feb. 23 issue - louisville sportsreport

VOLUME XVI • NUMBER 27FEBRUARY 23, 2012

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E D I T O R I A L S T A F F

GENERAL MANAGER - Jack Coffee

SENIOR WRITER AND EDITOR - Russ Brown

OPERATIONS MANAGER - Howie Lindsey

ACCOUNT EXECUTIVES - Mickey Clark, Betty Olsen and Blanche Kitchen

CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHERS - Gail Kamenish, Dave Klotz, Shelley Feller,

Howie Lindsey and Chuck Feist

CONTRIBUTING COLUMNISTS - Matt Willinger, Jeff Wafford,

Jason Puckett and Rick Cushing

GRAPHIC DESIGNER - Scott Stortz

COPY EDITOR - Rick Cushing

The Louisville SportsReport is printed in Kentucky and based in Louisville. It is published weekly in January, February and March, monthly in April, May, June and July and weekly mid-August through late December by Louisville Sports News, L.L.C., in Louisville, Kentucky. Louisville Sports News, L.L.C.: Owner and General Manager - Jack Coffee. The SportsReport was founded in 1996. United States Postal Number: 015255

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VOLUME XVI, NUMBER 27 • FEBRUARY 23, 2012

CSPACOLLEGESPORTS

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COVER PHOTO BY CHUCK FEIST

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WHAT ’S INSIDE :

7 LOUISVILLE BASKETBALL: BY THE NUMBERS By Howie Lindsey8 A FAN MAKES THE CASE FOR LOUISVILLE ATHLETICS By Jack Coffee10 THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE UGLY By Howie Lindsey11 OPPONENT PREVIEW: CINCINNATI BEARCATS By Rick Cushing12 OPPONENT PREVIEW: PITT PANTHERS By Rick Cushing15 EARLY START ON 2013 CLASS By Jeff Wafford16 INTENSITY TO RATCHET UP AS SEASON WINDS DOWN By Mike Huguenin

16 BIG EAST BASKETBALL FOOTBALL STANDINGS By Rick Cushing17 BASEBALL: FOUR SENIORS A KEY FOR PROMISING TEAM By Russ Brown18 SPRING SPORTS SCHEDULES AND RESULTS20 MEN’S AND WOMEN’S BASKETBALL SCHEDULES21 WOMEN’S BASKETBALL PHOTO GALLERY22 CARDINAL STARS OF THE WEEK By Howie Lindsey24 CARDINAL KIDS PHOTO GALLERY

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Louisville’s Chane Behanan (24), Gorgui Dieng and Chris Smith celebrated a big dunk by Behanan against Syracuse. Behanan will be returning home to Cincinnati Thursday night as the Cardinals take on the Bearcats. - photo by Gail Kamenish

9 NOT LIKE PROVIDENCEFaced with foul trouble and poor shooting, Louisville’s fi rst 15 minutes at DePaul were eerily similar to the Providence loss. “This wasn’t going to be a Providence game for us because there was too much at stake,” Rick Pitino said.

5-6 CARDS CLOSING REGULAR SEASONWith four games left, two at home and two on the road, No. 17 Louisville is on the home stretch of the regular season. The Cardinals will play at Cincinnati Thursday, host Pitt Sunday and USF Wednesday before closing at Syracuse.

19 REVENGE ON THEIR MINDSLouisville’s women lost 86-61 at DePaul on Jan. 31. Now they have a chance at a rematch. “If you don’t come out excited to play DePaul after what they did to us up there, then we have the wrong players,” coach Jeff Walz said.

13-14 BIG EAST CHAMPS!Louisville’s women’s swim team won the Big East championship for the second season in a row Saturday at Pittsburgh’s Trees Pool. The Cardinals dominated the competition, leading the fi nal three days of the meet.

7 UC GAME HOMECOMING FOR BEHANANFreshman Chane Behanan committed to Cincinnati, his hometown school, in the 9th grade, but changed his mind once Rick Pitino came calling. “To have a Hall of Fame coach interested in you is exciting,” he said.

4 SOFTBALL TIES RECORD FOR BEST STARTTaner Fowler was 5 for 9 with six RBIs in two games on Saturday as the Cardinals improved to 9-0, matching a program record for consecutive victories to start a season. UofL opens its home schedule Friday vs. Creighton.


