Louisville women's basketball -- Evansville Shook all night long in 89-47 loss -- MONDAY CARDINAL COUPLE

KYLEE SHOOK PUTS UP DOUBLE-DOUBLE IN CARDS WIN

(Apologies to AC/DC for the headline play of words. Not that they'd notice...)

Kylee Shook continued Louisville women's basketball's recent streak of freshmen stepping up for big games Sunday afternoon in the KFC YUM! Center with 18 points and 10 rebounds...the Cards dealing the Purple Aces a 89-47 loss in front of 8320 on an afternoon where the visitor's shooting was as cold as the weather here in River City. 

You might even say Evansville was shook and stirred...(sorry James Bond) by Shook and the Cards...who shot 50% against the MVC foe. The Mesa Ridge (CO) freshman was 8 for 10 from the floor in 17 minutes with a couple of threes. 

The Cards allowed E'Ville to hang around early...Camery Williams converted a +1 five minutes into the first score to knot this one up at 7-7...but after that, it was all-Cardinals for the next 25 minutes. Two Briahanna Jackson baskets and a Shook three doubled the score on the Purple Aces and after a layup by Shook and basket plus free throw by Ciera Johnson that capped off a 12-0 Cardinal run...it was 19-7 UofL and 2:26 remained in the first quarter. The Cards ended the stanza with a 8-4 stretch featuring three more scores in the paint and a silky, smooth jumper from Jazmine Jones for a 27-11 lead. 

Walz had already played nine players and the Cards had a 18-8 scoring advantage in the paint. 

If the first period was rough for the visitors from down the Ohio River, the second period was a tumultuous trip down the Falls of the Ohio. Louisville went on a 13-4 run in the first four minutes where Shook added six points and three rebounds and after a Mariya Moore three...Evansville found themselves up the river without a paddle...staring at a 40-15 Cardinal advantage. The Cards continued the dominance in the paint...without Myisha Hines-Allen and Cortnee Walton, who were seated with two fouls each. A J.J. layup with seven seconds on the scoreboard set the halftime total Louisville 50 - Evansville 21.

Imagine a first half, if you will, where Louisville's starting "4" and "5" saw just 10 combined minutes and had zero points. That did happen in the first twenty...but the Cards were finding other options. Shook ended the second quarter with 13 points and eight grabs, Moore and Asia Durr were responsible for seven points each and Jackson and Jaz contributed six each. Louisville held a 30-2 bench scoring edge and had 10 assists on 22 made baskets. 

The Aces kept getting dealt a bad hand in the third. Another 12-0 run from Louisville started the proceedings and Walton finally in the scoring column with a free throw four minutes into the period. A Hines-Allen jumper for her first points set the total at 68-24 Cards...Shook's final three-pointer increased that to 74-25 and the quarter mercifully ended for the visitors after Johnson rolled in a layup to push the advantage to 78-30. 

The Cards held a 14-0 mastery in the paint in the third,  12-0 shut out in points off turnovers and shot 64.7% in the ten minutes. 

Just when you figured that the school from Southern Indiana might be ready to pack up the flatboats and shove off for home, they showed signs of life in the final period...outscoring Louisville 17-11...against a Cards lineup that consisted primarily of Sam Fuehring, Sydney Zambrotta, Brianna Jones, Bionca Dunham and Jessica Laemmle. 

Joining Shook in double figure scoring was Durr with 15, Moore with 12 and B.J. added 11...which included a three. Everyone played at least eight minutes in the contest and Louisville ended with a 56-12 scoring edge in the paint and 48 of the Cards points came off the bench. The Cards held a 49-point lead late in the third and forced 20 Evansville turnovers...while committing just nine. 

The final: 89-47. Cards win. The Cards win!! The win streak is five now. 


HOW DID FRED DO? 

Fred McGriff had a 18 year
Major League Baseball career

Free Throws -- Louisville went 9-18 from the charity stripe for 50%. When you consider Dunham and C. Johnson were a combined 2-7 at the line, that number isn't that awful...but it's nowhere the 70% we like to see and no letter gets awarded here. 

Rebounding -- Against the smallish Purple Aces, who started no one over 6'1" and had just one 6'3" player on the roster (who played just 4 minutes) the Cards held a 50-35 edge. Jazmine Jones grabbed eight of those in just 14 minutes...Shook's effort was over the top and Fuehring showed her paint prowess with six in 16 minutes on the court. No problem in handing out a capital "R" in this category. 

Effort/Execution -- The Cards looked very centered and efficient for 25 minutes of this one. A bit of a slow start and a forgettable fourth quarter did occur, though, and despite the 11 steals and margin of victory...it wasn't Louisville best effort of the season. 50% is an acceptable shooting mark...so, we'll give out a lower case "e" for the effort and execution. 

