Where's Daryl?
(Jared with you this Friday filling in for Daryl, who filled in for me Thursday. Sufficiently confused? Good! We'll begin! And, don't even start with me on Mondays or minor holiday..or Who's On First.)
If you're needing a distraction from the happenings on the basketball court following a pair of days this week with Louisville men's basketball (Tuesday) and Louisville women's basketball (Wednesday) falling at home, then maybe the NCAA Volleyball Tournament can help.
Before we look at volleyball, let's look at a few interesting women's basketball results from last night:
#5 Indiana hosted #6 North Carolina and the Hoosiers cruised to a 24-point win without star Grace Berger playing.
#20 Maryland traveled to #7 Notre Dame and won on a buzzer beater. Diamond Miller made sure to hush the Irish faithful when the final two of her 31 points went in as the buzzer went off.
#12 NC State visited #10 Iowa and won by 13. Despite a 45-point performance by Caitlin Clark, the Hawkeyes suffered their third loss of the season.
Louisville Faces Samford in NCAA Tournament First Round
Now, onto Louisville volleyball and what we hope will be a fun evening at the L&N FCU Arena.
1-seed Louisville hosts Samford in the opening round of the NCAA Tournament. Their match is set for 7:00 p.m., but will be at the mercy of 8-seed Purdue vs Tennessee in the event the Boilermakers and Vols run long from their 4:00 p.m. start time.
The Cards went 26-2 in the regular season and tied with Pitt for the ACC title with a 17-1 record. Louisville has won three-straight ACC Championships and earned their second straight 1-seed, with the formatting switching to a new style this year.
Samford won the Southern Conference (SoCon) Tournament to earn an automatic qualifier bid to the NCAA Tournament. 8-seed Furman was the host site. Furman went on a hot run to advance to the SoCon final against 2-seed Samford. The Bulldogs would win in straight sets for their fifth conference title in the last seven years.
Samford went 19-12 on the season. They went 0-2 against "Power Five" programs with losses to LSU and Clemson.
The Bulldogs average 13.9 kills per set with a .232 hitting percentage. They had five players break 100 kills on the year. Kenya McQuirter led the team with 439 kills. While Samford was strong offensively, they were average on the defensive end, averaging 1.8 blocks per set and 15.5 digs per set. Kate Morgan was the exception, with the defensive specialist earning SoCon Libero of the Year with 514 digs.
For Louisville, blocking should be the focus of the match. Samford has two players standing at 6'2, but only one played this season- Greer Golden. The freshman saw action in almost every set, but played a limited role. With Samford running with a smaller lineup, one of the nation's best hitting teams has the chance for a field day led by ACC Defensive Player of the Year Amaya Tillman.
To our knowledge, all Louisville players are cleared to play. Raquel Lazaro dealt with a minor injury several weeks back, but she missed minimal time and has looked dominant since then. Anna DeBeer missed extended time with a leg injury and has slowly eased her way back into the rotation, but looked solid to close out the season against Pitt and Notre Dame.
Cardinal Couple will have media at the event, even if it is just Jeff running the stairs leading the crowd in the C-A-R-D-S cheer and Jared taking selfies all over the arena and ignoring the court action.
Happy Friday and Go Cards!
Jared
Hopefully she Cards handle the match in three sets. Assuming it's on an ESPN platform
ReplyDeleteESPN Plus is the channel tonight and it's a pay for service unfortunately. Who knows what they are paying the NCAA for the broadcast rights
ReplyDeletepaulie