LOUISVILLE SOFTBALL

By Rick CushingThe University of Louisville softball team

swept through the East Carolina Pirate Clash in Greenville, N.C., last weekend, winning all four games to extend its season-opening winning streak to nine games.

At 9-0, the No. 21/23 Cards have tied the program record for victories to start a season. The 2006 Cards also opened 9-0.

“This team is working very hard; I’m tre-mendously proud of them,” said coach Sandy Pearsall. “They have really come together as a group. We haven’t been perfect -- too many errors – but we’re constantly coming back, getting the big hit when we need it, never quitting. We keep doing the things that we need to do in order to win. And that’s all that counts.”

The Cards beat Virginia and host East Carolina on Friday, then swept Hofstra and UNC-Greensboro Saturday. Their scheduled game against Fordham on Sunday was can-celled Saturday night due to severe weather in the forecast.

In three of the games UofL needed late-in-ning rallies to prevail. Only a 5-0 victory over East Carolina came easily.

SWEEP VIRGINIA, ECU ON FRIDAY The Cards opened the tourney with a 2-1

victory over Virginia (4-2), scoring both their runs in the bottom of the seventh. With one out, freshman Kayla Soles connected on her fi rst career home run to tie the score. An out later senior Kristin Austin singled and junior Jennifer Esteban walked to set up sopho-more Katie Keller’s game-winning double to right fi eld.

The teams played through four scoreless in-nings before UVA’s Marcy Bowdren led off the top of the fi fth with a home run. The homer broke up senior Tori Collins’ perfect game. She had retired the fi rst 12 batters she faced, striking out eight. She gave up one more hit in the fi fth before being relieved by sophomore Chelsea Leonard (2-0) to begin the sixth. She allowed two hits in two scoreless innings, fan-ning fi ve, to pick up the victory.

The Cards tallied seven hits in all, with Austin going 2 for 3. Soles and Keller each had a hit and an RBI.

Friday’s nightcap saw the Cards cruise to a 5-0 victory over East Carolina (3-2). Leonard and sophomore Caralisa Connell combined on a two-hit shutout, and nine players con-tributed to tie a season-high 11 hits.

After two scoreless innings, UofL broke through with three runs in the third. Sopho-more Hannah Kiyohara registered a one-out hit, and Esteban followed with a bunt single to set up Austin’s two-run triple to left fi eld. Keller’s RBI single plated Austin to make it 3-0. The Cards added single runs in the fourth and sixth.

Leonard started and surrendered one hit while fanning three in three innings. Connell (2-0) allowed one hit and struck out fi ve in four innings.

Freshman Whitney Arion was 2 for 3 with a run and an RBI, Esteban was 2 for 4 with a run and an RBI, and Austin was 1 for 3 with a run and two RBIs.

TWO DRAMATIC WINS ON SATURDAYSophomore Taner Fowler was the story

of the day on Saturday as the Cards needed two late-inning rallies to extend their record

to 9-0, defeating Hofstra 7-6 in nine innings and UNC Greensboro 5-4. Fowler was 5 for 9 with six RBIs on the day,

The fi rst game of the day featured a roller-coaster ride of ties and lead changes over a three-hour span.

The Pride struck fi rst with a run in the sec-ond inning, but UofL tied it in the fi fth on Fowler’s two-out double.

Hofstra regained the lead in the sixth at 2-1, and the Cards were down to their fi nal out with nobody on base in the top of the seventh. Austin then singled, Keller singled on a 1-2 count, and Fowler, also facing a 1-2 count, ripped a two-run double to left to give the Cards a 3-2 lead.

Hofstra matched the two-out heroics when Becca Bigler blasted a home run in the bottom half to tie the score at 3 and send the game to extra innings.

Jordan Trimble was placed at second to begin the eighth due to the international tiebreaker rule. Two outs later, Arion hom-ered on 1-2 count. The rookie rightfi elder’s fi rst career home run gave the Cardinals a 5-3 lead.

The Pride’s Olivia Galati was placed at second to start the home eighth, and a hit batsman and an error loaded the bases with one out. After a Collins strikeout, Ashley Ain-biner’s pinch-hit two-run single tied the score at 5.

The Cards answered again with another two-spot in the top of the ninth. Tesha Pay-sen started the inning at second, moved to third on Esteban’s bunt single and scored on a fi elder’s choice groundout by Keller. Fowler followed with an RBI triple to make it 7-5.