Defense -- 20 forced turnovers, a 23.6% Evansville shooting percentage and 11 steals all indicate that the Cards were stifling when the visitors had the ball at times...they even held UE to 36.4% shooting in the final ten...we can award a letter here...but it is a small case "d". As mentioned earlier, Louisville had 25 minutes of very good defense and 15 minutes of *meh*. 

THE FRED TOTAL:  _-R-e-d


THINGS WE LIKED

Thinking highly of Kylee...A great effort from the freshman. Coach Walz mentioned she had been working extra after practice on shooting and it was starting to pay off for her. After her 1-6 performance against Charleston, this is good to see...overall, she's 32-64 on the season...not bad for a paint-player...the difference is that she's one who can be effective from outside as well and that showed Sunday afternoon. Besides her 8-10 shooting...Walz also complemented her on the way she ran the floor and how she rebounded with two hands. 

Jazzing it up...Another very productive 14 minutes for the Tallahassee freshman with six points, eight grabs, and three assists. She's been getting "first off the bench" honors lately and there's a reason for that. She provided a spark and gets her teammates involved in the action. Consistency. We like it.

Performing without the top billing...Let there be no doubt...MHA and Cortnee are two very essential cogs in this Cardinal machine. Did Louisville fall apart when they went to the chairs, though? No they didn't. The Cards outscored Evansville 20-4 in the first period while the two sat. Hines-Allen played for less than a minute in the second period and Walton saw no action at all. Louisville won the frame 23-10.  Let's face it, there will probably be more games this season when fouls catch up with either or both and they have to watch from the sidelines. Let's hope Louisville can respond as effectively in those potential situations as they did Sunday afternoon.  

Atta boy, Joe!...Class move by referee Joe Vaszily (who I call "silly Joe") at the end of the third quarter. While chatting with us on media row, he held out the basketball and motioned to a little boy in the front row. With Dad's assistance, he caught the toss of the orb and a proud papa and son posed for Mom's picture with them holding the ball. Nice stuff, Joe! Or, as Sonja mentioned, maybe he was tired of referring and was looking for someone else to whistle the fourth. We tend to give refs a hard time, sometimes. I've been tough on Joe in the past. This was a nice, fan-friendly gesture, though and Joe created a moment in time that the little guy and his Dad will remember for a long time. 


THINGS TO WORK ON


They're free, why not take 'em and make 'em? Maybe I get too frustrated with the Cards rarity in being able to shoot 70% from the line...but Louisville is shooting 65% from the line this season and was 50% Sunday afternoon. This can't be coached (although the coaches have tinkered with a few styles and Sam Fuehring did go 2-2 Sunday). This is getting in the gym and getting comfortable with the process by repetition an getting some numbers in.

Closing the deal. As Walz alluded to in the post-game presser, the opportunity was there for players to impress him today with their performances and showing they're worthy of more playing time. Based on Louisville's fourth quarter performance, I don't think anyone that participated in the final act will get any additional stage calls. We may have seen the last of Louisville blow-outs over foes for awhile. I'm guessing that the Cards' regulars will do a better job that the reserves did in the fourth in close games. You have to be ready, though, when your number is called and the Cards final effort Sunday consisted of static on the incoming call. 


SO...

An excellent performance from Kylee Shook tonight, who passed the Walz test of seeing how she might perform with extended minutes and no Myisha or Cortnee on the court to back her up. We saw 25 minutes of Louisville basketball Sunday that bolsters their #8 ranking and the overall team effort was just what we needed to see as the Cards finish off the recent pastry tray they've been feasting on and move into a lot more serious competition. A zone defense takes work and the Cards put in the effort. 

It was good to see that Louisville can go deep into their rotation and not lose much at all during "crunch" time. We'll probably see a shorten cast of characters in the next few weeks performing on the hardwood...my best guess is a rotation of nine or ten...depending on the closeness of the games.

Vanderbilt is next (a shame that one has to fall on the same night as the UK v. UofL men's game) and the Commodores are dangerous on their home court...waiting with a 10-1 record and win over Duke on their resume. They did get trounced by Indiana in Bloomington by 33 and their two-point win at UT Martin raises an eyebrow (Louisville beat the Skyhawks by 43).

New head coach Stephanie White...who has had multiple seasons of success as a player and coach in the WNBA...plus veteran ESPN broadcaster and associate coach Carolyn Peck, who had a fine college coaching career, have rejuvenated women's college hoops in Nashville. The Wednesday game won't be easy at all for the Cards...but one has to feel that if the long-stretches of brilliance that UofL has shown in past games shows up, the Cards will get out of Music City with a "W". 


