Wake Up to WBB
Well, not exactly wake up to unless you're a really late riser, but the Cards opponent today is Wake Forest. The Cards are, of course, looking to start a new winning streak after the fourth quarter meltdown in Raleigh. Jen Hoover's Wake Forest Demon Deacons are working to climb out of the lower ranks of the ACC, let's call it the bottom third.
Wake arrives at today's game with a 2-6 record in conference with more than a few head scratchers in there, including most recently a 20+ point beat-em-down at the hands of Clemson in Winston-Salem. No shame in losses to ranked teams Georgia Tech and Notre Dame, and Virginia Tech is playing at those sorts of levels as well, but hasn't quite broken into the rankings yet. But a loss to Pitt, splitting with Florida State, a squeaker win over Miami, in addition to the mentioned Clemson thumping puts Wake down fairly low in the conference standings.
Wake is led by 5'10" guard Jewel Spear who hoists more than half of her shots from beyond the three point arc, and drains them 37% of the time. Next in line is Elise Williams at 5'9" and also playing guard. Williams plays a bit more balanced game, with only a third of her shots beyond the arc, hitting 42% overall and 32% from range.
Wake will also likely start a pair of 6'2" forwards, Christina Morra and Olivia Summiel. Summiel can also be a bit of a threat from range, but Morra hasn't even attempted a three pointer this year.
Wake trails their opponents overall in all four of the "right side" stats categories - assists, steals, turnovers, and blocked shots.
Louisville shouldn't have too much trouble with this team, but they will be looking to bounce back from their loss to NC State. Slow starts have been a hallmark of this UofL team for much of the season, and Wake held Clemson scoreless for the first 5+ minutes of the game. UofL will not want to let them repeat that feat.
If the Cards can start the game off strong, the rest should follow along. Of course, we can't have another fourth quarter collapse, but I don't expect Wake to go 11-14 overall and 5-6 from beyond the arc in the fourth quarter like NC State did. For the Cards this game is as much a mental game against themselves as it is against Wake. If they've gotten their heads in the right place and play through the last whistle, they should be fine, but that's the biggest question about this team right now.
Two o'clock is the tip time, on the ACC Network today at the KFC Yum! Center, which is, of course, also available via streaming if that's your preferred media consumption approach. Sam Ravech and Kelly Gramlich are on the call today, and with Gramlich's Clemson ties, we may hear a bit more about Wake's outing against the Tigers than we would otherwise.
Track and Field
Louisville was in Blacksburg, VA for the Hokie Invitational. The top finish for the women was in the 4x400 relay with Katie Martin, Je'Niya Burton, Kiyah Yeast and Taylor Boggess, finishing in second place with a 3:44.85 time.
On the Cardinal Couple Radio Hour Podcast yesterday, I mentioned Emily Scott, who has completed her time with UofL Volleyball and has moved over to the High Jump with Track and Field. She was the top UofL finisher in the event with best clearance of 1.66 meters. That ties the height with the two third place finishers, but Scott gets the fifth place finish because of the number of attempts it took her to clear the height.
UofL will return home to the Lenny Lyles Invitational on Saturday. This is an indoor event which UofL previously didn't have a facility to host in, but is now able to host indoor events at the Norton Healthcare Sport and Learning Center at 30th St. and Muhammad Ali Blvd.
Swim and Dive
The Cardinals are ranked 9th or 11th, depending on which rankings you're looking at, while the Wildcats are either 15th or unranked. Regardless, this was some rather high level swimming.
The women were led by Gabi Albiero in the short distance races, and Liberty Williams in the longer events. The men were led by Nick Albiero and Haridi Sameh.
Gabi Albiero, Nick Albiero, and head coach Arthur Albiero...I think this family may have something going with this whole swimming thing, ya know?
UofL will continue their season ending homestand this Saturday with Cincinnati coming to visit "The Ralph". No start time is listed for this, yet, but I would expect it to be similar to yesterday's event with diving starting at noon, and swimming at 1pm.
Cardinal Couple Radio Hour Podcast
It was a sparse crew for the CCRHP yesterday, with just Paulie and myself able to get on the call. We had a good time chatting about a wide variety of topics, including reckoning with the WBB loss against NC State. We did also talk about the win at Boston College, so we were able to get some "joy and excitement" in there. Lots of other topics got covered, from Lacrosse to vacuums.
You can check the unedited version of at Youtube:
Case hasn't gotten an edited version of it up to the podcast system yet, but if he does, you will be able to find it at:
Check out the fun!
JMcA
Yeah, here's to hoping more time is spent on Wake's beatdown than Louisville's meltdown 👍
ReplyDeleteI think it's gonna be interesting to see how we respond, it'd sure be refreshing to see a pedal to the metal start to finish game.