The Pride scored in the bottom of the ninth on an error and one-out fi elder’s choice groundout. Another error placed runners on the corners, but Connell induced a ground-out to close out the game.

Collins (4-0), who allowed four runs – two earned -- and four hits in 6 2/3 innings, strik-ing out eight, got the victory becauseshe re-entered and got the fi nal out of the eighth inning. Leonard allowed a run and a hit in 1 1/3 innings. Connell worked the ninth to pick up her fi rst save of the season, surrendering one unearned run and no hits in one inning.

The Cards had a season-high 13 hits. In addition to Fowler’s four-hit performance, Esteban, Austin, Keller and Arion each had two hits.

In the nightcap the Cards rallied from a 4-1 defi cit in the fi fth to beat UNC Greens-boro 5-4. Collins (5-0) got the victory with 1 2/3 perfect innings, fanning four of the fi ve batters she faced. Fowler was 1 for 4 with three RBIs.

UofL took a 1-0 lead in the fi rst on an RBI groundout by Fowler. UNCG (1-7) answered with two runs in the second, then got two more runs in the third to take a 4-1 lead.

The Cards closed within 4-3 with two runs in the fi fth. Trimble and Esteban opened the inning with bunt singles, Austin stroked an RBI double, and Fowler followed with anoth-er RBI groundout.

It remained that way until Trimble hom-ered with one out in the seventh to tie it at 4. A two-out triple by Austin set up Fowler’s RBI single for the game-winner.

Connell started and allowed four runs and

AT 9-0, CARDS TIE RECORD FOR BEST START IN PROGRAM HISTORY

Sophomore Taner Fowler has been on a tear lately, helping

Louisville to a 9-0 start. - photo by Howie Lindsey

NO NAME HT POS B/T CL HOMETOWN/PREVIOUS SCHOOL

1 Tesha Paysen 5-3 OF R/R SR Hodgenville, Ky./LaRue County

3 Jordan Trimble 5-3 UT/RHP R/R R-SO Louisville, Ky./DuPont Manual

4 Jennifer Esteban 5-1 OF L/R JR Brea, Calif./Olinda

6 Alicja Wolny 5-9 1B L/L JR El Dorado Hills, Calif./Oak Ridge

7 Katelyn Mann 5-3 3B R/R JR Rancho Cucamonga, Calif./Los Osos

8 Maggie Ruckenbrod 5-7 C R/R SO St. Louis, Mo./Oakville

10 Chelsea Leonard 5-8 RHP L/R R-SO Lexington, N.C./Central Davidson

11 Taner Fowler 5-5 C/1B/3B R/R SO Morganfi eld, Ky./Union County

12 Kristin Austin 5-5 OF L/R SR Hartsburg, Mo./Southern Boone Co.

13 Caralisa Connell 5-8 RHP R/R SO Murfreesboro, Tenn./Siegel

14 Kayla Soles 5-4 INF R/R FR New Egypt, N.J./New Egypt

17 Kirsten Straley 5-3 OF L/R FR Hebron, Ky./Conner

19 Trista Cox 5-6 UT R/R FR Indianapolis, Ind./Roncalli

20 Whitney Arion 5-3 SS/3B/OF R/R FR Delphi, Ind./Delphi

21 Chrisanna Roberts 5-1 OF R/R JR Louisville, Ky./Presentation

22 Katie Keller 5-2 2B R/R SO Livermore, Calif./Livermore

23 Chelsea Jordan 5-6 OF L/R JR New Albany, Ind./New Albany

24 Hannah Kiyohara 5-6 INF/OF R/R SO Auburn, Wash./Thomas Jefferson

25 Tori Collins 5-10 LHP L/L SR Lafayette, Ind./McCutcheon

2 0 1 2 S O F T B A L L R O S T E R

six hits in 2 1/3 innings. Leonard pitched 2 2/3 scoreless innings, allowing no hits and fanning four. Collins fi nished.

Trimble was 3 for 3 with two runs and an RBI, and Austin was 2 for 3 with two runs and an RBI.

“I could not be happier with our offense this weekend,” Pearsall said. “We found a way to get it done over and over. With our backs against the wall we persevered and

came through with some big hits. We havesome work to do defensively and our pitch-ers need to fi nd a way to close the door. Withthat said, this team has shown great heart.The pure toughness and fi ght in this teamhas been great to see.”

