WBB Faces Huskies tonight -- WEDNESDAY CARDINAL COUPLE

 Another Top 25 Test tonight for WBB

(when Robbie sings the National Anthem, Cards win..Get it, marketing?)

Just a few days removed from their second loss of the season. Louisville WBB returns to the friendly confines of the KFC YUM! Center for another top 25 battle. This time, it is the 11-0, #23rd ranked Washington Huskies. 

It's a Washington squad that is showing huge improvement from last season, when they were 19-15 and 7-11 in conference play. This season, defense has been a major building block for the Huskies success, they are #1 in the Pac 12 and #2 nationally in FG perentage allowed at 30.9%. They also outscore their opponents by 25.3 a contest. 

Looking at the schedule so far, UW has wins over Sacramento State, North Carolina Central, Pacific, Seattle, Idaho State, Air Force, Hawaii, San Francisco, Montana St. Washington St. and St.Mary's (CA). Washingtn State was #21 in the nation when they fell to the Huskies 60-55 on Dec. 10th, 

(Lauren Schwartz)

Elle Ladine (12.4 ppg) and Lauren Schwartz (12.3 ppg) lead UW in scoring this season. Ladine is a 5'11" sophomore guard and Schwartz a 5'11" senior forward, out of Union, KY and Ryle H.S. She played on the 2019 Kentucky Girls State Championship squad at Ryle. She began her collegiate career at Rice University, where she saw 51 games in two years before heading to Washington....following her current coach Tina Langley to the school. 

Schwartz played 30 minutes and had six points in the only other meeting between these two schools, back on Nov. 20, 2021 in Seattle. The Cards won that matchup 61.53. Leading the Cards that night were Kianna Smith and Liz Dixon with 13 points each. None of the current Cards on the UofL roster played in that first meeting between the two squads. 

Tina Langley (left)

Tina Langley is the head WBB coach at Washington and is in her third season with the school as skipper. She was at Rice as head coach before taking the UW job, and she has also served as an associate coach at University of Maryland....but was not there when Walz was on the UM staff.

The keys Wednesday for the Cards to give UW their first loss will be finding a way to score against a very good, defensive minded Huskies squad...and to shake off the loss that they suffered in Storrs on Sunday.  Louisville will need a huge game from Cochran and Harris on the boards and scoring from those two, as well as Jeferson, Taylor and Rickards. 

I would hope the Cards paid attention to the scouting report they were provided with for this contest. UConn did the things they do well against our Cards, and we failed to stop them at it. 

It's a 7 p.m. tip and will be on the ACC Network, as well as on 93.9 FM with Nick and Cortnee. We suggest you hop in the jalopy and join the Cardinal Couple crew out there for this one!  

paulie