TUESDAY CARDINAL COUPLE

(Staff Columnist Sandy Walker with her weekly jaunt through the world of Cardinal Women's Athletics. She's our version of Wikipedia...if you can't find it here, it probably doesn't exist. )



 

NELL ON WHEELS

 

Anyone who checked the comments last week saw that Louisville was selected as the most recent location for Nell Fortner to bring her “Nell on Wheels” show.    Those of you who were unable to see the taping or who are interested in seeing other video’s posted from the Louisville trip can check out Sara Hammond’s tour of the women’s training and practice facility http://m.youtube.com/videos?open=1&c=17&s=pop&t=t

Also check out this video of the Lady Cards Pre-Kentucky practice http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B4LH-lQo99w

 

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BASKETBALL SPECIAL TICKET PACKAGE

 

The women now have a special 4 game special package of tickets available to the women’s games.  Go to twitpic.com/biriq1 for the details or call the Louisville ticket office at 502-852-5151.

 

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WOMEN’S HOOPS ON TV FOR THE WEEK OF DECEMBER 3-9

 

Check out the NCAA posting of televised games for the week.  http://www.ncaa.com/news/basketball-women/article/2012-12-02/women-s-hoops-tv-dec-3-9

 

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BASKETBALL RANKINGS AS OF DECEMBER 3, 3012

 

Louisville carries a 8^th place ranking into Saturday’s home game against Valparaiso.  Game time is 7:30 at the YUM! Center.  Come and spend the evening with your friends while watching the best game in town.

RANK	SCHOOL	RECORD
1	Stanford	8-0
2	Connecticut	6-0
3	Baylor	6-1
4	Duke	6-0
5	Notre Dame	5-0
6	Georgia	9-0
7	Kentucky	6-1
8	Louisville	8-1
9	Maryland	4-1
10	Penn State	6-1
11	California	6-1
12	Texas	5-0
13	Oklahoma	7-1
14	Tennessee	6-1
15	Purdue	7-1
16	Oklahoma State	6-0
T17	UCLA	4-1
T17	Kansas	7-0
19	Dayton	9-0
20	Ohio State	5-2

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BASKETBALL RECRUITS

 

I am sure that I am missing others but word is that 2014 recruit Sydney Brackemyre @syd_the_kyd31 and 2015 recruit Maci Morris @Maci15Mo were at the game last Saturday.  Hopefully they could see themselves out there on the floor as the focus of 15000+ cheering fans.

The breath-taking panorama of the KFC YUM! Center on game day for the Louisville Women's basketball is something that never ceases to amaze us here at Cardinal Couple. 10,000-15,000 fans, the stirring intro for the Cardinal team, the LadyBirds and roar of the Cardinal fans has got to be VERY impressive to high school juniors and seniors. Heck, it's got to be impressive to anyone!

 

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LOUISVILLE SOFTBALL

 

There is just a little over 2 months before the softball team opens their new season in Las Vegas against UCF on February 8.  They will participate in the Sportco Kick-Off Classic with UCF, UNLV, Minnesota, Texas Tech and DePaul. 

Coach Sandy Pearsall’s 2013 team includes 8 new players.    Bios can be found by going to the Louisville Official softball website news page for November 15 at http://www.gocards.com/sports/w-softbl/spec-rel/111512aab.html .  They are Maryssa Becker, Kristina Dillard, Rachel Houck, Autumn McDuffie, Jordan McNary, Morgan Meyer, Nicole Pufahl and Tiarra Sanabria.  3 recruits are KY residents with Autumn and Morgan coming from Louisville and Jordan is from Madison, KY.

 

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ACC SOFTBALL

 

Plans are for various contributors to the Cardinal Couple site to provide brief overviews of various ACC sports where women’s teams are expected to be in competition with U of L.  Since Louisville will soon be joining the Atlantic Coast Conference and as a new member will be participating in their softball conference. 

This past year found Georgia Tech (The Yellow Jackets, who won their third regular season ACC title in the last four years) and Virginia Tech in the ACC finals with North Carolina, Maryland, Georgia Tech, Florida state, NC State, Boston College, Virginia and Virginia Tech all fielding teams.   Five teams (Georgia Tech, Florida State, Maryland, North Carolina, and Virginia Tech) advanced to the NCAA Championship while Virginia Tech went on to within just one win of advancing to the Super Regional.  Obviously the conference members have and are changing but we look forward to the competition and introduction of conference teams to our facilities and team. 

Most recently the ACC softball championship tournament was played at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, N.C. but the 2013 Conference Championship will be held May 9-11 in Tallahassee, Fla., at Dr. JoAnne Graf Field on the campus of Florida State University.

Comprehensive current and historical softball information regarding ACC teams can be found at http://grfx.cstv.com/photos/schools/acc/sports/w-softbl/auto_pdf/2011-12/release/release.pdf

 

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COACH WALZ on WHAS.com – 11 INTERVIEW

 

In case you missed it, the November 30 WHAS-11 Great Day Live Featured Video with  Rachel Platt and Terry Meiners interview of Coach Walz can be seen at http://www.whas11.com/video/featured-videos/UofL-womens-basketball-coach-Jeff-Walz-181538421.html where he not only discussed the team but also the effect our move to the ACC may bring.

