Taj Roberts Named ACC Rookie of the Week -- ACC Volleyball Awards -- Volleyball Tournament Reaction -- TUESDAY CARDINAL COUPLE

Roberts Named ACC Rookie of the Week

For the second time this season, freshman Tajianna Roberts was named ACC Rookie of the Week. Although Louisville only played one game over the last week, Roberts played a crucial role in the road win against Colorado.

Roberts scored 13 points while shooting 50% from the field. She added four steals as well as a pair of rebounds and a pair of assists. This is the sixth time this season where the freshman guard finished in the double figures in scoring. Roberts used a 5-0 run to help spark the Louisville 16-0 run in the fourth quarter.

Louisville returns home tomorrow night to host #11 Oklahoma. Tip-off is a bit earlier than normal, slated for 5:00pm. This game also features the return of former Louisville player Payton Verhulst, who is now with the Sooners.

ACC Volleyball Awards Features Multiple Cardinals

The ACC announced the annual ACC Volleyball awards yesterday. Elena Scott and Nayelis Cabello earned accolades.

Elena Scott was named ACC Defensive Player of the Year for the second straight time. It is her fourth All-ACC award in her career. This season, the Louisville native averaged 4.43 digs per set played with a total of 456 digs on the year. She also had 110 assists and led the Cards with 33 service aces. Scott's career tallies include 1,861 digs, 419 assists, and 137 aces. The digs and aces both rank in the top-10 in program history.

Nayelis Cabello was named ACC Freshman of the Year. Cabello played a major role in Louisville's 6-2 offense, where she rotated with Elle Glock. The newcomer averaged 5.32 assists per set with a total of 554 this season. She also added 162 digs and 15 blocks. She was named ACC Freshman of the Week six times this season.

Scott was named to the All-ACC First Team alongside Anna DeBeer and Charitie Luper. Care Cresse was named to the All-ACC Second Team while Cabello was named to the All-ACC Freshmen Team.

ACC Player of the Year was awarded to Pitt's Olivia Babcock. ACC Setter of the Year went to Stanford's Kami Miner. Dan Fisher was named ACC Coach of the Year as Pitt won the ACC and was named the top overall seed in the upcoming NCAA Tournament.

Louisville opens up play in the NCAA Tournament on Friday night at approximately 7:00pm against Chicago State.

Volleyball Tournament Reaction

With the release of the NCAA Volleyball Tournament Sunday night, the biggest question for Louisville fans was answered. What seed would Louisville get? They earned the final 1-seed.

Pittsburgh earned the top overall seed. The Panthers lost one match all season and won the ACC. Nebraska and Penn State each earned 1-seeds, both with two losses.

Louisville beat out Stanford and Creighton, both of whom the Cards beat this season. Stanford did turn around and even the season series against Louisville this past weekend. The Committee seemed to weigh Louisville's wins over Stanford, Creighton, SMU, Wisconsin, and Kentucky pretty heavily. Kentucky earned a 3-seed while the other four on that list are 2-seeds. UofL went 5-1 against 2-seeds and 3-seeds, but went 0-4 against 1-seeds. 

Stanford went 5-3 against teams 3-seed or higher. The Cardinal (singular) won three sets against the Cardinals (plural) but Louisville won four sets, which might have helped been the deciding factor.

While Creighton went 29-2, they went 1-2 against teams 3-seed or higher. The Blue Jays fell to Louisville and Nebraska, but did sweep Kansas. The weakness of the Big East most likely played a factor in the seeding.

The ACC saw much love from the selection committee. Four of the top eight seeds are ACC schools: 2-seed Pitt, 1-seed Louisville, 2-seed Stanford, and 2-seed SMU. Nine ACC schools made the NCAA Tournament, The other five include 7-seed Florida State, 7-seed Georgia Tech, 8-seed North Carolina, 8-seed Miami, and NC State.

The Commonwealth of Kentucky also saw a fair amount of love with four schools dancing: 1-seed Louisville, 3-seed Kentucky, Morehead State, and Western Kentucky. The three non-Louisville schools were placed in the Pitt Region, highlighted by top seeds Pitt and SMU. I don't see any of the three surviving to the Final Four.

Louisville played a lot of matches against teams in the NCAA Tournament this year. Those opponents include Wisconsin, Tennessee, Penn State, South Dakota, Missouri, Northern Iowa, Creighton, Kentucky, Nebraska, Georgia Tech, Florida State, Miami, NC State, SMU, North Carolina, Stanford (2x), and Pitt (2x). 19 matches out of 30 opponents this season in the NCAA Tournament shows that this Louisville team is battle tested. Are the Cards ready for the challenge? Playing at home the entire tournament plays in their favor, but the Cards did lose at home to both Nebraska and Pitt this season.

