Cards vs Oranges - Sunday Cardinal Couple

 Basketball Up North

(Q's last appearance against the Cards ) 

Picasso had a blue period, apparently the Cards have an orange period.  The Cards' orange period consists of games back to back to back against Miami (orange and green), Clemson (orange and purple) and Syracuse (orange and white).  It also will be the second UofL athletics event against Syracuse in as many days.  We'll pass on discussing yesterday's competition, however.

Today wraps up the Cardinals Women's Basketball's orange period in the Carrier Dome in Syracuse.  A fun fact, the Carrier Dome, despite having been named for Carrier, a heating, ventilation, and air conditioning manufacturer, has not had air conditioning in the facility at all until 2020.  Some areas had air conditioning installed that year, and a renovation this year is planned to add air conditioning to the whole facility.  Of course, in upstate New York, the need for air conditioning is limited, but I'm sure it will be a welcome addition to the facility.

(How many Otto the Orange sightings will we get today?) 

Syracuse is currently sub-.500 overall, and only 2-8 in conference.  A little bit of unusual scheduling for The Orange, with a couple of early conference games in the season.  They started off conference play on November 14th against Notre Dame, and then played Clemson on December 11th.

Syracuse does have one signature win on their record, a 97-91 victory over then 18/20 Ohio State.  Other ranked competition has been South Florida, who won 77-53, and the in-conference teams that are ranked, including the Cards in the previous meeting, of course.  All were losses, as you might suspect.

The Orange are led by Acting Head Coach Vonn Read taking over after last season's post-season allegations of inappropriate behavior by Quentin Hillsman, and the subsequent mass exodus of players.

(Vonn Read, like Jeff Walz, has four letters in
his first name and last name. They are the only
ACC WBB coaches with this distinction.)  

Read has settled into a main rotation of about six players having played in all or nearly all of the team's games this season.  Only one other player has played in more than half of the team's games, with other four playing in 10 or less games.  In the previous matchup at the Yum!, Read only put six Orange on the floor.

The Carr sisters, Christianna and Chrislyn, were the pair that did the biggest damage to the Cards last outing, scoring 19 and 17; though Teisha Hyman, the overall highest scorer on the team, wasn't far behind, with 16 of her own.  Otherwise, the stat sheet from that game is mostly unremarkable.  The biggest eye-grabbing number is the 66.67% shooting from three-ball range in the 3rd quarter. for SU.

Christianna Carr against Cards

The Carrs, along with Najé Murray, are the biggest 3-pt threats on the team, though Hyman will hoist a few as well.

Looking to the right side of the stat sheet, Syracuse wins the turnovers and steals columns vs their opponents.  Of course, all stat sheet data has to be taken with a grain of salt. (In the stat sheet, Syracuse outscores their opponents and yet they're 9-11 overall).

UofL needs to have a solid defensive game, prevent the Carr sisters from having big games like they did the first time around, hold Hyman to a reasonable total, and we should see another victory over another school of orange.

TV coverage is again on Bally Sports South, so again I hope the four people that will be able to watch this live enjoy it.  I plan on catching the radio call with Nick Curran and AJ, and then probably go back and watch the replay through ESPN's site.  The TV coverage does make this a slightly earlier start that normal, with the tip at noon.

Cardinal Couple Radio Hour Podcast

(Paulie crashes a photo of our former "mayor for life" 
Jerry Abramson and his lovely bride Madeline.}

The latest edition of the CCRHP is available on Youtube at:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sr0tjH7pLXA

Four of us joined in the virtual studio, with Case still working on office renovations, Daryl, Jared, Paulie, and myself made the call.  Lot's of talk of basketball as is typical this time of year.  With three games to recap, we moved through them fairly quickly, but a good discussion, as always.

JMcA