WBB: Dana,defense defeat Ducks 60-42 -- Softball, Volleyball, Lax News -- MONDAY CARDINAL COUPLE

 DANA EVANS TIES CAREER HIGH IN WIN OVER OREGON

The Louisville Cardinals Women's Basketball team is going to the Elite Eight. 

It'll be Cardinals vs Cardinal Tuesday night, as Louisville earned their berth to the NCAA Tournament Elite Eight with a convincing 60-42 win over the Oregon Ducks Sunday night in San Antonio's Alamodome. The #2 seeded Cards will face the #1 seed Stanford Cardinal Tuesday night in the Alamo Regional final. 

Dana Evans exploted for 29 points against Kelly Graves' Oregon squad, going 11-21 from the floor and sinking four of her six free throws against the PAC 12 foe,. The Cards took off on a 15-2 run to start the second quarter to build a 10-8 lead to 25-10 with 3:21 until halftime and take control of the contest. Evans had 11 of the Cardinals points in that key second quarter and led all scorers with 13 first half points.  

Louisville's defense was also the main feature on Sunday night. They held Oregon to 30 points-below their season average and just 32.1% shooting (18-56) from the floor. Oregon made just 2 of the 18 three-point attempts they tried and were held to less than 10 points in three of the four quarters. 

The Cards led 29-14 at the halftime break and Oregon had missed all nine of their three-point attempts. The Ducks could not match Louisville's speed in the transition game and the Cardinals defense was creating havoc on the Oregon guards. Oregon did lose starter Maddie Scherr in the first half with a foot injury and another starter in Nyara Sabally in the second half with a leg injury, but the Cards were containing 6'7" sophomore center Sedona Prince, who had just four of her ten points in the first twenty minutes. 

The Ducks would make a couple of attempts to get back into the contest in the third quarter, after the Cards increased the lead to 34-16. They won the third quarter 19-14 and had cut the Louisville lead to nine on a couple of occasions in the third quarter and were within 10 at 43-33 by the end of the third quarter. Their last attempt to make it a game came to start the fourth quarter, Oregon's Prince scored the first two buckets of the fourth to get within six points...but Evans responded with two threes and a free throw to stretch the advantage back out for Louisville to 5-37 with 6:21 to play.  

The door had closed on Oregon and the Cards cruised in comfortably from there, leading by 20 late after a Van Lith jumper and SportsCenter moment -- when Kasa Robinson stole the ball, and made a behind-the-back pass while in transition to Evans who went in for a layup to make it 60-40 Cards. 

Evans 29 points tied her career high. Kianna Smith reached double figures for the Cards with 11 points and Hailey Van Lith added eight, as UofL goes to 26-3 on the season. 

THE FRED REPORT

Cards continue the wonderful
roller-coaster ride of 2020-21

FREE THROWS -- "Free ones" proved to be a welcome scarity for both teams Sunday night with only 17 total fouls. this was obviously not a Dee Kanter or Eric Brewton led officiating crew. Dana was the only Cardinal to attempt charity tosses, she was a bit off of her 90% accuracy rate -- making 4 of 6. That's 66.7% and fall just short of our 70% mandate for a letter, so we cannot award an "f" here. 

REBOUNDING -- The Cards led most of the way in the battle of the boards, but Oregon ended up with a 40-37 edge. That occurred because of the Ducks horrid fourth quarter shooting3-14 (21%) which allowed them several second-chance opportunities. Van Lith and Robinson led the Cards with seven each. The Cards held their own against a taller Ducks sqaud on the boards and I'll offer a small-case "r" here for the blocking out and hustling for missed shots that Louisville executed. 

EFFICIENCY/EXECUTION --  Just seven turnovers from the Cards and they actually won the points-in-the-paint battle 28-24. Louisville also led in second-chance points 18-13 and the floor shooting got better as the night went on, the Cards werre 41.3% from the floor. Also, no one had more than two turnovers for Louisville, which was refreshing to see. I think  a CAPITAL "E" is definitely deserved here. 

DEFENSE -- This is where the Cards won the game. Holding the foe to way-below their season average, forcing 14 turnovers, getting six steals, and shutting down and frustrating Prince and Boley most of the night. No question about awarding a CAPITAL "D" here. 

FINAL FRED TALLY:  _-r-E_D 

(You know these three are proud of
what this squad is accomplishing) 

So, the Cards move on and take on another West Coast, Pac-12 foe Tuesday in Stanford. It'll be Louisville's toughest test yet in the tournament, but, that's to be expected in the "survive and advance" concept. Louisville is one of two #2 seeds still dancing,  (Louisville and Baylor), three #1 seeds are still around (Stanford, UConn and South Carolina), and we have a #3 seed in Arizona, #4 seed in Indiana and #6 seed in Texas that consist of our Elite Eight. 

