WBB Falls to UConn 86-62 - Sunday Cardinal Couple

Basketball Falls to UConn

There were several storylines in this contest between two good, and at least based on various polls, very evenly matched teams.  UConn has been injury plauged, seemingly for several years now, and thus has some question over who will be playing game to game.  UofL is still putting their team identity together with so many transfers, though the overall contours are starting to be seen.

UConn takes the overall victory 86-62, and the second half went about as you'd expect from that score.  The first half, however, remained pretty close, with only a one point lead for the Husky's after the 1st quarter (28-27), and four points at half (46-42).  Also looking at that score, it seems both teams came out of the before-game locker room trying the no-defense strategy, and it sure made for an exciting game.  But with good coaching, and for the Jeff and Geno show, you knew you were going to see good in-game coaching, the no-defense strategy won't last.

And, yes, the numbers back it up.  The Cards shot 73% from the field and 50% beyond the arc in the 1st, but mostly those numbers tumbled from there.  41% from the field and 25% from the arc in the 2nd, 20% and 0% in the 3rd, and 29% and 20% in the 4th.  UConn's numbers followed a similar, though not quite as steep, decline.  Neither team made a successful three point shot in the the 3rd quarter.

Kiki Jefferson lead the Cards with 19 points, along with five assists, three steals, and an block.  Sydney Taylor and Olivia Cochran joined her in double digit scoring with 13 and 12 respectively.  Chalk up a trio of assists for Taylor, and a trio of steals for O along with a pair of blocks.

Subjectively, Paige Bueckers is back.  After what I'm sure felt like a decade to her, she is back playing and it's as if she never left.   And stop me if you've heard this one before, Aaliyah Edwards is pretty good, ya know?  Despite being in a less competitive conference, Geno continues to find a way to attract good players and be competitive on a national level.  Part of that is scheduling good teams out-of-conference, teams like Louisville, to be that competitive, iron sharpens iron, material, because they're not going to find a whole lot of iron to sharpen themselves on in the Big East.

Louisville is starting to figure out who they are, and was able to play competitively for 20 minutes, but that's just not enough.  The drop off in the 2nd half was scary, and they're going to have to find a way to dig in a play a consistent 40 minutes of good basketball.

The Cards will bring another set of Huskies, from Washington, into the KFC Yum! Center Wednesday night for a 7pm tip on ACC Network.

FRED Report

Let me introduce you to Fred Baker.
Baker has been a major figure in
developing many of the standards
upon which the Internet is built.
He has worked with an alphabet
soup of standard's setting bodies
including the IETF (Internet
Engineering Task Force - who define
most of the standards that define
the Internet). He has also worked with
The Internet Society, the FCC, ITU-T,
and NIST. He has co-authored or edited
over 50 RFCs (the standards documents
of the IETF).
photo by Вени Марковски (Veni
Markovski) via Wikipedia

OK, let's get this over with:

F - Free throws.  The Cards have been a pretty good free throw shooting team this year, earning a bunch of "F"s so far, but they won't add to the collection today.  66.7% from the charity stripe isn't enough for a letter.

R - Rebounding.  29 rebounds for the Cards, which is a pretty good number, particularly with the score-fest that was the first quarter, but UConn clocked in with 33.  I'm on the edge on this one, despite the overall number, as 11 of UofL's boards were on the offensive end, and only five of UConn's were.  I do weigh offensive rebounds a bit higher, and I'd like to at least award a letter today, so we'll go with the lowercase R for the offensive boards.

E - Execution/Effort.  13 assists for the Cards vs 22 for UConn...well that's not a great start.  41% field goal shooting, and 25% from three isn't terrible, but it's not great, and obviously fell short of UConn's numbers.  And with 20 fouls to UConn's 15, with UofL's top three scorers all finishing in distinct foul trouble with four apiece.  I just don't think I can award an E for this.  Maybe if we were only judging the first half...