POST GAME CHATTER

It was "Paulie...interview the players" time again in the post-game presser Sunday. Kylee Shook and Mariya Moore were the post-game gals on the podium. No deer-in-the-headlights-look for Ms. Shook...she handled the podium like a seasoned upper-classwomen. 

At least the guy from the Associated Press and a couple of the TV folks chipped in when Walz took the stage...and we got a rare Sonja question offered to Coach. They did cut out my Santa Claus question for the players...for the record...Kylee laughingly said she wouldn't mind seeing a car under the tree and Mariya would just prefer to be surprised. (Wouldn't we all?) 



LINK: KYLEE SHOOK AND MARIYA MOORE POST GAME

LINK: COACH WALZ COMMENTS ON THE WIN OVER EVANSVILLE


good morning dear
paulie
xxxxx

Men Win, Ladies Play Today -- SUNDAY CARDINAL COUPLE

WBB Hosts Evansville

As the college basketball preaseason wraps up, the ladies in Cardinal Red will be taking on their 3rd opponent in the last five days and fourth in the last eight days when they host Evansville today at 2PM. After a beat down of College of Charleston, the Cards will be taking on the Purple Aces, who are likely to be over-matched. Evansville is on a four game win streak, but remain under .500 after starting the game on an 0-5 skid. Louisville is the only ranked team on their schedule, so Evansville is sure to play this game with a bit of heart, but it is hard to imagine that they can pull off the upset. This game can be found on the ACC Network Extra, and I'm sure Paulie will have a full write-up for you tomorrow. If you aren't busy, head on down to the Yum! Center today to check out the ladies if you haven't yet. Parking at meters is free on Sundays, so if you can brave the cold, they'll have a warm seat waiting for you inside.

MBB Handles EKU; UK Looms

Although the Cards started off slow against the Colonels yesterday, a 30-4 run to end the first half essentially put the game away for Louisville. Rick Pitino's squad led 36-16 at the half, and things didn't improve for EKU from there. Three Colonels did manage to finish in double figures, but they were over-matched as the final score was 87-56.

The big one is coming. The Kentucky Wildcats will find themselves in the Yum! Center at an unusual time. Because of the way the holidays fell this year, the Louisville vs Kentucky game is on a weeknight. When the Cats come to town on Wednesday, Louisville will need to put together a full 40 minutes of basketball to have a shot. A slow start in either half would likely spell doom against yet another talented group put together by John Calipari. The biggest thing the Cards have going for them will likely be a concept called "defense" which this year's iteration of the Wildcats have yet to figure out. Kentucky gave up 97 points to UCLA in a home loss and beat UNC 103-100 yesterday in the Champions Classic. Louisville has had problems scoring, but if they can slow Kentucky's offense down, they should be able to put up some points on the Cats.

No team has swept the football and basketball games since Louisville in 2012. Louisville has owned the gridiron while Kentucky has had a grip on the hardwood. Louisville will need to figure something out Wednesday night to avoid the sweep, and they'd love to start the gauntlet that they face in the coming weeks with a win.

Radio 

The Cardinal Couple Radio hour rebroadcast is up on the SoundCloud for your listening pleasure. Worldwide and Paulie talked a lot of  Louisville women's basketball. There is also some great holiday-themed blurbs from Monk...plus player and coach comments from the last three game. The show will not be on 12/24.  Give today's a listen at the link below: 

link: THE CARDINAL COUPLE 12-17-16 BROADCAST

That's All, Folks

It's a short one for me today. The EKU game wasn't much to talk about, and the Women's game hasn't happened yet. There will be more to talk about next week when we have a result from the rivalry game and the bowl game draws nearer. I'm out of the studio again this week because I'll be out of town for the holidays, but I'll finally have some new music when I return. I wish you all a happy and safe holiday season.

Until next time, Go Cards.

-CH-

Tuesday Cardinal Couple - WBB Aces Evansville

Basketball Aces Evansville

Jude Schimmel stood out in the last non-conference game of the UofL Women's Basketball season, tying Emmonnie Henderson for the most points in the game at 12.  Add four assists and four steals, all in 22 minutes of play and she was clearly the stand-out player of the game.  The Cards won the game by a comfortable margin of 22, with a final score of 73-51.

UofL took it to the Purple Aces down in the paint, with 44 points in the paint vs EU's 16.  Its good that they were able to get points going inside because the outside shooting was unimpressive, with the only three point shots for the Cards being the two of four contributed by Jude for a disappointing 13.3% team 3-point shooting average. 

The inside game was also evident in rebounding, with a 45-26 rebounding margin for UofL, resulting in 12 2nd chance points vs UE's 1...I'm not sure how you get a single second chance point, but that's what UE was credited for in the first half.

