Nine down and Nine To Go for WBB -- WEDNESDAY CARDINAL COUPLE

 CARDS AND DUKE ATOP THE ACC WBB RANKINGS. 

We are halfway through the ACC WBB conference slate now and...even though the city of Louisville is in a polar deep freeze currently, the women's basketball team is "en fuego". 

At 9-0 in conference and 19-3 overall, the Cards and Duke are the only two teams at 9-0 and the much awaited matchup between these two will be on Feb 5th in the KFC YUM CENTER. The Thursday night matchup will be shown on ESPN. 

The Cards are ranked #7 in the nation and Duke checks in at #20. Duke has struggled out of conference, with losses to West Virginia, South Florida, South Carolina, UCLA, LSU and Baylor....for a 5-6 record out of the ACC, Five of the schools they lost to, however, are in the top 25. 

Retired head coach "Katie the Lady" Meier of Miami

Duke has won 11 in a row, though, under Kara Lawson ...but faces a potentially tough outing in their next game, when the face Miami on Thursday in Miami. Head coach Tricia Cullop, formerly out of Toledo, is in her second year at "The U" . Former head coach Katie Meier is now a "special advisor and ambassador" for Miami athletics in Coral Gables and "Katie the Lady" was always a tough out for Walz and company when the two matched up....hanging losses on the Cards in 2022 and 2019.  

Looking at Louisville, their west coach swing , coming up next, should prove to be an interesting test for these Cards. Thursday, January 29th has the Cards on the Stanford (4-4, 15-6)  campus and Feb 1st brings the Cards to Cal (3-5, 12-8) . I do applaud the scheduling that lets  Louisville get both West coast games in a row...but I still have to chuckle when I tell people that the Cards have two Atlantic Coast Conference games in California. 

Toby Fournier is the leading scorer of Kara Lawson's crew, at 17.7 points per game and she had a long laundry list of schools she consider back in 2024. She also grabs 7.7 rebounds a contest. The Toronto Canada native looked at South Carolina, UConn, Stanford, UCLA, North Carolina, Arizona and Michigan. And, she's just a sophomore...if you needed any other reasons to have a headache. Maybe one redeeming feature for an opponent is to foul her...she is 68 for 129 (53%) from the charity stripe. 

So, who are some of the more worrisome foes left in the Cards final nine conference games before the tournament? Duke, obviously...and Cal, Stanford, Notre Dame and Syracuse. 

Any ACC WBB game, though, can be a nightmare for a visiting team, especially on the road...because of the big home team fan support in the league. Maybe it's just best to follow the philosophy of UFC great Conor McGregor when he said

"Success isn't a result of arrogance, it's a result of belief." 

paulie