Volleyball rolling through the Big East

.

SUNDAY CARDINAL COUPLE

***********SPECIAL REPORT**************

LOUISVIILE VOLLEYBALL WINS THE BIG EAST TOURNAMENT!!!!

The Cards are the 2012 BIG EAST Volleyball Tournament Champions with a straight set defeat of Marquette 25-19, 25-23, 26-24. Both Lola Arlansbekova and Gwen Rucker with double-digits kills in the win! The NCAA Selection Show is next Sunday at 4 p.m. on ESPNU . We'll have a full recap of the action later here at CARDINAL COUPLE.

CONGRATULATIONS to the 2012 BIG EAST Regular Season and Tournament champs....your UofL VOLLEYBALL TEAM!

****************************************

( Jeff McAdams gives us the who,what,where,how and why of Cardinal Volleyball as they roll through the BIG EAST Tournament)

 

Big East Tournament recap

The Louisville Volleyball team has shown no signs of weakness to speak of in the Big East tournament so far.  With sweeps of first St. Johns and now Cincinnati in dominant performances, they have advanced to the Big East title match to be played Sunday at the Al McGuire center in Milwaukee, WI.

Cincinnati defeated UConn in the 4 seed vs 5 seed match to meet up with the Cards in the semifinals.

The Cards will now match up against Marquette University who handled the USF Bulls in the other semifinal match to make also make it the Big East Championship.  South Florida provided the only upset of the tournament so far as they overcame Notre Dame in their quarter-final matchup.  Marquette beat 7th seeded Pitt in their opening match.

So, the stage is set for UofL to achieve the double Big East championship...both regular season and tournament...all they have to do is beat Marquette.  They've done so twice in the past, but...of course, there's always that age-old wisdom that its hard to be a reasonably competitive team 3 times in a season.

The match will be televised on ESPNU at 2pm EST.

Quarterfinals

The match against St. Johns was never really in any doubt.  When the score hit 7-1 in the first set, and UofL already had 4 blocks, I figured it wasn't going to be too much of a match.  Paul already mentioned Gwen Rucker's hitting percentage in his recap yesterday, but she also had an amazing 9 blocks...almost a double-double with blocks.  That's kind of like getting a double-double in basketball with one of the stats being steals.  It happens occasionally, but its pretty rare, and if you see it happen, you've usually watched a really amazing match...or really amazingly awful match if you're cheering for the other team.

On the other side of the semi-final bracket...played before the UofL match...Cincinnati and UConn engaged in a great struggle, taking the match to 5 sets before Cincinnati was able to pull out the win over the Huskies. It's always great to have your opponent go to 5 sets in the match before they play you as the compressed tournament format of a match played every day, leaves little recovery time from a long, hard-fought match like that.

Semifinals

One of the classic matchups of teams in the Big East Tournament is UofL vs Cincinnati.  These two teams are usually among the class of the conference, and frequently meet in the Final match.  Cincinnati has been off their game this season, however and only came up with the 4 seed, putting them on the same side of the bracket with us.

Again, the match wasn't terribly competitive, with the first two sets coming in at 25-16.  Gwen Rucker continued her impressive play, hitting .765 (15 of 17, with 2 errors) with good contributions from others.  This UofL team just has so many weapons, it can be any player that steps up to have a good match, and sometimes several do.

Cincinnati started to pull it together a bit towards the end, making a real competition of the last set, forcing the Cards to come from behind to take the set and match at 25-23.

Finals

So its down to Marquette and UofL.  This will, of course, be the third matchup of these teams this season, with UofL coming out victorious in both previous meetings.

Marquette is a team to be reckoned with an RPI ranking of 33.  While UofL has demonstrated that they are the better team in general, you still have to play the game to see who comes out victorious on this particular day.

Around the NCAA

An epic battle occurred this week between Oregon and Washington.  #6 Washington won a slight upset over #4 Oregon, with a fifth set score of 25-23!  The normal 5th set winning score is 15.  It doesn't really have much implications for rankings, but I would've loved to have seen that match.

We'll likely have a change in the #1 position this week as #1 Stanford lost to #8 Southern Cal.

