Basketball Eventually Beats Pitt - Friday Cardinal Couple

A Slow Start

What are the values of m and n on the line L1?

Substitution Happy Friday readers!  Jeff in today for Daryl who is trying to dig out of the craziness of final wedding plans, getting married, and honeymooning for a week in Vegas.  Congratulations Daryl, and I hope you can catch your breath soon.

The Cards basketball team escaped the snow to head northeast...that sounds weird to say it that way, but the previous winter storm did stay south of Pittsburgh and today's storm is expected to do mostly the same for them.  The team did seem to take a little while to warm up on the court, however, with a really slow shooting start marring what otherwise looked like a decent game of basketball.

 

UofL does take the win 65-56, but to borrow from Paul Harvey, stay tuned "For the rest of the story...".

The Cards started the game scoring only 21 points in the first half of play, though Pitt didn't do much better with 28.  Louisville shot 28.6% from the field in the first half, on 35 shots, though they went one for 15 from beyond the arc.

 

So it really looked like the game was going to be a "first to 40" type of outcome, but UofL did get the shooting in gear for the 2nd half, and particularly the 4th quarter where they hit almost 70% from the field, and over 55% from range, scoring more in that fourth of the game than in all of the first half.

 

Freshman Taj Roberts led the scoring, going 5-9 from range, plus another field goal for 17 points.  Three others hit that double-digit mark, Ja'Leah Williams with 11, and Nyla Harris and Jayda Curry with 10 each.

 

Add a couple of steals, and four rebounds for Roberts and she had herself, ultimately, a quite nice game.  Harris gathered up a very impressive eight rebounds, and Williams grabbed five.

 

Other than the shooting, the Cards looked like they were playing reasonably well and taking reasonable shots...for the most part anyway...but they just weren't falling at the beginning.  To be fair, though, that assessment does have an air of, "Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?" given that the whole point of the game is ultimately to get the ball through the round bit of metal.

But the Cards do get it done in the end and return to another winter wonderland.  They'll take the court next at the KFC Yum! Center on Sunday at 4pm, hosting Georgia Tech.  Yes, that is a TV decided start time, with the competition being on the linear ACC Network.

FRED Report

(Dancing to the end, just like Fred Biletnikoff used to for the Raiders)

So let's take a look at the FRED report...

F - Free throws.  The Cards hit five of six free throws in the fourth quarter up in the 83% range.  Alas, with such a small sample size the one missed free throw in the first quarter drops the overall for the game to 5-7, which is 71.4%.  UofL got no attempts in the 2nd or 3rd quarter.  I do use the variant of the FRED report where 70-75% is a lower-case "f", but if you want to think it's an "F" particularly due to the great 4th quarter, I wouldn't blame you.

R - Rebounds.  Louisville out rebounded the Panthers, but not by a large margin, 38-35.  I feel like that's worthy of acknowledging, but not particularly celebrating, so we'll go with the lower case "r" here.

E - Execution/Effort.  I mean, what can you say, ultimately you've got to get the ball through the hoop.  The team did start doing so in the 4th quarter, but 28% for half of the game isn't great.  The total of 65 isn't exactly where we'd like to see the offensive production as well, so again I don't think we can award the full capital letter.  "e"

D - Defense.  11 steals, and a pair of blocks is decent, that beats Pitt's eight steals and matches their blocks.  Pitt did get more defensive rebounds, though that direct comparison is a little less relevant in my mind.  Again, I don't think we can award the full "D", here.  "d"

That results in f-r-e-d, which is at least consistent.

Pro Volleyball Leagues Get Underway

(with Jeff substituting today for Daryl, of course there is going to be volleyball...)

Both traditional pro volleyball leagues got underway this week.  Though no UofL rooting interests have yet taken the floor.

LOVB got started Wednesday in the first match ever for the league.  Salt Lake beat Atlanta in four sets.  Play continued with Houston taking five sets to dispatch Austin. 

 

PVF started last night with the Orlando Valkyries dispatching the San Diego Mojo in a sweep.

A quick rundown of Louisville alumnae in the leagues:

LOVB

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LEAGUE ONE VOLLEYBALL 

Both Claire Chaussee and Anna "Stevie" Hall nee Stevenson play for the Madison squad.  They will start their campaign tonight vs Austin in Houston.  You can catch it on ESPN+ at 5:30.

PRO VOLLEYBALL FEDERATION

:

Aiko Jones is on the Atlanta Vibe squad and will start their season tonight at 8pm on Youtube vs the Omaha Supernovas

The whole setting squad for the Columbus Fury are Louisville alumnae, with Tori Stringer nee Dilfer joining Wilma Rivera on the team.

We've covered here that both Anna DeBeer and Elena Scott have joined the Indy Ignite for their inaugural season. They'll host Orlando for their season opener Saturday night in Fishers, Indiana.  First serve is at 7pm and can be watched on Youtube.  Depending on weather, I plan on making the drive up to see this one firsthand.  The event is officially sold out but they are selling "Standing Room Only" tickets still.

San Diego was slated to have Erin Fairs on their squad until she made the difficult decision earlier this week to hang up her knee pads and retire from competitive volleyball playing.  She has played significant roles with Athletes Unlimited in their volleyball efforts, so I wouldn't be surprised if she showed up in their front office in some role.

Lastly, Charitie Luper will be spicing things up for the Vegas Thrill.

The Cardinal Couple Radio Hour Podcast should return tomorrow. 11 a.m. .Line up to be annonced. 

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JMcA