Cardinal Couple Thursday Edition

THURSDAY CARDINAL COUPLE

( Jeff McAdams jumps behind the wheel of the CARDINAL COUPLE 1975 Ford Pinto and takes us for a spin through BIG EAST Women's Basketball Conference..with side stops at the ACC lounge and volleyball courts. We've always said Jeff is out standing in his field. What he's doing out there, we have no idea...but we just let him roll with it...)

 

Standings, We've Got Standings

Starting at home in The Big East

Things are starting to look a bit more normal in the Big East standings.  With four unbeatens, UConn is still lurking around further down the list than any of us are used to seeing, but the overall complexion is starting to take on a more familiar tone.

Notre Dame still holds onto the top spot with an unblemished 4-0 record in conference matchups so far dispatching Rutgers and Georgetown since we last checked in, and with relative ease. Also unbeaten with 3-0 starts are Syracuse, Villanova, and St. Johns.  The Cuse also beat up on Georgetown but they barely escaped DePaul...both at home...while Villanova got a solid win on the road over Pitt.  'Nova played a cross-town non-conference matchup against Penn last night and barely escaped with a win, though it wouldn't have had any impact on conference standings in any case, of course.

UConn is the only one loss team, coming in at the fifth spot.  In addition to hanging the loss on our dear Cardinals, they handed one to Marquette as well...with an even more overwhelming margin of victory.

We're currently at 2-2, along with Seton Hall and DePaul.  Seton Hall continues the backwards slide with the loss to St. Johns mentioned above, and they lost a squeaker to Marquette.  DePaul picked up the loss to Syracuse, and beat USF pretty handily.

USF and Marquette show up at 1-2.  USF got an easy win over Cincinnati, but suffered about the same sort of loss at the hands of DePaul.  Marquette's games were both mentioned already, being fodder for UConn, and sneaking the win out against Seton Hall in New Jersey.

Georgetown and Rutgers are both 1-3.  Georgetown taking a beating from both Syracuse and Notre Dame...though that Notre Dame wasn't as bad of a blow out as win-loss records would suggest it would've been.  Rutgers was run over...like just about everyone is...by Notre Dame, but got their first conference win against Providence...not exactly a win to hang tournament hopes on, there.

In the basement are the oh-fors, Pitt, Cincinnati, and Providence...all still looking for their first conference win after dropping three.

How's the New Construction Coming Along?

 

The ACC is starting to fall into a pretty normal looking pattern as well.

I'll skip the commentary on these and just list them off in their women's basketball records.

Duke and North Carolina are both 5-0.  Maryland at 4-1.  Florida State, Miami, and Virginia have 3-2 marks.  Wake Forest and Boston College with .500 records at 2-2.  The Techs, Georgia and Virginia, side by side at 1-4.  And the basement has NC State and Clemson still unfeated (is that a word?) in conference at 0-5.

I gotta have some Volleyball in here

Congratulations to Lola Arslanbeckova on picking up another post-season accolade.  This one comes from Volleyball Magazine, which named our favorite number 9 to the All-American second team.

Lola is suffering for her sport, clearly enjoying the warmth and sun in Puerto Rico.  Gwen Rucker, meanwhile, at least has warmer weather than we do...for the moment anyway...in Azerbaijan.  Kaitlynn James lost the weather lottery, pursuing pro volleyball in snowy Sweden.

Best wishes to the three of them as they set off on their careers.

( Great info today from Jeff McAdams, who will probably make road trips to see all three before April. One sure way to get Jeff to cover an event is to set up a volleyball net or basketball goal and have Al Greener's pep band show up...)