D - Defense. Steals and Turnovers are just about even between the two teams, 12 steals each, Cards with one less turnover, 19.  UConn got 7 blocks to UofL's 3.  Again, I just don't see how I can come up with a letter on this one either.

So, - r - -.  That's not pretty, is it?

They Said It:

Jeff Walz spent a lengthy time talking to the media after this one:   LINK 

Geno postgame

Bueckers, Edwards, Griffith postgame

Cardinal Couple Radio Hour Podcast

(From the early days...Jared was out taking a "selfie")

Four on the floor, as Paulie put it, for the podcast yesterday, with Case sneaking in just under the wire to get on the call to start the show.

Plenty of basketball chatter, and a wrap-up of the Volleyball season.

You can listen at:

https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/cardinal-couple/episodes/Volleyball-Season-Ends-and-WBB-Takes-on-UConn-e2db42m

-- 

JMcA

WBB Gameday and a Wrap for Volleyball

UConn GameDay

"Jeff, meet Geno. Geno, meet Jeff!"

A Top 10 matchup in Connecticut today as the Cardinals get ready to take on the Connecticut Huskies.  The Hall of Fame Women's Showcase, which this game is a part of, is not on UConn's home floor, but it might as well be. Mohegan Sun Arena has served UConn well over the years. 

After a stumble to start the season, and a few early games where Louisville ended up in the win column, but definitely had some things to work on, the game plan is starting to come together for the Walz squad.

UConn has no "buckets" today

Today they'll be facing an injury depleted UConn team, with only eight players expected to be active today.  Notably, the Huskies are missing their lauded superstar Paige Bueckers, but also sidelined for UConn is another notable name in freshman guard Azzi Fudd, along with Nika Mühl, and Aubrey Griffin.

Even with those players out, UConn will still have the likes of Olivia Nelson-Ododa, Aaliyah Edwards, and Evina Westbrook.

The Cards season calling card seeming to be withering defense, and The Cardinal Couple Semi-Irregular Awards Committee is taking comments from interested parties about potentially raising the height requirement to be consider for the Attack Yorkie squad.  The proposal is to lift it to 5'7" to allow Mykasa Robinson, Chelsie Hall, and Hailey Van Lith to be eligible for the squad designation.  The squad is currently limited to players 5'6" and below. If the proposal gets out of committee discussion, we'll submit it to our Board of Chimps (along with nacho dip and Tostitos !)

Even without any currently official Attack Yorkies, UofL will be leaning on the lock down defense to set the tone of the game.  Increasing the tempo definitely works in the Card's favor.  When the opponent only has eight dressed players, fatigue can become a factor by the end of the game.  Geno Aurriema's teams typically have been well conditioned and haven't shown susceptibility to fatigue, but it's a weapon in the arsenal that you have to try to use.

The Huskies will be looking to try to take advantage of UofL's aggressive defense, playing off of defensive over commitments and using back cuts to try to get open looks at the basket.

Of active players, Christyn Williams is the highest point scorer, followed by Westbrook, and then Nelson-Ododa.  Williams, and particularly Westbrook, are threats from three point range, while Nelson-Ododa hasn't even attempted one all season.  UConn isn't much of a threat to the passing lanes, so if UofL can force some turnovers, that could lead to a fairly lopsided matchup.

The game is on ESPN (us Youtube TV folks will have to make other arrangements for this one) at 3:30pm and we'll have Eric Frede, Rebecca Lobo, and Andraya Carter on the call.

Angel tackles Geno for a loss of three...

An Open Letter to Volleyball

Dear 2021 UofL Volleyball squad,

Gwen Rucker

Becky Burke

Candyce Bingham

Janae Howard

Laura Terry

Monique Reid

Angel McCoughtry

Chauntise Wright

Keshia Hines

Dez Bird

These names may not mean all that much to you, but for longtime fans of UofL Women's Basketball, many of these names bring smiles to faces.  These fine women are thought of, almost with reverence, but certainly with gratitude to anyone that knows much of the past decade plus of history of the program.