Otherwise no upsets yet that would give Louisville the opportunity to move up another spot in the coaches poll.  There's still another day of play in this week, though, so its still possible.

At this point, I don't know all of the details of the math behind the RPI, but it seems very unlikely that we could drop enough with the remaining two matches to not host 1st and 2nd rounds.  Losing to Marquette wouldn't hurt us much in the RPI, but losing to Belmont...who upset Morehead State to claim the OVC's automatic NCAA bid, as well as the opportunity to play Louisville next weekend at Cardinal Arena...would hurt, I don't think it would do so enough to drop us out of hosting range.

It does torpedo my idea of having a sub-regional of all Kentucky teams at the KFC Yum! Center for the first and second rounds, though.  I was kind of hoping for first round matches to be Louisville vs Morehead, and Western Kentucky vs Kentucky.  With Morehead not getting the bid, its quite possible that Belmont will get sent to Knoxville and the land of orange, and another team would get brought in to Louisville, likely from further north...like Purdue.  The selection committee can do just about anything, of course, but Louisville vs WKU, and Purdue vs Kentucky, for first round matchups could be what happens.  I suppose it would be better to play Purdue on our home turf in the sub-regionals, than to advance and play them on their home turf in the regionals, though.

All this ultimately just amounts to speculation, of course, and we'll just have to wait and see what transpires...there could be other shakeups, yet.

( Best of luck to the VolleyCards...as they look for the BIG EAST Tournament title today against the Golden Eagles in Milwaukee! As mentioned, the Cards are on ESPNU at 2:00 )

Finally, today we leave you with the "Three Stooges Moment" in college football this year video. Watch at the 45 second mark, as Texas Tech head coach Tommy Tuberville pulls a "Moe" on an unsuspecting assistant coach following a botched attempted play. Anger management issues? Yeah, you betcha...

.
..
...

Big East Volleyball Tournament

.

SATURDAY CARDINAL COUPLE

-Big East Volleyball Tournament Live Streaming

-WBB: Cards sign 3 for Class of 2013


-Down goes Griner...Baylor loses to Stanford 71-69

The Big East Volleyball Tournament is being live streamed by the Big East.  The stream is available via the Big East website at multiple links, but I found it at:

http://www.bigeast.org/Sports/WomensVolleyball/2012VolleyballChampionshipCentral.aspx

Click on the green "Live Stream" bar.

UPDATE #1....THE CARDS DID WIN IN THREE SETS AND FACE CINCINNATI TOMORROW AT 2 p.m.

UPDATE #2....WBB UPSET!!!!! STANFORD HAS KNOCKED OFF #1 BAYLOR IN HAWAII 71-69.


RUCKER KEY IN CARDS VICTORY OVER RED STORM

The #10 VolleyCards easily handled St. John's in BIG EAST VOLLEYBALL TOURNAMENT quarterfinal play yesterday in Milwaukee, WI...zipping to a 3-set 25-15, 25-23, 25-17 win over the Red Storm.

Senior middle blocker and All-BIG EAST First Team selection Gwen Rucker had 13 kills in 15 attempts for a .867 hitting percentage. This sets a new record in the BIG EAST.

BIG EAST Player of the Year Lola Arslanbekova added 13 kills for the VolleyCards, who have won their last 10 matches in a row.

Who's next for Anne Kordes' machine? The UC Bearcats, who escaped with a five-set battle with Connecticut earlier in the day. The Cards defeated Cincinnati twice in regular-season conference play.

Game time is 2 p.m.

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

CANNON, HENDERSON and BREEDLOVE SIGN LOI'S

As expected, Jeff Walz received letters of intent from the three to comprise the 2013 recruiting class for the Lady Cards.

The Cards get a strong paint prescence and two talented point guards to complement the already deep and strong Cardinal roster for next year.

Louisville leaves Sunday for three games in Mexico.

First foe is future BIG EAST member Central Florida. They play Tuesday at 7 p.m. (E.S.T.)

We lament the fact that there will be no TV for the Cards conquest but you can follow the action through the radio broadcast on 790 AM WKRD...or Gametracker...on the GoCards.com Super Scoreboard.

