Lady Cards to play three games in Canada in August

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THURSDAY CARDINAL COUPLE...

-Lady Cards to face three opponents in Canada

-Evaluation period ahead for college coaches

-Rutgers has another one transfer out

The University of Louisville women's basketball team will face three opponents in their Canadian trip this August. The Lady Cards will face The University of British Columbia on August 11th. (9:30 p.m.EDT), Trinity Western University on Aug 12th., (9:00 p.m) and University of Fraser Valley on Aug. 13th. (9 p.m.).

Plans are for the team to meet in Vancouver on Aug. 4th to begin the tour. Louisville was granted an extra ten days of practice to prepare for the trip and did practice 10 days in June before taking the month of July off.

Here is a look at each of the three Cardinal opponents :

UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA

Kristjana Young is a 6'0" guard for the British Columbia
Thunderbirds.

The Thunderbirds went 20-11 overall (17-7 in conference) in the 2010-11 season.

They also took an extended tour during the preseason...playing in the Fo Guang Cup (Taiwan) and going 2-3 against teams from Japan, Hong Kong, Malaysia and Taiwan.

They were 4-0 against the Cardinals other two upcoming opponents during this Canadian trip...beating Trinity Western 78-67 on the road and 74-45 and Fraser Valley 60-49 and 72-49 at home.

B.C. was eliminated in the postseason Canada West playoff quarterfinals by Alberta 80-74 and 73- 60 in late February.

TRINITY WESTERN UNIVERSITY

The 2010-11 Trinity Western squad.

The Lady Cards will face a young TWU Spartan team in their second Canadian contest. TWU signed seven freshmen to the 2011-12 roster recently. The 2010-11 season was rough for the Spartans...they went 3-25 and did not play in the Canadian post-season tournament. TWU was 0-4 against the other two teams Louisville is playing...losing to Fraser Valley 68-65 and 67-56 at home and 78-67 and 74-45 on the road at British Columbia.  

University of Fraser Valley

The 2010-11 University of Fraser Valley roster.

The Cards third opponent is the Fraser Valley Cascades, who went 20-16 in the 2010-11 season. The Cascades advanced further than the other two teams that Louisville will play in Canada...advancing out of the Canada West playoffs by beating Winnipeg in a best two out of three series and playing in the Canada West final four...where they lost to Saskatchewan 88-59 and Alberta 77-64 in the Bronze Medal game. The Cascades also played in the CIS National Regional tournament where Toronto eliminated them 78-69.

The Cascades were 2-2 against the other two Cardinal opponents (see above) and also hosted a pre-season exhibition in 2010..hosting Texas Tech (L-41-78), Texas A&M ( L-61-100 and 74-88)and Kwantien Polytech University (W-85-27)
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With about four weeks to go before the exhibition slate begins, Jeff Walz...like many other college basketball coaches...has an evaluation period now to evaluate future talent at various hoopfests, AAU tournaments and shootouts. The month of  July stacks up like this for women's college basketball coaches:

July 6-15. Evaluation period
July 16-21.  Dead period
July 22-31. Evaluation period

What do these terms mean?

An evaluation period is the time a college coach may watch a prospective student-athlete play or visit the high school but cannot have any in-person conversations with the possible recruit or the parents of the recruit off the college's campus. The prospective student-athlete and the parents can visit a college campus during this period and a coach may call or write during this period.

A dead period is a time where the college coach may not have any in-person contact with a prospective student-athlete or the prospects parents at any time. The coach may write or call (once a week) during this period. Coaches cannot:

-make in-person recruiting contacts
-conduct in-person evaluations on or off campus
-schedule official campus visits
-allow unofficial campus visits

A prominent recruiting writer/expert once described the month of July to me as "when all the college coaches are my friends. They hate and berate me for what I write 11 months a year...but in July, they call, text and e-mail the %$#@ out of me....because I can talk to the kids, cover the territory and tell them who was watching who...where and when."
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Julie Paunovic leaves Rutgers (Photo by Saed Hindash
The Star-Ledger)

BIG EAST member Rutgers loses a third player out of their women's basketball program via the transfer route. Julie Paunovic, a junior college transfer who played the second half of the 2010-11 season for C.Viv Stringer will leave the program. From Austrialia, the reserve guard played in 13 games for the Scarlet Knights...averaging 3.5 minutes, 0.8 points and 0.2 rebounds.

She is the third player to leave the program this off-season to leave Rutgers. Freshmen guard Daisha Simmons and freshman forward Briana Hutchen have also departed after the Scarlet Knights 20-13 season.

Not to worry, Rutgers has 11 players still on the roster for the 2011-12 season...adding five recruits that were ranked as the fifth best recruiting class in the nation. Two McDonald's All-Americans are a part of that class...Betnijah Laney and Briyona Canty.

The Scarlet Knights return all five starters from last year's team. 

WE talked with a former assistant women's basketball coach recently and asked him what he thought were the determining factors causing transfers. He came up with five primary reasons.

-Unhappy with playing time
-Being "recruited over" i.e. better players arriving on campus
-Dis-satisfaction with coaching styles
-Practice situations
-Personal issues with teammates or staff

He commented:

"Sometimes a fit of a player and a program just doesn't work out. The goals and aspirations don't match and you really don't want an unhappy player on your roster. We always wished our girls that transferred out of the program the best of luck and appreciated what they did for us, in most cases, while they were a part of the program. It's a part of the game. Only five that can be on the court for you at the same time and you've sometimes got 6-7 on the bench. They handle it in different ways and some decide to go where the competition level isn't as demanding and they can play instead of sit."
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