"Paulie...Three is better than two and seven for
eight could be the basis for a new Walzian
theory on the significance of free throws"  

The upside of the shooting numbers is that there was no Walz Math needed to justify the free throw shooting tonight with the Cards going 7 for 8.  Meanwhile, Evansville only hit 29.4% overall, with the end result being a significant improvement over the halftime percentage of 16.7%.

The only other Cards scorer in double figures was Bria Smith with 11.  She also added three assists, a block, and a pair of steals to her stat totals.  Nearly all players got some good playing minutes, with the only players that didn't get double-digit minutes being Sheronne Vails, who just missed out with 9 minutes, and Ariana Freeman who played for the last 3 minutes.

  
Cortnee Walton was dressed and available for play, but some soreness in her foot left her on the bench for the game.  In post-game comments, Walz suggested that her broken toe may not yet be fully healed and will be evaluated again medically.  Walton can play in the Georgia Tech and Pitt games and still qualify for a medical redshirt.

Attendance was listed as 7909.

Overall, this served as a nice warm-up for Georgia Tech on Friday.  Evansville is a good team, though not top tier, but they didn't give up, they kept playing hard even in the face of significant fatigue from a lack of depth.

So...this concludes the non-conference schedule for this season, along with closing out the year of 2014.  With the brand new year comes brand new challenges as UofL WBB embarks on ACC play for the first time.  Georgia Tech comes into the KFC Yum! Center Friday evening, January 2nd, at 7pm.  If you're still recovering from New Year's celebrations, you can catch this one on ESPN3.

-jmca-

Louisville WBB returns to action -- Monday Cardinal Couple

5-5 Evansville visits the KFC YUM! Center



Jeff Walz's 2014-15 women's basketball squad has returned to campus after the Christmas break and hopes to continue the merriment and joy of the holiday season with a win over the Evansville Purple Aces WBB squad tonight in a 7 p.m. square-off tonight in the KFC YUM! Center. 

An interesting nickname, indeed for tonight's opponent. 

The Aces monicker came into play in 1926 after Louisville

lost to the Evansville College Pioneers. The Pioneers head coach, John Harmon told sports writer Dan Scism that Cardinal coach Tom King commented that Evansville didn't have four aces up their sleeve, they had five.

A mascot was created by Evansville Press artist Larry Hill. "Ace Purple"  was a rough, mean-looking riverboat gambler since Evansville is on the Ohio River. In 1977, a fan submitted a revised version of "Ace"...a smiling, friendly looking figure...that was adopted and remains popular with the fan base today. A more modern logo is also associated with University of Evansville sports also. 


The Purple Aces will need a whole deck of Aces to trump the 12 Cards that will take the court this evening. At 5-5 on the season, they hold wins over Austin Peay, Miami (OH), Murray State, Oakland City and Troy. Losses have come to Southern Indiana, Ball State, IPFW (and Don the Mastadon), IUPUI and a 83-39 drubbing by West Virginia. 

Sara Dickey (a preseason all-Missouri Valley Conference selection) leads the way for UE with 18.7 PPG. Mallory Ladd averages 16.4 per contest and Kat Taylor adds 13 a game.

The Aces got 16 from Taylor last time out in a 62-50 loss to IUPUI on Dec. 21st. Evansville is 1-5 on the road this season. They return four starters from a squad that went 15-16 last year. 


In the series, the Cards hold a commanding 10-2 advantage...but lost the last time they face E-Ville...60-58 in Evansville on November 24, 2002. Freshman Connie Neal led Louisville with 15 points in Martin Clapp's final season as Louisville head coach.

The Cards led until 3:20 left in the game at Roberts Stadium. Two Sara Nord free throws tied it late but the Aces got a basket with three seconds left and Louisville mishandled the in-bounds pass trying to send it to overtime. 

Tonight's game shouldn't be nearly as close. The Cards

looked to be back in sync last time out with a 70-57 win over California and Walz will use this one as a tune up for the start of ACC play...Louisville will host Georgia Tech on Friday, Jan 2nd. at 7 p.m.

This one will be available on CARDS TV at Gocards.com...as well as Gocards.com GameDay Live mobile application. Matt Andrews and Adrienne Johnson will handle the radio duties at WKRD 790 AM. 



Ring out the old year with us tonight down at the KFC YUM! Center as the Cards say goodbye to the non-conference schedule and move on to ACC action! 

(Funny...but we didn't hear Coach Walz say anything about $2 Champagne for this one)

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The latest CARDINAL COUPLE RADIO broadcast is up and available on the archived, heavenly SOUNDCLOUD at Crescent Hill Radio. Worldwide carries Paulie early on and the lads recap the latest in Cardinal WBB, look at the Softball schedule and recap the first half of the 2014 Louisville women's athletics accomplishments and news. Link below:

THE LAST CARDINAL COUPLE BROADCAST !!! (of 2014)