A Split Screen Sunday - Sunday Cardinal Couple

Basketball and Volleyball In Action

I hope you can split screen, or picture in picture.

Both Women's basketball and Volleyball are in action today, and both get underway at 1pm.

Neither team is playing in games that should be hugely consequential.

WBB

Women's basketball is still in early non-conference play, but take on a decent South Florida team.  They're at 4-2 in the young season, with losses to UConn and Vanderbilt, and wins over Bethune-Cookman, Mount Saint Mary's, UTRGV (Univ. of Texas Rio Grande Valley), and Jacksonville.

Jose Fernandez sports a very international squad, with players hailing from Brazil, Bulgaria, Democratic Republic of Congo, Finland, France, Isreal, Italy, Ivory Coast, Latvia, and Spain.  Only two Americans are on the squad, from Minnesota and Ohio.

The game is at the ESPN Wide World of Sports which is part of the Disney empire in Orlando.  This makes the game technically a neutral court game, and it will be interesting to see how the crowd is split.  USF is in Tampa/St. Pete, so it is considerably closer, but how many Louisville fans decided that perhaps spending a long weekend in warm Florida in late November sounded like a good idea.

With this young, still forming, Cardinals team, USF could present a real challenge, but at the other basket, one wonders how the broad spectrum of backgrounds, and particularly languages, might hamper communication between players on the USF squad.

TV coverage for basketball is listed as "NBC Sports FAST channel", which I believe to be part of Peacock, NBC's streaming service.  You may still have it hanging around from the Olympics?

Volleyball

{Hailey Pearce leads the Hokies in kills)

Virginia Tech is the foe for the volleyball squad.  Also with the 1pm start, you probably already have access to the ACC Network Extra where this one is streaming if you're a Cards sports fan.

Virginia Tech is...and there's no way to put this delicately...not good.  They sports a 7-20 overall record, and only a single win in conference, over another not-very-good Clemson squad, though it was in South Carolina, so maybe that counts for something?  Not much, though as they are still in last place in the conference standings.

Non-conference losses include UCF, Winthrop (though they did also get a win over Winthrop), Lafayette, Cleveland State.

Their most impressive win is perhaps over VCU, who is sporting an RPI ranking of 85.

Head Coach Marci Byers is in her fifth year with the program.  They had a good start last season, opening the season 10-0, though the competition was not very strong.  After the good start, however, they went 3-16 for the rest of the season.

So, if you tune in to this one, please don't expect much in the way of competitive volleyball, though, as always, the Cards can't just lounge out on the court and take things for granted.

You'll find this one on ACC Network Extra streaming.

Cardinal Couple Radio Hour Podcast

(the early days, from a basement on a hill)

While there was no live broadcast of the CCRHP yesterday as I was making my way back home from Denver where I was attending a professional conference this week, Case, Daryl, and Paulie did get together to chat about volleyball and basketball.

I have not had a chance to listen to this yet, but I'm sure the insights are great and much fun was had by all.

Check it out at:

https://creators.spotify.com/pod/show/cardinal-couple/episodes/Volleyball-Set-for-Big-Week-WBB-Bounces-Back-e2rd8ll

-- 

JMcA