Women's Basketball vs Washington
After much hand-wringing over how CardNation would get to watch the game last night, it ended up being available by way of the PAC-12 Now setup (app, or website) for free. That's a pretty solid comparison to how the game went as well, with plenty of hand-wringing over the Cards performance eventually resulting in a 61-53 win over the Washington Huskies in Seattle.
Washington started the game looking like the clearly better team. Shots weren't falling for UofL, the Cards had errant passes, and a number of moments of, "What was she trying to do with that?" let Washington take the lead 15-13 at the end of the first quarter, and that includes the point that UofL had on the scoreboard for the game even tipped off.
An administrative technical foul was assessed to the hosting Huskies team due to a non-functional clock. The assessed penalty was a single free throw for the Cards, with Hailey Van Lith stepping up to the stripe and draining it. After the now-not-quite-game-opening tip-off, Kianna Smith would get a layup. That would be the last time the Cards led in the first quarter. The Cards would only shoot 6 of 19 from the field in the first quarter with none from beyond the arc.
The good news is that UofL did turn it around before the second quarter. After an opening score by UW, UofL would put together a 6-0 run that really set the tone for quarter, outscoring the Huskies 20-8 in the frame.
After halftime, the Cards would maintain the control of the game, and extend the lead by another six points, finishing the quarter 54-38.
Then the fourth quarter happened. Starting with that 54-38 lead, UofL would not score at all in the quarter until about two and a half minutes left, letting UW close the lead down to three. Hailey Van Lith pried the lid off the basket with a pair of free throws, Emily Engstler would follow about a minute later with the only UofL field goal of the quarter, and the Cards would close out the fourth quarter, and game, with a pair of Mykasa Robinson free throws, and one by Kianna Smith.
So the Cards start their tour of the west with a win, but a win that showed that this team still has a lot to improve on. A homecoming for Hailey that almost turned out bittersweet.
Kianna Smith and Liz Dixon led the Cards with 13 points apiece. Emily Engstler wasn't the dominant force that we enjoyed last week at the KFC Yum! Center, but she did get eight points with eight rebounds. Add in a trio of blocks, and that makes for a good night of play, even if it wasn't contributing as much in the points column. Hailey Van Lith was the only other Card in double digit scoring with 11, while Olivia Cochran matched Engstler's eight, but didn't contribute as well in other aspects of the game.
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| (Frederick Douglass - his words describe the Louisville debacle last night) |
FRED Report
F - Free Throws - 7-11 from the charity stripe tallies to a 63.6% which doesn't achieve our 70% benchmark. No letter.
R - Rebounding - Neck and neck between the Cards and Huskies, but UW did outrebound the Cards 36-35. The Cards snagged nine offensive, and 26 defensive boards. 35 is a decent total, but the goal here is to do better than the other team. Alas, I can't award a letter here either.
E - Effort/Efficiency - Liz Dixon led the way here with 6-8 shooting. There is some partial credit here for the effort involved in digging out from a 1st quarter deficit with a dominant 2nd quarter. I don't think we can go with the full capital letter in this category because of the flagging 4th quarter. I will give the e, though.
D - Defense - Four blocked shots, most of those by Engstler, and eight steals are good totals in those columns. I'll also give some partial credit on the eye test. The Cards took some frustration and kept playing. With shots not reliably falling, it's easy to let the intensity drop, but UofL didn't do that. A full D here.
FRED TALLY:
_-_-e-D, certainly a mixed bag.
The Cards continue their western assault on Tuesday visiting Cal Poly in San Luis Obispo, roughly halfway between Los Angeles and San Jose.
Cardinal Couple Radio Hour Podcast
Four of us hit the court yesterday with the CCRHP. Case, Jared, Paulie, and I made the call in between lots of activity on campus this past week.
Volleyball and Basketball, during this period of fall and winter sports overlap, easily filled the hour.
You can check it out on Youtube at:
or at it's Anchor.fm home for the pure podcast version wonderfully engineered and edited by Case at:
JMcA
Win on the road, I'll take it. Defense showed up at the end and move on Cards. Every painting isn't a masterpiece.
ReplyDeleteNick O
I maaaaaaay be a bit spoiled with Volleyball this year. :/
DeleteThat was indeed a struggle. Maybe it's just playing Pac 12 teams for us. But, I'll never complain about a win and no one got hurt.
ReplyDeletePlay on. The Huskies made Louisville guard them deep into the shot clock on the most of their possessions.
Curtis "Be Kind" Franklin
Good point curtis a win is good a thing,no one got hurt .Go Cards Merv
DeletePs good game from liz D she needs to be more self confident.
DeleteI hope the Cards just accept this for what it was. A seemingly comfortable win that got close on someone's court. I hope Cards fans appreciate the win and realize that Washington just might be a little better than UTM or Bellarmine. One win at a time.
ReplyDeleteBlue Lou
Not used to seeing a team with only three players having more than one year of experience with the program.
ReplyDeletePotential is there, just gonna take some more games to mesh.