 

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MILESTONES IN BASKETBALL

 

Shoni Schimmel surpasses 1000 points during Thursday’s win over Austin Peay.  She is the 6^th player to reach this mark as a junior and the 23^rd player overall to do so. "Shake 'Em" is on path to be the second leading scorer in UofL women's basketball history at this pace. Monique Reid is already the 7th leading scorer all-time at UofL and with a 300-point season, she could pass Kristin Mattox...who is 5th on the list with 1737 points.

The top three are Angel (2779 pts.) Nell Knox (1899) and Jazz Covington (1805).

(Thank you, Sandy for another comprehensive and detailed report on Cardinal Women's Athletics. We were unaware that Clemson did not field an ACC softball team, just a 'club' version. We will be bringing you more synopsis of other ACC women's athletics this week and leading up to the Cards inclusion in the conference. Scheduled down the road is Jenny and ACC women's hoops, Jeff and ACC Volleyball and Paul will preview ACC Field Hockey and Soccer. I suppose they'll dump the rest of the sports on me. Have a great day, everybody!   -- Sonja)

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Wednesday Cardinal Couple -- Basketball returns home

WEDNESDAY CARDINAL COUPLE


-Cards to ACC!

-Cards to face EKU in KFC YUM! Center Wednesday

-Cards WBB prospect scores 33.

The University of Louisville is the newest member of the Atlantic Coast Conference. The Cards were voted in Wednesday morning in a teleconference among ACC officials.

Bye, bye DePaul, Marquette and Seton Hall. Hello UNC, Duke and Florida State!

Tom Jurich...doing work. Lobbying. If there is a better A.D. in the universe, show me. 

Sixth member of the BIG EAST to bolt. Cards supposed to be out by 2014. We'll see. The buyout is chump change. A possibility of an early exit? And, unlike WVU...we don't need to hit the member schools up for $1 mil each to cover the tab.

We'll miss the challenge of not playing Tulane, Memphis and East Carolina in women's basketball.

ROTFLMAO.

The ACC, in case you were worried...does allow alcohol sales in arenas. Go ahead and renew your season tickets Mondo Vendo and Bread Boy...  

The Cards will replace Maryland, who heads to the BIG TEN. At a cost of $50 million.

After the disappointment of seeing West Virginia go to the BIG 12 instead of Louisville, this is cause for celebration.

For womens' sports...hello to top competition in field hockey, softball, volleyball, soccer, women's basketball and lacrosse. We'll miss Geno and C.Viv on the KFC YUM! sidelines...but Sylvia and Coach P. should be just as entertaining. And, there's always "Q"...

Time for some new hoodies and gear...


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(CARDINAL COUPLE staff columnist Jenny O'Bryan gives us the scout on Louisville's next opponent and her thoughts on tonight's matchup)

Louisville Women’s Basketball returns home, after a 5 game road trip, to play Eastern Kentucky University today at 7:30 p.m.    The Cardinals return home 7-0, the best start for the team under Coach Walz, and look to extend that to 8-0 this evening.

The Cardinals had a dominant road trip leading the way most of the time and holding their opponents to under 23 points for 5 consecutive halves.    The Cardinals have had some outstanding stats, different leaders stepping up on any given night, and some outstanding defense over the recent road trip.  Two glaring issues Cardinals are likely working on are valuing every possession/minimizing turnovers and playing a full 40 minutes, with no mental lapses.   Controlling turnovers seem to always be a work in progress for the Cards, but regardless, they are taking care of business. 

Cardinals won at EKU last season, easily 77-53.  The Colonels return a veteran squad with 6 seniors and 3 juniors.  They also return 4 of the 5 starters from last year’s game.  Expect a starting line up of Alex Jones (senior forward), Jade Barber (senior center), Raechele Gray (senior guard) and Marie Carpenter (junior guard), all who started last season against the Cards.  The fifth starter is likely to be Brittany Coles, also a senior guard. 

The Colonels are led in scoring by Carpenter who is averaging 27 ppg, followed by Barber at 13 ppg and Coles, 12 ppg.  Cardinals have a height advantage with the tallest on the Colonel roster checking in at 6-2. 

EKU is 3-2 on the season, losing two in the San Juan Shootout to Florida State and University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.

On paper, this should be a win for our Cards.  Though, one can never take any opponent for granted.  For this game I would like to see our team minimize turnovers and get the inside game going.  With a height advantage over UT Martin, the Cards seemed to struggle with the inside game and relied heavily on guard play.  I would like to see our post players have a dominant game, thus heading in to the next big challenge, UK, with confidence.   Specifically, I’d love to see Shawnta Dyer have a great game.  WE all know she has it in her, dominating the paint and boards at the end of last season.   I am ready for that player to make her appearance this season.  

So, Cardinals, suit up and take care of business and keep this winning record going!  

( We agree with Jenny that 40 minutes of consistency would be a great thing to see Wednesday night. The Cards have the defensive skills and offensive firepower to do it night after night. Time to put the potential to work. )

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2014 Lady Cards target Sydney Brackemyre had a very successful night for Clinton-Massie. Link below.

(Hey, Sydney...we're headed to the ACC! How do you like us now?)

Sydney scores 33



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