Strong Fourth Quarter leads Cards past FSU 82-75 -- MONDAY CARDINAL COUPLE

 

MORGAN JONES PUTS 25 ON FORMER TEAM IN UofL WIN

(Hailey Van Lith fan in Tallahassee)

It's said you can never really go home again, but, Morgan Jones looked to be in her element against FSU...making nine of her ten shots from the floor seven of he eight free throws and grabbing 1o rebounds. The former FSU star just needed a welcome mat, batch of chocolate chip cookies and friendly puppy to greet her at the visitors locker room door in the on-campus Donald L. Tucker Center. 

Oh, and just who was Donald L. Tucker? Why, he was the leader of the Florida House of Representatives from 1974-78 and a special ambassador to  The Dominican Republic for the U.S.  So, if this guy can get a facility named after home, what can we do for our beloved ex "mayor-for-life" Jerry Abramson?

For 3/4th of this contest Sunday afternoon in the Donald L. Tucker Center, the scenario seemed to be the the story of "close, but not close enough". The Cards WBB squad would make runs at the FSU lead, even grab it away a couple of times, but...from the early beginnings of the contest to the end of the third quarter...the story was the same. FSU had scored more overall points,

20-14 Noles after the first 10 minutes, in a quarter that was slow in developing. Almost 2-1.2 minutes passed before either team scored, and Louisville trailed 20-14 despite shooting 40%. The encouragement of seeing Liz Dixon and Hailey Van Lith off to good starts was maybe overshadowed by five Cardinals turnovers.

Louisville would draw even closer, at the start of the next 10 minutes, knocking the lead down to three a couple of times and leading by one at 25-24 after a couple of Jones buckets, but FSU went on a half-ending 9-4 run to secure a 33-29 halftime lead.

If the FSU pep band had broken into Little Richard's "You Keep a Knocking But You Can't Come In".( Little Richard song link) one couldn't have blamed them...

(You could even take the song "Along Came Jones" and match it up with this game). LINK to "ALONG CAME JONES" SONG

So, at the half, the score stood at 33.29 and the usual suspects were showing up, with Jones, on the scoresheet -- with Van Lith at six points and some quality minutes from Norika Konno. Van Lith had an unaccustomed-to six turnovers, though, and UofL had only two points off turnovers to trail 33-29. Latson was 1-8 from the floor. 

FSU won the third quarter 24-22 and, although the Cards were keeping league-leading scorer Ta'Niya Latson relatively quiet for the game (seven points),  Sara Bedeji was another of the several, talented FSU scorers and she had picked up the pace for Brooke Wyckoff's Garnet and Gold. FSU had a 57-51 lead with ten minutes to go and you had to wonder if the Cards had one last charge in them. 

And...as it turned out...they most certainly did. 

In the end, it was the Olivia Cochran and Van Lith duo who exploded for the Cards and salted this one away. Louisville started the quarter on a 11-4 run and they grabbed the lead on a Van Lith jumper with seven minutes to go. The Cards were ahead  62-61 and never relinquished the lead again.  Cochran's 10 point fourth quarter gave the Noles another inside scorer to  worry about and Louisville led 68-63 with 4:42 to go and 79-75 with 27 seconds to play. The Noles never gave up, but it was their turn to hear Louisville perform "Keep a Knocking" to describe the gme flow.. 

The Cards put a 82-75 win on the board and, besides Jones' 25 points...Van Lith had 20, Cochran had 13 and Carr had 11. With the win, the Cards go to 14-6 and 5-2 in the ACC...FSU goes to 16-4 and 5-2.

And, the shot of the day...maybe of the year came from HVL, as the Cards were protecting a 77-75 lead late. Watch the link and marvel:  LINK

THE FRED REPORT

(Cards danced away at the very end like Fred Astaire ending a movie) 

FREE THROWS --  14 for 19 is 73% and that's enough to earn the Cards a Capital "F" Walz probably would have rather had FSU's 18 for 20...but after 21 attempts for the teams in the third quarter, they only tried nine in the fourth quarter. Nice consistency, ref crew.

REBOUNDS -- Louisville dominated here 42-28 and Jones had 10, Cochran and Van Lith eight. A capital "R" works here...

EFFORT/EXECUTION -- 18 turnovers is too many, but 54% SHOOTING is very nice. 19 assists on 32 made baskets isn't too bad either. The 31 fourth-quarter points was two more than the Cards had in the entire first half, and despite claims by some that too much attention is paid to scoring, I'm pretty sure you still need to have at least one more point than an opponent to win. I'll offer a small case "e" for that revved up fourth quarter effort. 

DEFENSE --  Louisville held the league's leading scorer (Latson) to just 11 points and the Cards had six blocks and six steals. 37.9% shooting and just 75 points out of the league's highest scoring team is a nice stat, too. And, in the end, the Cards held FSU to just four points in a crucial four-minute part of the final quarter, and that ultimately led to victory. Capital "D"

FINAL FRED REPORT:  F-R-e-D

THEY SAID IT:   

Jeff Walz post game

FSU Post Game

The Cards return home for two next week.  Thursday (Boston College) and Sunday (NC State) games. The fun continues, make sure you're a past of it.  

paulie