CARDINAL COUPLE

CARDINAL COUPLE
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Monday, March 6, 2023

Virginia Tech Beats Louisville WBB 75-67 in ACC WBB Championship -- Sunday Softball and Lacrosse Results -- MONDAY CARDINAL COUPLE

 

AMOORE, KITLEY COMBINE FOR 45 TO SINK CARDS




VIRGINA TECH outshot the Cards 44% to Louisville's 37.5% from the floor and went 25-27 from the foul line...compared to Louisville's 10-12 to down the Cards 75-67 Sunday in the ACC WBB Championship game in Greensboro, NC. 




Jeff Walz has often said that if one of his teams gets beat, he prefers it to be because they didn't make shots and that was the case yesterday, plus VT enjoyed a remarkable day at the foul stripe. The Cards didn't have quite the defensive effort they they had on Friday or  Saturday and trailed 38-28 at the halftime break after trailing 21-14 at the end of the first quarter. The Cards led for about three minutes in the first quarter, but a VT 7-0 quarter closing run gave the Hokies the lead again for good.




The Cards trailed 51-44 after three quarters, but a 7-0 Virginia Tech run to stretch the lead out 14 made the Cards chances of getting back into this one tough. Despite a late run where UofL got the VT lead down to six late in the fourth quarter, VT proved to be the better team today. 



Christlyn Carr led all scores with 27 points and Hailey Van Lith finished with 12. Olivia Cochran was the final Cards double-digit scorer with 11 points. Kasa Robinson had eight points and nine rebounds for UofL, but fouled out late. Merissah Russell had six points in 14 minutes and Liz Dixon three points in 21 minutes. Morgan Jones did not score in limited minutes and Norika Konno and Nyla Harris finished the game without scoring in reserve roles. 




VT shot 44% for the game while Louisville shot 37.5% for the afternoon. VT made 21 of their 22 free throw attempts, the Cards were 10-12. The foul line visitation is certainly something Cardinals fans might raise an eyebrow over, but the referees called 24 fouls on the Cards and 14 on VT. I try not to comment on how certain refs don't get along or see eye-to-eye with coaches, and I'll refrain from comment here. 

I also don't like to write volumes about Cardinals WBB losses and I won't about this one. VT took the contest over early and repeatedly turned back any Louisville chances to get back in it. VT shot better, had more success at the free throw line and committed less fouls. And, those aspects usually make one team better than the other, like it did Sunday.




I'd be remiss if I didn't congratulate the Hokies and Kenny Brooks (who is a great guy and one I've enjoyed meeting over the years). Carry the ACC Champs banner proudly in the NCAA Tournament and, who knows, maybe we'll meet again in the "big dance". 

(PHOTOS BY JARED ANDERSON) 


THE FRED REPORT


(Not such a great day in the Greensboro neighborhood for Cards fans) 


FREE THROWS --  As we mentioned earlier, Louisville was 10-12 in free throw shooting. We can brag abut hitting the free ones at a 83% success rate, until we look at the 93% success rate the Hokies had on the free ones. (20-22). Stiil, 83% is better than the 70% we mandate for a letter, so, we award A CAPITAL "F". 

REBOUNDS -- VT barely won the battle of the boards 35-34, despite a big effort from Kasa and her nine grabs. Neither team had a double figure rebounder. Rebounds weren't the major factor in this one, anyway -- it was made shots...and I'll award a small case "r" for the Cards almost winning the boards battle. 

EFFORT/EXECUTION -- Louisville won the points-in the-paint battle, had just nine turnovers in 40 minutes and 14 points-off-turnovers (compared to four for VT) but took 17 more shots and just hit three more that VT. And, scored less points. A higher shot % could have given this one to the Cards. The effort was sort of there, but not strong enough to win. I assign a lower-case "e" . The game plan didn't work as well as the Cards would have liked

DEFENSE -- Stopping Amoore was an objective but that failed. 75 points allowed is high for this Cardinals team. Kitley ruled early and the Cards did the best they could to stop her, but, let's face it...the two-time ACC Player of the Year is going to have the occasional big night, right? Louisville competed, played hard but let VT score more. A lower case "d" here. 

FINAL FRED REPORT -- F-r-e-d

So, ,a disappointment to get that far and fall in the final game. Hopefully, a lesson learned as the Cards look forward to the NCAA Tournament. 


POST GAME WALZ, CARR and KASA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=we58r1B-Zc0




CARDINAL COUPLE ACC WBB PICK 'EM RESULTS

Karen J. won the Pick Em with a 12-2 record. There was a four way tie for second place, with Jared, Daryl, Case and Thomas all ending with a 11-3 record, so we went to total points and Jared was closest to the score of 166 with a points guess of 140. 

Thanks to all who participated !!


LOUISVILLE SOFTBALL

Northwestern 11 - Louisville 1




A rough first game of the day for the Cards at Ulmer, falling to Northwestern in five-innings. 

The Cards actually had a 1-0 lead after two innings Vanessa Miller scoring on a Makaya Hurst single, in the bottom of the second, but Northwester unloaded the bats in the top of the fourth with three runs, added five more in the top of the sixth and got three more scores in the seventh

Taylor Roby took the loss and went 3.1 innings, she was followed by Grizzard for 2.2 innings and Felder pitched the seventh inning.

LOUISVILLE   -  NKU 0 

The Cards plated two runs in the fourth inning on a two-RBI triple by Korbe Otis (who scored on the hit via error) and Alyssa Zabala tossed a three-hit shutout at the Norse for the win.  

