get seven rebounds, Louisville's "bigs" will have to come up with more grabs for this squad to go deep into any potential tournaments.  lowercase "r"

Effort/Execution Two things I think about from this game .. That was the turnovers in the third quarter and Dana Evans getting fouled and not getting the call when she got hit in the eye and lost a contact!  The Cardinals ended up with 15 turnovers for the game but had TEN in the third quarter! AFTER the no call/contact situation. Ten of them!  VT had 14 of their own.  Louisville had 9 TO's vs UT Martin Tuesday night, they had  eight vs Bellarmine & 13 vs NKU.  After the 3rd quarter the Cards didn't really have another one.. they charged one to HVL but I say it was a foul and another bad call. CAPITAL "E" largely due to Dana's dominance at the end.  She refused to lose. 

Defense It was a pretty low scoring affair between the two teams.   Louisville held VT to 39.3% from the field and 30% beyond the arc. Sheppard went 4-13 from the field and 9 of her 20 points came from the free throw line.  And she made only three threes on the night.  Which gets a good amount of thumbs up from me...  The fouls racked up for the Cards, K.Smith and Balogun both fouling out and combining for five points, eight rebounds and  four assists.  As a team, the Cards had eight steals and four blocks, Evans and HVL with three steals each, the big one at the end by the senior. I'll give it a CAPITAL "D" for the overall effort. 

Final FRED tally :   F-r-E-D 

Hey, not bad for my first FRED report I think?! That's almost an ALL capital performance by the Cardinals against the Hokies. Got a different take? That's what our comments section is for, use it. 

NEW UNI'S 

 

The team also debuted these bad boys for the trip to Blacksburg.  I dig them...  I don't wanna see them all the time but I thought they looked nice on the team.  Dana wore a long sleeve black under shirt which also looked awesome. I think it could work with a white outline instead of a yellow one, as well.

 And this has been your Friday Cardinal Couple fashion update.. (ha ha). 

Seriously, have you checked outside yet? Grab your coffee, find your snow scraper and warm gloves and then go on and have a good morning.  The Cardinals basketball programs had four wins this week, two of them against Virginia Tech.  That's some solid news heading into the weekend.

I'll be on the Saturday morning show with the rest of the squad.  Be safe and warm out there Louisville and Go Cards!

   - Daryl