Keys to Winning the NCAA Tournament:

-Limit unforced errors. This includes service errors and attack errors. Louisville likes to serve aggressively, but taking a little off the serve to keep the ball in gives your defense a chance to make a stop. Attack errors seemed to be more plentiful than kills a few times this season. That's more of a mentality or lack of focus.

-Strong blocking. Louisville is one of the top blocking teams in the country. They averaged 3.0 blocks per set this season. The Cards have established their identity under Dani Busboom Kelly through their blocking.

-Feed the hot hand. This might be an underrated key point. Louisville is not short on playmakers by any means. Different players have stepped up in various matches. Whether it's Anna DeBeer, Charitie Luper, Sofia Maldonado Diaz, Payton Petersen, Reese Robins, Cara Cresse, Phekran Kong, or Hannah Sherman, find the hot hand and feed them. It's no different than feeding the hot shooter in basketball.

Cardinal Couple plans to have in person coverage for all Louisville matches in the NCAA Tournament.

Happy Tuesday and Go Cards!

Jared

Volleyball a #1seed for NCAA Tournament -- By the numbers ...Louisville WBB -- Monday Cardinal Couple

VOLLEYBALL CARDS ARE #1 SEED

The Louisville Volleyball squad was picked as a #1 seed for the NCAA Tournament (#4 overall) and will open play Friday at 7 p.m. against Chicago State at the KFC YUM! Center.  UNI will play Illinois in the first match at 4pm.

These notes from our VolleyCards guru..Jeff McAdams

--nine ACC squads made the field of 64

-- interview with Coach Dani Busboom Kelly HERE 

-- UNI head coach Bobbi Peterson is UofL player Payton Peterson's mother. We'll have much more on the first round matchup and the Tournament as the match draws closer. 

To see the Cards reaction to the seeding,  watch the clip below 

https://www.courier-journal.com/videos/sports/college/louisville/2024/12/01/louisville-cardinals-ncaa-volleyball-tournament-selection-show/76693665007/

To see the entire bracket, go to https://www.ncaa.com/brackets/volleyball-women/d1/2024

All of the Cards NCAA Tournament games WILL BE played in Louisville, at either the KFC YUM! Center or Freedom Hall. 

WBB CARDS ARE 5-2...1/5th of the way thru the season

The Louisville women's basketbll sqaaaud is 5-2 so faar this season, with wins over USI, UT Martin, USF, Morehead St and Colorado...and losses to UK and UCLA.

Jadya Curry has the leaading PPG (points per game average with 12.3 after her three games,nand Taj Roberts has the most points --194 -- after seven games.  

Roberts has seen the most minures per game (27.7) and Imani Berry is the only Cards player that hasn't missed a free throw. See anythng familiar about these three? They are all freshmen. ...

Berry is also the the 3-point leader, with 15 made out of 29 attempted. a .519 %. 

Nyla Harris has the hightest shooting % out of the starters, with a sizlling .574.

All 14 Cards have scored this season and the Cards have made 47 threes in seven games, almost seven a game. 

How are the WBB Cards doing, in your estimation?  Leave a comment in the comments secion  

paulie 

Mixed Results - Sunday Cardinal Couple

Volleyball 4 Seed In Question

After the disappointing, but not surprising loss to Pitt Thanksgiving Eve, yesterday's match against Stanford took on added importance for the Cards in their quest to achieve a top 4 seed in the NCAA tournament.

Palm trees on campus...must ne nice...

A win against Stanford would've all but assured that top 4 seeding by most estimations.  A loss...and things get interesting.

We live in interesting times, my friend.  The Cards did go down to defeat against the Card, 3-1 (25-23, 25-22, 27-29, 27-25), though as you can see, it was a close battle the whole evening.

good blocking usually wins games. 

What was the difference?  As I've said numerous times, Louisville lives and dies by their blocking, and Stanford outblocked the Cards, admittedly only barely, 12-10. But Louisville really needs to lead in that stat to win matches.  I'm tempted to point at service errors as another problem, as Louisville racked up 13 service errors compared to only three aces, but Stanford had 14 against two, so at least we didn't lose ground to the trees in that stat set.

 

Anna DeBeer led the Louisville squad with 16 kills, and Charitie Luper was right behind at 15.  Cara Cresse was the only other of the Cardinals to reach double-digit kills with 10.  DeBeer also led in the digs category at 14, just edging out Elena Scott's 13.

When you ask any coach, or commentator, what the "keys to the game" are, they will inevitably include "serve and pass".  It's understandable given that those skills are so fundamental to the way the game is played, and frankly Louisville's serve and pass was...well, ok, but not excellent yesterday.

 

So between "serve and pass" and blocking both being a bit out of kilter, Louisville did well to play Stanford as competitively as they did.

So what are the post-season implications?  Well, after the top four or five teams in the rankings being pretty stagnant all season, this weekend gives it a little bit of shakeup right before selection.