You see, these are the members of the 2008-2009 basketball roster.  That team was the first UofL women's basketball team to advance to the Final Four.

These players are forever remembered, and thanked, for the major milestone that they achieved for the program.

I've heard Jeff Walz talk a number of times about how a successful program gets built.  He thanks Angel, and Mo, and Laura, and others for not only what they did on the court that season, but for how they helped build the program for the future.  He usually talks about hosting recruits, and points out that some of these players hosted recruits on campus for official visits, and some of those recruits end up becoming the core of the team several years down the road.  The impact of a special team is felt in a program many years down the road.

You all have taken this team from "Upset Queens" to the best team in the land in two years.  The future impact of that work will be felt far beyond two years.

Numerous people have posted open letters like this to you all.  Most have focused on your season this year being a breath of fresh air in a year filled with a lot of distractions and chaos at UofL.  They're...not wrong.  Your character, integrity, and spirit have shown through in a period that has been challenging at UofL, and frankly around the world as well.

But what I want you to know, particularly to the graduating seniors and super-seniors, is that, though this season is over, and some of you may not be putting on the jerseys anymore, you are still a part of this program, and you are still having an impact on the court.  Over the next four years when Alexis Finnvold, Hannah Sherman, Nina Moorer and others even farther in the future step out on that Taraflex at L&N FCU Arena, you are there alongside them, and when I and others are cheering for them, we're also still cheering for you.

Thank you for a season beyond words, and when you come back to visit and cheer, and I hope you do frequently, you have an open invitation to join me, for I would be honored to have any and all of you by my side, when the opponent calls a timeout.

C-A-R-D-S!

Jeff

Cardinal Couple Radio Hour Podcast

Due to the way the holidays fall on the calendar, the last CCRHP episode of the year was yesterday.  Case, Jared, Paulie, and myself were on the call.

We spent most of the hour wrapping the magical volleyball season and talking a bit about the bright future for the program.

We did preview a bit of the UConn basketball game today.  I expect basketball to be the core of the discussion for the next couple of months.

You can check out the replay on Youtube at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aP4WkFqaPBI.

You can also listen to it on via your favorite podcast directory and app with some tweaks to the audio that Case always does so well with.  He posts it via anchor.fm, so you can catch it at: https://anchor.fm/cardinal-couple/episodes/Volleyball-Comes-Up-Short-Basketball-to-Face-UCONN-e1bt1cr or search for "Cardinal Couple" in whatever podcast source you use.

USA U 19 ROMPS HUNGARY TO SWEEP GROUP C -- TUESDAY CARDINAL COUPLE

95-50 ROMP OVER HUNGARY HAS USA 3-0 IN GROUP C

After a night off in FIBA U 19 action, Jeff Walz's USA U 19 squad came back in fine fashion and form, romping Hungary 95-50 early this morning. 

Rhyne Howard (Kentucky) scored a game-high 18 points on 4-of-7 shooting from 3 and 6-of-6 from the free throw line; Paige Bueckers hit 5-of-7 from the field in scoring 13 points and dished out six of the team’s 20 assists; Francesca Belibi tallied 11 points and 13 rebounds; and Aliyah Boston registered 10 points on 5-of-11 shooting from the field. Naz Hillmon-Baker came within a point of a double-double after registering nine points and 10 caroms.

Coach Walz was pleased. He cited better passing and finding the open player as the keys to the win.

Using a 24-4 run in the first quarter, USA lead 33-16 at the end of the first 10 minutes and extended that to 57-20 at the half. 

With the win, USA sweeps Group C competition with a 3-0 record and waits to see "who's next"? That opponent will come from Group D and whoever the four seed ends up being. Lativa is 3-0 in Group A play, 

USA won the rebounding battle 60-33, and had a great shooting night with a 55.6% on 20-36 makes and attempts.  

Apologize for the short article today...my Internet coverage is spotty at best where I am today.


Terrific Tuesday to you! 

Paulie