Jeff Walz and Kianna Smith will discuss it on a Zoom teleconference today at 11 a.m. and we'll monitor the words and post it here later today. 

HERE'S THAT LINK: 

JEFF WALZ AND KIANNA SMITH PRESSER 3/29/21

Play ball, y'all. It's the most wonderful time of the year. 

SOFTBALL SLUMPS AGAINST HOKIES

The Softball Cards couldn't find the bats against Virginia Tech and Keely Rochard yesterday and fell 8-0 in a run-rule five inning contest at Ulmer.  The Cards managed just one hit against one of the best hurlers in the ACC, a Cassady Greenwood single and the normally sound Louisville defense had five errors in the loss. 

The Hokies touched Cardinal pitching for 11 hits, two home runs and two doubles in the game at Ulmer, and they take the weekend series three games to one. 

Taylor Roby takes the loss, allowing three runs in two innings of circle work. 

The Cards (10-14, 4-9)  head to Pittsburgh next, for a four game series, starting on Thursday. 

(Softball Photos from Jared Anderson) 

BOSTON COLLEGE DEFEATS LOUISVILLE LAX

Homestanding #5 Boston College struck early and often against Louisville Lacrosse yesterday and won easily against Scott Teeter's squad 18-3 in ACC LAX action.

The Eagles jumped out to an 13-2 first half lead over Louisville, scoring the final 11 goals of that first half. The Cards were tied with BC early at 2-2, after Bella Karstein and Ally Hall found net success for UofL, but, the Eagles proved to be too much to handle the rest of the half. 

A 30-16 shot advantage for Boston College and they dominated the draw controls 16-7 in sending the Cards to their sixth loss of the year and fifth loss in ACC contests. 

The CARDS will try to get back on the winning side of things when they travel to Blacksburg to face the Hokies on Saturday. 

VOLLEYBALL SWEEPS NCST

(Remember when...??) 

#14 Louisville Volleyball improved to 12-2 on the split season and 10-2 in the ACC with a three-game sweep of the visiting NC State Wolfpack. 

The Cards won two close sets early at 26-24 and 25-22 before putting the Pack away 25-13 in the third set. 

Anna Stevenson led Louisville with 11 kills, and Sunday's sweep propelled the Cards to the top of the ACC standings. Stevenson had six of UofL's 12 blocks in the contest and Anna DeBeer and Aiko Jones added seven kills in the Cards win.

Louisville appeared to be in good shape in the first set, leading 23-16, but a 7-0 Wolfpack run tied the contest up. The Cards took three of the final final four points, though, to pull out the "W" 

The Pack came out strong in the second set, taking a 14-7 lead early on, but, Louisville fought back with a 10-2 run to recapture the advantage at 17-16 and held off the Wolfpack for the three-pint second set win 25-22. 

It was all Louisville in the final set, the Cards jumping out to an early 9-2 advantage and easily containing the visitors the rest of the set for the 12-point set victory.

Louisville now heads to Miami for an April Fools Day contest and then to North Carolina for April 2nd action as they wait to see the pairing for the NCAA Tournament. 

CARDINAL COUPLE NCAA PICK "EM"  CONTEST

"Who's in the lead? Paulie ? 
Naaahhh, check the numbers again!" 

We've got 56 games completed and seven more to go in our annual NCAA WBB Tournament  "pick em" and here's Bracket Czar Jared's updated totals for the contestants: 

Paulie still hangs on to the top spot with a 47-9 mark. He has five of the eight Elite Eight picks still alive and has a UConn vs. South Carolina championship game predicted, with the Huskies taking it all. 

Kenny S is two games behind at 45-11. He also has five of the final eight alive and has a Stanford vs, UConn final forecast, with the Cardinal taking the title. 

Callie Blue is in third at 44-12, but had Kentucky winning it all and had just four of the final eight alive. 

Other totals:

43-13 -- Jason

42-14 --  David Watson, Worldwide Jeff

41-15 -- Arthur

40-16 -- Jared

39-17 -- Blue Lou, Clemson Cuz

38-18 -- Case, KStarksr, Vivian

37-19 -- Sonya, Nole Knowledge

35-21 -- Nick O, Bea

33-23 -- Curtis

31-25 -- Joe Hill 

24-32 -- Cardinal Couple Chimps

I'll do a audit of the Czar's numbers later this morning, but, he's pretty good at math and keeping his spread sheet accurate, I doubt I find any discrepancies in the count. We've had no reported attempts to improve standings with bribes yet, Dave-O has been strangely quiet lately...after his pre-tournament trash-talking and The Cardinal Couple Chimps are claiming Jared read their bracket incorrectly and they are 55-1 overall. 

Those crazy chimps...

Have a meaningful Monday!

paulie