In the earlier-in-the-season selection committee look at the top 16, Nebraska was 1, Pitt was 2 (despite the AVCA rankings), Penn State 3, and Louisville 4.  After that look, Penn State lost to Wisconsin which resulted in PSU and Louisville flip-flopping in the polls, which again have remained pretty stagnant at the top since then.

However!  Penn State beat Nebraska Friday (3-1), so what impact will that have on the rankings/selection?  You'd be in good company if you weren't sure.

The committee tends to look heavily at RPI, and while we won't see an official update before selection this evening, there is an unofficial RPI tracker that has the top 5 order as Pitt, Nebraska, Louisville, Stanford, Penn State, so by that measure, Louisville is likely to hang on to a top 4 seed.

We'll find out this evening at 6pm on ESPN with the airing of the Volleyball selection show.

Basketball Gets a Dub

While my eyes were on Volleyball, Jeff Walz's squad was also west of the Mississippi doing battle with Colorado.  But from what I hear from others, this is best filed in the, "Well, it's a win" category.  The Cards do get the win, 79-71

The Cards shooting in the first quarter was...not great.  33% overall, and not a one of them fell from three point range, and Colorado won the quarter 16-10.

The second quarter, however, is another matter.  Sparked by a 10-0 run that was capped off by a Izela Arenas three pointer to tie at 18 and a Merissah Russell pilfer and layup to get into the lead, 20-18.  Colorado would get the lead back, briefly on an ensuing three, but then relinquish it for the rest of the quarter and half.  They would reach a tie once again before the half, but the Cards won the quarter 25-17 to take a 35-33 lead into the half.  The shooting improved to 50% from the field, 33% from three, and a perfect 3-3 from the charity stripe.

The lead would bounce back and forth between the teams numerous times in the 3rd quarter, with the Buffs outscoring the Cards in the end 22-21, leaving UofL clinging to a one point lead, 56-55.  The outside shooting, again, disappeared for the Cards, with only one attempt, and that was a miss.  The interior shooting was ok, however, tallying 60% of their shots, along with an acceptable 75% in free throws.

The Buffs hit a couple of free throws to open the scoring in the first quarter to get a one point lead, but UofL would say, "enough" and promptly going on a 16-0 run to get a solid lead halfway through the quarter.  Colorado woke back up and started exchanging scores with the Cards, and managed to shrink the lead a bit, but they ran out of time.

Nyla Harris, and Jayda Curry led the Cards with 14 points, with Tajianna Roberts just behind at 13.  Izela Arenas also reached double digits on 11 points.  "TEAM" led the Cards in rebounds with nine (come on stats folk, do better!), but overall it was by committee with no one having (credited) more than four rebounds and everyone credited with a rebound had no less than two.

FRED Report

I always like to introduce new Freds to the FRED Report, so, meet Fred Leslie, an American pilot, scientist specializing in fluid dynamic, Ph.D. (from Purdue studying fluid vortex dynamics), and astronaut that flew on STS-73 as a payload specialist in October/November of 1995.

F - Free Throws

73.9% (17-23) is enough for a letter.  Most of the Cardinal Couple crew I believe uses an all-or-nothing criteria for this category, it's either "F" or nothing.  I like to add a lower-case "f" level that's 70-75%.  So I'm writing it up as "f", but know that others of the CC crew would call this an "F".

R - Rebounding

The Cards lead the board battle 33-25.  Eight extra possessions is worthy of a full "R".

E - Effort/Execution

A 12-17 assist to turnover ratio isn't great, though Colorado had 17-25 which is...worse?  Maybe?  I will give the lower case "e" here, using the impressive 17 steals to push it over the edge.

D - Defense

The aforementioned 17 steals also play a role here, and we can also look to blocked shots (4-2, advantage Cards) in this stat, as well as the overall of what the opponent's overall scoring is held to.  71 is more than I'd like to see us give to a middle-of-the-road opponent, so with the steals being a big positive, and the score being a fairly significant negative, I think I've got to go with the "d".

So overall it's F-R-e-d, and I'm left wondering if I'm grading too easily.  I certainly welcome your opinions in the comments, particularly if you were able to get eyes on this game.

Cardinal Couple Radio Hour Podcast

Jared was off braving the cold weather, and cold shoulders of Kentucky fans, photo documenting the impressive beat-em-down that was Louisville football's handling of Kentucky.  I find particular join in the palendromicness of the results, with the 41-14 score, and 8-4 vs 4-8 record at the end of the regular season for the two teams.

On topic here, however, Case, Daryl, Paulie, and myself all made the call.  Good discussions of basketball and volleyball, of course, including a bit of analysis of what's ahead for the Cards in the volleyball tourney.

Check it out:

https://creators.spotify.com/pod/show/cardinal-couple/episodes/Big-Week-for-Volleyball-and-WBB-Road-Swing-e2rmtir

-- 

JMcA