Louisville women's basketball -- Cards, Cougars battle tonight in YUM! -- FRIDAY CARDINAL COUPLE

#8 LOUISVILLE COLLIDES WITH COLLEGE OF CHARLESTON TONIGHT

The 9-2 University of Louisville women's basketball team plays their third game in six days this evening when College of Charleston Cougars take Denny Crum Court tonight for a 7 p.m. clash at the KFC YUM! Center. Despite the 2-5 record, CofC poses a challenge to the Cards...last year they gave the Cards a scare in Charleston by narrowing losing to Louisville 71-67.



The Cards went on a 13-0 run in the second period to erase a Cougar lead but the Cards trailed 36-35 at the half. UofL produced a 9-0 run in the third frame to build a six-point lead against the South Carolina college. The Coogs made it interesting until the end, though, knocking Louisville's lead down to three twice in the fourth quarter at 62-59 and 68-65 on three-pointers. Myisha Hines-Allen had 22 points and 14 rebounds in that Dec. 20th. contest...Briahanna Jackson added 19 and Mariya Moore contributed 15 points and 12 assists for a Cardinal squad that was just starting to come together after a slow start to the season. 

That win was the fourth in a 15 game win streak from 2015-16...Louisville enters tonight's game on a two game win streak while the Cougars have dropped four out of their last five. Louisville has played two "feline" mascot schools so far this season (Lafayette Leopards and UK Wildcats) and is undefeated against this category of animal. 

CofC has fallen to ACC members North Carolina State, Virginia Tech...plus North Florida and Houston in their last five...owning a win over App. State. Breanna Bolden, a 5'11" senior guard leads the way for Charleston with 15.6 ppg. Joining her in double figures is Tanisha Brown, a 5'11" forward/wing from Myrtle Beach who contributes 14.4 per contest. Bolden had 15 against the Cards last year...Brown was one a red-shirt season after transferring from Charlotte. Both Kelsey Booth and Jackie Luna-Castro...who had double-figures against the Cards last year...have graduated. 

Darian Huff is a sophomore who played at Elizabethtown (KY) and was a teammate of Notre Dame's Erin Boley. She's started all seven games at guard and averages 7.6 points per  game. She did score 12 against Virginia Tech...but her playing time has dropped over the last couple of games. It'll be interesting to see how many minutes she acquires against the Cards and what may be a sizable contingent of people who drive up from E'Town to see her play. She played in the game last year against the Cards and had six points. 

Tonight's contest is the second game in the series between the two schools. Charleston stays in the area after this one and travels to Bowling Green to take on Michelle Clark-Heard's WKU squad on Sunday. 

Something on your mind...JoAnne P? 

Clyde the Cougar's team plays in the CAA (Colonial Athletic Association) along with Elon, James Madison, Delaware, Drexel, Towson, Hofstra, Northeastern and William and Mary. Head coach Candace M. Jackson is in her second year with the Cougars...going 11-20 last year. She spent time as an assistant at Wake Forest and most recently at Duke with JoAnne P. McCallie. She also played for McCallie from 2000-04 at Michigan State. She started with the Duke program as Louisville assistant coach Samantha Williams was leaving Durham for Louisville. 

The Cards will be in fine shape if they can continue to get good overall and consistent play from the starters and we'd like to see another extensive bench participation in this one tonight. That, of course, depends on how quickly Louisville can gain a substantial advantage on the scoreboard. Louisville has probably looked at their performance from last year against the Cougars and will be inspired to see how much they've improved from then in tonight's game...so motivation and "getting up" for the contest shouldn't be a problem.  It would be great to see Myisha Hines-Allen continue on her quest to defend her ACC-POY title from 2015-16. The Cardinal junior has had four game in a row now scoring in double figures...she had 16 against Maryland, 26 in the Kentucky game, 16 when WKU visited and 10 versus SD State...despite playing no more than 22 minutes in any of the four contests. 

Not a sweater on Sonja but pretty festive garb. 

We know...it's cold out there, and there are plenty of things to do on typical Friday nights...but this should be a fun one to witness...so try and get to the YUM! for it. It is the annual Holiday/Ugly Sweater Night promotion...so find yours and drag it out for the festivities. 

Ol' Paulie just might be walking around taking a few pictures...

We'll have the recap for you tomorrow...


paulie
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