We'd love to be with the team covering the action live but will still try to provide you with updates on how the Lady Cards "south of the border" soiree goes. The Cards, at #8 in the polls, are 3-0 on the season...with wins over Texas A&M, Portland and Austin Peay.

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

STANFORD KNOCKS OFF #1 BAYLOR IN HAWAII

Early season speculation about the women's college basketball season involved quite a bit of discussion on whether Baylor could go two seasons in a row unefeated.

Nope.


Griner and the Baylor Bears take a upset loss at the hands of Stanford 71-69. 

"The failure to communicate this important event is illogical,
Captain Kirk."

It's a shame this one wasn't on national television because it was quite the exciting game. The Stanford feed was choppy at best, I couldn't get any audio and there were no screen graphics. The camera guy would show the overhead scoreboard during timeouts...but keeping track of who was in the lead was a chore most of the game.

ESPN will show Friday night football featuring two mid-majors but can't pick up this important women's college basketball contest? 

C'mon, man...

It's just another example of how the four-letter network serves their own agenda and does whatever the he!! they want, when they want to and everybody else can either watch it or not.  

The days of kings, dictators and monopolies are no longer in fashion. J.P. Morgan, Carnegie, Idi Amin and Hitler are dead.  ESPN still believes they are the only dog barking on the block, that's why we welcome the advent of other broadcasters (CBS, NBC, Fox) expanding on their college sports broadcast networks.

Football may be the revenue magnet but it doesn't mean that it's the only game in town. Last night's Stanford vs. Baylor WBB game should have been shown nationwide.

At least the ESPN guys delivered a pretty good post mortem.

.
..
...

Sunday Cardinal Couple -- Portland vs. Louisville in WBB

.
SUNDAY CARDINAL COUPLE

-Portland to face Cards in the KFC YUM! Center today.

-Volleyball finishes regular season agains Cincy in Cardinal Arena.

Unfortunate timing today with both Volleyball and Basketball on the wood at noon today. Both squads coming off big wins Friday.

Portland travels to Louisville after loss to Cal-State Northridge

Kari Luttinen will look to lead the Pilots over the Cards

For 20 minutes of hoops Friday night, it looked like the Portland Pilots would open their season 1-0. They jumped out to a 5-0 lead on Northridge and held the advantage in the first half, going up by 10 after back-to-back treys from freshman Ellen Nurmi and junior Alexis Byrd.

That lead increased to 14 early in the second half before the Pilots suddenly lost direction and saw Northridge take over the contest...winning going away 70-51.

Kari Luttinen led Portland with 14 points and Byrd added 13 in the road loss.

One might understand if Portland may be stretching and yawning a bit at the start of today's game, having to play at 9 a.m. P.S.T. and after catching a cross-country flight to face the Cards.

LOUISVILLE comes into today's game after knocking off #12 Texas A&M 47-45 in a thriller Friday night. A quick turnaround for the Cards as well, minus the 3,000 mile flight...Sara Hammond began her sophomore season with a 20-point effort against the Aggies and Monique Reid resumed her basketball career with a strong 10-point performance.

Louisville defeated Portland 71-42 last year in Portland, Becky Burke with 17 and Shoni with 14 in the win. Nita Slaughter had eight rebounds against the Pilots last year in the Chiles Center.



<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>


Volleyball hopes for shot at BIG EAST regular season title today against Cincinnati.

After a three-game sweep of Marquette Friday afternoon in the KFC YUM! Center, Louisville Volleyball looks to end the regular season in contention for the regular season champions title with a win over Cincinnati today. The Cards defeated the Bearcats earlier this season in Cincy in three games...but will need a little help from Marquette today in order to claim the crown. 

The Golden Eagles host Notre Dame in volleyball and need to knock off the Irish in order for the Cards to finish first. An Irish win, would leave Louisville and them tied at the top of the standings...and since Notre Dame gave Louisville their only conference loss...ND would get the regular season title. 

CARDINAL COUPLE will be back later this afternoon with reports on both hoops and kills (and the latest news on the Justin Bieber/Selena Gomez breakup...OMG!...)

GO CARDS!

.
..
...