Zabala had 12 strikeouts in the circle and just two walks in seven innings pitched. She struck out the side in the seventh. Zabala goes to 5-2 on the season. The freshman has 49 strikeouts in 42 innings

(our photographer Jared Anderson, as mentioned, was in Greensboro, so we didn't line up any photos for Lacrosse or Softball...We occasionally get a reader pho)to and we're always happy to run those with full credit -- if requested -- but none arrived yeserday) 

LAX DOWNS PITT 12-9




Hannah Morris and Nicole Perroni scored three goals each for Louisville Lacrosse (4-2) and the Cards gets their first  ACC win of the season. 

Louisville built an 8-4 lead at halftime but Pitt battled back to tie the contest at 9-9 with three minutes to play. The Cards caught fire late, though, and got goals from Negai Nakazawa, Perroni and Kokoro Nakazawa to create the three goal win

Sara Addeche was in goalkeep for the Cards. 

POST GAME INTERVIEW: Teeter and Perroni

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=we58r1B-Zc0   


paulie


12 comments:

  1. Cards were defeated by a better team. Just like a number of losses this season, they are almost good enough but not quite. Unfortunate that HVL had a bad shooting game, but she did what she had to do. Referees didn't beat us.

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  2. Congratulations Karen J., this wasn't an easy pick the favorite tournament!
    Congrats to VA Tech also, they're a damn good team deserving of a #1 seed in the tournament.
    They're so good they REALLY didn't need that "cough cough" extra help.
    All good, though, we played ourselves into a higher tournament seed ourselves, and we'll be a hard out for other tournament teams.

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    Replies
    1. Agreed. We will likely be a 5 seed and I think we will match up well with whichever 4 seed we draw.

      Delete
    2. Kinda wish we were a 6 seed instead of a 5, now we gotta beat a 4 seed on their floor to face a 1 seed in the sweet sixteen.
      Another "party crasher" team hopefully 👍

      Delete
    3. Yes I'll say it for you the officiating in Ncaa women's basketball is inconsistent horrific imo.

      Delete
  3. Walz and you all hit the nail on the head. Gotta outshoot the opponent. On to the NCAA, GO CARDS!!

    The Real Joe Hill

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  4. Congratulations to Kenny Brooks and his staff at Virginia Tech they have a great team.

    ReplyDelete
  5. David Watson3/06/2023 8:12 PM

    Hey Ho!
    It's Dave-O !

    Tough game to lose and UofL is probably a 5th seed in the WBB Big Dance. They might not make it past 2nd round or Sweet 16... but you know you'll get their best effort. Girls did focus, in this tournament, more so than I have seen them do all season long. The last 12 games with Kasa as starting PG... e have been a top 15 team...and world's better than we looked at MTSU
    I've been following some other sources on women's college basketball and the main theme is that, although "O" is very talented, she's not the "big" that will dominate te league or any post season tournament. I will say this... we didn't lose any focus and did not have a lot of the dumb turnover have had all season long... You know, the times where we would just turn the ball over, during crucial periods...in BUNCH. HVL had a bad one.. but again... this is because VT scouted her really good. So by the middle of the 2 quarter, you had HVL "Flinching" and not taking the open shots... because she was expecting someone to block her shot... which almost never happened.

    Another small observation... VT is a good team... but I really don't think they get past the Sweet 16 or Elite 8. Kitley is basically a billboard on the floor. 6'6" she just has to stand tall.. and she doesn't have as many post moves as Cunane had last year or South Carolina's "big" has this year.. As a whole, the team has skill and can shoot but they don't have a lot of athleticism....not like some Cardinals teams of the past have had.

    If Walz, in my opinion, can get a talented point guard out of the portal and a 6'5"-6'6" dominant post, or if these rarely played freshmen from this year can rise and shine and really contribute, the Cards will be OK.

    I did think it was Notre Dame's tournament to lose and if Miles hadn't got hurt, I think they would have. Kasa showed that Citron is only as good as who's defending her and trying to find a player who can do what Kasa did will be next to impossible.

    Hope springs eternal, though.

    Dave-O

    ReplyDelete
  6. From the Homer Simpson School of Mathematics:

    Sun Belt Conference commissioner Keith Gill has apologized to the Troy women’s basketball team for a missed call at the end of the Trojans’ 86-83 loss to Old Dominion on Friday.

    The Monarchs got away with having six players on the court while scoring their final basket with 2.1 seconds remaining. The on-court officials apparently did not notice the violation, which would have resulted in a technical foul and free throws for the Trojans, and left the court before it could be corrected by replay.

    There are five digits on a hand for a reason, stripes...

    paulie

    ReplyDelete
  7. Sooooo...perusing articles and comments, seeing some folks talking about fire Walz because he doesn't/won't recruit a "dominant" big. Gotta laugh. Only so many "dominant" bigs out there, and my defense to that is although we don't/haven't had any, Walz STILL wins. Not like we haven't beaten Kitley before, or Cunane, or...and in my opinion Kitley is better than Cunane was, Kitley is money with that short range jumper that goes with her post moves.
    Also had a commenter jump on Kasa being the "epitome" what Louisville basketball is because of that ONE play where she did push the VA Tech player. One play in FIVE years that was a sign of frustration imo that happened AFTER Soule slammed her head and NO CALL.
    One guy had the NERVE to tell me I don't know sh_t about the team, Walz, or recruiting 🤔🤦

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. That's crazy CJW is doing a great job here he's lifted this program to Great Heights anything else is ridiculous.

      Delete

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