The guys describing the action...

TUESDAY CARDINAL COUPLE PRESENTS:


-Kelch and Sanderford call it as they see it for Lady Cards.


-Sara Hammond rolling along for Rockcastle County

-From the Mailbag
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The University of Louisville Lady Cards women's basketball team goes into BIG EAST action tonight at 7 p.m. against #18 St. John's in the KFC YUM Center. Seven BIG EAST teams are ranked in the AP top 25 and (believe it or don't) Baylor has actually replaced UConn as #1 in a couple of polls we've seen.
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At courtside for this game, like they are for all Lady Cards games, will be Jim Kelch and Paul Sanderford. They handle the play-by-play and commentary for UofL Womens Basketball and can be heard on 790 AM / 101.7 FM WKRD "Cards Radio". They are Sonja's eyes and ears when she listens at work or if the Cards are on the road. I'd put the two up against anyone calling women's basketball in any venue for their knowledge, game call and interaction.
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Kelch began calling Lady Cards games when he was the radio voice for the Louisville Baseball AAA baseball team. Now in his 16th. year of UofL Lady Cardinal games, he is also now part of the Cincinnati Reds baseball broadcast team. Kelch calls a precise and detailed game, giving listeners a great "mind's eye" visual of where the players are on the court and ball movement.
He's not above making commentary on questionable calls or "no calls" at times during the action...but certainly isn't a "homer" nor does he show the biased and opinionated traits of a certain women's play by play announcer due east of Louisville. Professional, accurate and witty...Louisville is still lucky to have Kelch after his being "called up to the big leagues."
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Joining Kelch is Paul Sanderford as color commentator. In his first year of Cards Radio, Sanderford is certainly no stranger to women's college basketball. The former women's basketball head coach at Louisburg College, Western Kentucky and Nebraska complied a 453-189 record in his career and is widely considered one of the top 25 women's college basketball coaches of all time. Sanderford offers commentary from a coaches' point of view, providing excellent breakdowns of patterns, plays, trends and tendencies. He also interacts well with Kelch on air and like Kelch, isn't afraid to point out controversial on court happenings. Baseball may have been his first love...and he was an All-American catcher at Methodist University...but basketball and Louisville are very lucky he chose the "orange" ball sport.
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Adrienne Johnson resumes commentary duties when Sanderford can't make the games. The popular "A.J." handled the duties for several years with Kelch before assuming increased responsibility with UofL in the Marketing department and relinquishing her radio gig. A.J. will always be a favorite of ours at CARDINAL COUPLE...her skills on the high school. college and WNBA levels make her the perfect commentator from the player's aspect and you'll never meet a more friendly, caring and engaging person to be around....unless it's her mom.
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Cards on internet can be a dicey proposition. Even though the WKRD website has a "Listen Live" option...whenever we've tried it during away games...we've ended up getting the FOX SPORTS Radio show that is on the air. That was particularly distressing when Paul was in St.Pete and the Lady Cards were in Vegas...but thanks to some website scrambling...the action out there was available from the other school's networks and Gametracker. You'd think the nation's leader in women's basketball home attendance would be able to put up an easily accesible inernet feed for the fans out of WKRD's limited range. Shell out the $$$$, Tom.
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Occasionally, the Lady Cards get on TV. Tonight's game will be on CBS College Sports. WAZOO Network has done some TV broadcasts and Bob Valvano and Drew Deener normally handle those. Both are capable and they're like Oscar and Felix on the air...from what we've heard.
You determine which is who. Neither one can dunk. Deb Antonelli and some pretty boy in a suit usually do the Cards' apperances on CBS College Sports...
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University of Louisville women's basketball signee Sara Hammond recently led her Rockcastle County Rockets in the Greenville (TN) Ladies Classic tournament. They won first day action against South Greene (TN) 58-40...Hammond with 19 points. Next was North Greene (TN) and Hammond led the Rockets to a 66-37 win with 15 points. Mt. Juliet (TN) defeated Rockcastle County on the final day of play 60-47...holding Hammond to four points.
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Bill the Goat sends these submissions up from the communications center deep in the bowels of CARDINAL COUPLE Central:

CARDINAL COUPLE:
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Who do you think the most popular current Lady Card is? I like Monique Reid the best!
-Jessica (age 9) Louisville.
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Thanks for e-mailing Jessica! We have our favorites, too. We decided to run a poll over on the left side of the site to see what the readers think. Vote for as many as you like if you can't narrow it to just one.
-CC
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Paul and Sonja,
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What are you hearing about Becca Greenwell out of Owensboro Catholic? Cardinal?
-Donna
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The Catholic Church does not have women Cardinals. OK, all kidding aside...she's a top prospect in the 2013 class and Louisville, Kentucky, Duke and North Carolina have offered schollys. Tennessee, Purdue and Vandy are also showing marked interest. She hasn't named a favorite list yet. I'll see if high school recruiting guru Jody Demling has any more details next time I run into him.
-Paul
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Oh wise and honored bearers of the UofL women's sports chalice:

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Have you ever considered changing your site to a 'straight dot.com' instead of going thru Blogger? And, how about a little more men's basketball?
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-Jack
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Hiya, Jack!
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We HAVE considered the switch to a 'dot.com' venue and will probably buy the domain name for Cardinal Couple in the near future. It's a step we won't go into without a lot of thought and deliberation, though. We're non-profit right now and any expenses are easily covered by our sole advertiser...PANERA BREAD. Going to 'dot.com' costs...and we'd have to go with a different site engine probably and other things we're not really sure that we're ready to add to the soup yet. We experienced tremendous growth in 2010...almost 350,000 "hits" in a 12 month period and the baby has become a adolescent. BLOGGER has been good to us, we're comfortable with the posting, design and setting formats here, and we've never been knocked out of commission for several days because of 'hackers' that have invaded other 'dot.com' sites we know... In short, how big do we want to be? It's never been a prime directive here. We're tickled when people tell us they access our site or greet us in person. We never imagined this growth when we first started...
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As far as men's hoops, we do occasional pieces over here. Shannon of CD is always good about adding stuff and Paul does articles on the guys over at CARDINAL DOMINANCE and UOFL CARD GAME from time to time. Until we can get a media pass from Kenny Klein, though...we'll be content to watch the games from the corner of the YUM and cheer, have that occasional beer and skip the media buffet for nachos...
-Paul
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