Vball Hosts Duke -- FRIDAY CARDINAL COUPLE

Happy Friday, everyone! We have made it to the weekend once more! If you follow all Louisville sports, it's been a hectic week with Men's Basketball home Monday, Women's Basketball home Tuesday and Wednesday, Men's Soccer home last night, and Football down at Duke last night. The week stays busy with another home event tonight with Louisville Volleyball at home.

I do want to thank Daryl for covering for me yesterday. A 7:45-5:00 work schedule during the week and adding weeknight basketball keeps me out and about for about 14-15 straight hours. Add in time to edit photos after the game and I'm flirting with six hours of sleep.

But it gives me the chance to highlight tonight's Volleyball match and how close they are to winning the ACC.

Tonight's match at LNFCU Arena features #1 Louisville against Duke. The Cards are set to play their second match as the top team in the country. It will feature a rematch from when Louisville went down to Durham to take the 3-1 win on Halloween. First serve is set for 7:00 p.m., and will be streamed on ACC Network Extra.

The Blue Devils enter the match at 15-11 overall and 6-9 in the ACC. Louisville and Duke will meet for the 16th time, with the Cards holding the 9-6 advantage all-time.

The match is the third-to-last of the regular season for the Cards and the second-to-last at home. However, we aren't quite done with LNFCU Arena this year. The Top 16 seeds host the opening two rounds of the NCAA Tournament, and Louisville is in prime shape for that. There is not a limitation on size and capacity for the first two rounds so those matches will be played at LNFCU Arena.

The eight highest remaining seeded teams then host the Sweet Sixteen and Elite Eight matches. LNFCU Arena is not large enough in capacity so this is where our discussion about a location comes into play. It will not be at the KFC Yum! Center, that has been confirmed. But there are still a few possibilities around town with my best guess being Freedom Hall.

Everyone is eyeballing that undefeated season, which I'm not going to get into due to my superstitious beliefs. Instead, we'll look at some scenarios in which how Louisville can win the ACC title.

Here is a look at the top three teams in contention for the ACC title:

Louisville 25-0, 15-0

Pittsburgh 24-2, 13-2

Georgia Tech 21-4, 12-3

• The worst case scenario is that Louisville loses their final three matches and Pitt wins their final three matches (vs Georgia Tech, Clemson, and Louisville). The Panthers would switch places with the Cards with the former winning the ACC.

• Another not pretty scenario is Louisville losing their final three matches while Georgia Tech wins out (vs Pittsburgh, Clemson, and Florida State). In this scenario, Pittsburgh loses two matches (Georgia Tech and Clemson). The Cards and Yellow Jackets would split the ACC title with 15-3 records, but Louisville would take the ACC automatic qualifier bid by holding the tiebreaker.

• It gets even trickier if Pittsburgh goes 2-1 in the above scenario (loss to Georgia Tech and wins against Louisville and Clemson). You'd see a three-way tie at 15-3. All three teams would be credited as Co-Champions and then you'd come down to tiebreakers to see who gets the automatic qualifier.

• If Louisville finishes the year 1-2, then Georgia Tech cannot win the ACC. The only way Louisville and Pittsburgh finish tied would be the Panthers winning out while Louisville goes exactly 1-2. This scenario also requires Pittsburgh to beat the Cards. With both teams going 16-2, they'd split the ACC title and there would be a trickier tiebreaker to follow as the ACC rivals would've split their regular season meetings.

• If Louisville wins two or three of their remaining matches, the Cards win the ACC outright. Ideally, the win their final three matches to go 18-0 in conference play. You don't have to worry about what other teams do when you just take care of your own business.

For now, let's take it one match at a time and focus on getting the win against Duke tonight. It doesn't hurt to pull for Georgia Tech over Pittsburgh tonight too, though. Just win. It's the safest option. 

Cardinal Couple Radio Podcast

After a brief hiatus last week, the Cardinal Couple Radio Podcast is back! The number of us available for our 11:00-12:00 slot isn't yet known, but I'm hopeful all five of us will be ready to go.

All of our normal streaming options should be available and Case will provide those options to you tomorrow.

Happy Friday and Go Cards!

Jared