Basketball - 3x3
FIBA 3x3 World Cup
Don't call it a Summer Slump, we've got plenty to talk about. Starting with Basketball.
We'll start with the FIBA Women's Cup Competition in Belgium. We've been covering this a fair bit as Hailey Van Lith is one of the players for the US.
Yesterday's game, in the Quarterfinal round saw a great matchup between the US and Canada. Canada lost one game in pool play to Spain, but it was enough to advance to the knockout rounds where they first defeated Germany to match up against the US. The US team waltzed through pool play with an undefeated 4-0 record, earning the bye to skip the round of 16.
Alas, the Americans did not play well in this game. Canada came away with the win 14-10. A defensive battle early with a number of blocked shots and steals, but USA's shooting was ice cold early.
Both teams shot better as the 10 minutes game progressed, but obviously neither reached the 21 mark to end the game early. Van Lith did have a number of shot opportunities that didn't fall, shots that we know she's quite capable of routinely making.
This does eliminate USA from the competition. Regardless, it was an impressive event for the American's, if just for the absolute dominance they displayed during pool play with wins over Brazil, France, Austria, and New Zealand, all respectable teams on the international stage.
Force 10 3x3
Force 10 manages a professional 3x3 basketball league in partnership with the WNBA as a chance to expand playing opportunities for women and as a sort of development league for the WNBA.
The league is expanding this year with added partnerships with the Connecticut Sun, Dallas Wings, and Indiana Fever.
The Indiana squad picked up Kianna Smith to play on their team. She'll be playing alongside Juliunn Redmond, Kathryn Westbeld, and Khiarica Rasheed.
Volleyball National Teams
This week will begin the third week of the Volleyball Nations League event for the women. This will be the last week of pool style play with the fourth week being a knockout tournament.
Anna Stevenson was named to the Volleyball National Team to be part of this event and has been contributing well to the competitions so far. VNL does allow team rosters to change between each week of play, so no guarantees that she will be on the roster for this week of play, but I would expect to see her there.
Matches this week will be against Belgium, Serbia, Türkiye, and Germany, and this pool will be played in Calgary, Canada.
Volleyball Schedule not Announced
The Fall Volleyball schedule wasn't announced, and it wasn't even updated on the Volleyball schedule page of https://gocards.com, but it was available on UofL sport composite schedule.
Thanks to Case for alerting me to this during the Cardinal Couple Radio Hour Podcast yesterday, we got to take a look through it some.
This schedule is very similar to last year's in a lot of ways.
Of course, it starts off with the Red and Black intra-squad scrimmage, that'll be August 20th. Then the season opens in South Dakota with two matches on Friday the 26th against Northern Kentucky, and South Dakota and then a match Saturday the 27th against Missouri. If you'll recall, this was the same line-up that we had for the Cardinal Classic in L&N FCU Arena last year.
That will be followed by a mid-week matchup on the 31st against Western Kentucky in Bowling Green. This should be a great match as WKU, under the leadership of Travis Hudson continues to develop into a solid team that despite being in a mid-major conference, is competing well at the national level.
The home opener will be Friday, September 2nd vs San Diego, with another match on Sunday, September 4th against Ohio State.
The next weekend will be the Louisville Invitational. This will start with a Friday, September 9th match between Xavier and Lipscomb, with the nightcap being Louisville vs Purdue. Of course, you should never overlook a team coached by a Shondell, and Purdue with Dave Shondell at the helm for many years is always competitive. Saturday the 10th will be a matchup between the winners and losers of Friday's matches, so Louisville will play either Xavier or Lipscomb. Again, hearkening back to last year, this was the same exact setup and teams that we saw on Xavier's home floor in Cincinnati.
Next up is the traditional match against Kentucky. This one will also be mid-week and it's in Lexington this year, on September 14th. Following up from that will be a road-trip out to California to meet up with a perennial national volleyball powerhouse in Stanford. Some similar echoes to last year as well with the Purdue, Xavier/Lipscomb (it ended up being Xavier last year), Kentucky, Nebraska stretch of schedule.
Also like last year, after that stretch begins conference play. In week one we do the Florida visit with Miami and Florida State on the 23rd and 25th. We host the non-Florida southern contingent, Clemson and Georgia Tech on September 30th and October 2nd. Next up is the northern end of the conference with a trip to Boston College and Syracuse on October 7th and 9th.
Returning back home, Virginia Tech and Wake Forest come to visit October 14th and 16th. That's followed by the awkward travel pairing on October 21st and 23rd with visits to Virginia and Pitt.
As travel partners with Notre Dame, we see them mid-week, October 26th. ND is a huge question mark this year. After a dismal, sub-.500 year last year, they have changed coaches and seen about half of their roster turn over by way of the transfer portal. Who knows what sort of team will show up in late October. Hopefully we'll have some sort of sense by then, but right now, all bets are off.
Duke and Wake Forest are going to be checking out L&N FCU Arena on Friday and Saturday the 28th and 29th. The homestand continues November 4th and 6th with NC State and UNC.
Finally, at the end of the season, we have some traditional highlight, and non-travel-partner, matchups. Louisville visits Georgia Tech and UNC on November 11th and 13th. Pitt comes to Louisville on the 18th, and finally we wrap up the regular season, and here's to hoping another ACC Championship, at Notre Dame on the 23rd.
Cardinal Couple Radio Hour Podcast
A Paulie-less CCRHP this week as our leader takes a nice summer vacation. Daryl was busy with the Bats as well, left the trio of Case, Jared, and myself to cover the show. We got a pleasant surprise with the sneaky release of the volleyball schedule to the composite calendar so we discussed that with first thoughts as we looked at it for the first time.
Plenty of other news to cover with basketball and more. You can check it out at it's anchor.fm home at:
JMcA
No comments:
Post a Comment
Please leave your comments here. We ask you be respectful of other posts, no matter how ridiculous they may seem to you. After all, it is CARDINAL COUPLE.
Any attempts to advertise a product or other website here in the comments section without the prior consent of CARDINAL COUPLE will result in a bill rendered for advertising services and possible legal action. We're serious. No more bots.
Now, have your take...