The Cards will go for a record-setting 10-0 start when they face Creighton Friday at 2p.m. in their home opener at Ulmer Stadium.Admission is free.


RECRUITING NOTEBOOK10 AMAZING AND MEMORABLE MOMENTS OF THE 2009-2010 SEASONLOUISVILLE BASKETBALL

By Russ BrownWith four games remaining in its regu-

lar season, including a rematch with No. 2 Syracuse in the regular-season fi nale in the Carrier Dome, the University of Louis-ville is seeing its chances diminishing for a double-bye in next month’s Big East Tour-nament.

Heading into Thursday night’s game against Cincinnati (19-8, 9-5) in Fifth Third Arena, the Cardinals (21-6, 9-5) are tied with the Bearcats for sixth place but are just two games out of second. The prob-lem for UofL is that tying Marquette (11-3), Notre Dame (11-3) or Georgetown (10-4) for second, third or fourth place won’t get the job done because the Cards have lost to all three and would lose the tie-breaker for the double-bye, which goes to the top four teams.

In essence, however, UofL coach Rick Pitino just shrugs his shoulders. He claims he doesn’t care that much about earning a double-bye, which means UofL would have to play only two games to reach the championship tilt rather than three in the March 6-10 tournament in Madison Square Garden.

That’s because he feels the Cards could use the extra game for freshmen Wayne Blackshear and Kevin Ware to get more ex-perience prior to the NCAA Tournament.

“Somebody asked a question about how important is it to get that double-bye and my answer is, it’s really not that im-portant,” Pitino said. “If I had my choice between fourth and fi fth place, I may want to take fi fth to get the extra game, just to get Wayne some more work.

“That was my point, but right now ... some people are playing to advance in the seeding department, some people are playing to improve. There are a lot of fac-tors that go into it, and we’re playing for all of the above. We want to get better, we want to work other guys in, we want to play for a high seed, all those things.”

After the trip to Cincinnati, where they lost 63-54 last year, the Cards will have home games against Pittsburgh (15-13, 4-11) and South Florida (17-10, 10-4) be-fore Syracuse (26-1, 13-1).

“You’re playing for a (NCAA Tourna-ment) seed right now, so every win is a big win,” Pitino said following UofL’s 90-82 overtime escape against lowly DePaul Saturday. “Since joining the Big East we’ve been the best road team in the confer-ence, and we take great pride in that and we want to stay that way. Now we’ve got a real tough game at Cincinnati, which also needs a victory.”

BEARCATS ON THE BUBBLE?Cincinnati, coached by former UofL as-

sistant Mick Cronin, is in a similar position, but with even more on the line Thursday because the Bearcats are still considered to be on the NCAA Tournament bubble and are relying on a late-season push to get the job done.

The Bearcats put their chances of secur-ing an at-large berth in jeopardy by losing four of six games before their current three-game homestand. Now, after beating Provi-dence and Seton Hall, Cincinnati will try to sweep the set with a victory over UofL.

“When our backs are against the wall, we play great,” UC senior guard Dion Dix-on said. “Right now we know our backs are against the wall, so I feel that every-body’s going to be locked in. I think we’re still in a must-win situation because early in the season we got some tough losses that don’t look good on our resume. We’ve got the same urgency every game.”

Dixon scored 20 points with six rebounds and fi ve assists in UC’s 62-57 victory over Seton Hall (18-9, 7-8) Saturday for its fourth victory in fi ve games, snapping the Pirates’ three-game winning streak.

In his most recent posting, ESPN Brack-etologist Joe Lunardi had Cincinnati cling-ing to a No. 12 seed.

“They have some great wins,” Lunardi said. “Not many teams that are over .500in a major conference with real wins getleft out. But they have to hold it. Theyhave to stay at least where they are in theleague.”

Jerry Palm of CollegeRPI.com is not nearly as supportive as Lunardi and actu-ally seems disdainful of the Bearcats’ pros-pects due to their weak non-conferenceschedule.

“I have not had them especially close to my bracket ever,” Palm said. “They playeda wretched non-conference schedule, andthey lost a couple of those games at home.If you’re going to the committee roomwith one of the 20-worst non-conferenceschedules, you’d better have somethinggoing for you, and a middle-of-the-packBig East record isn’t good enough. Theirprofi le would just be DOA.”

Cronin said his team sometimes has a hard time dealing with the new-found re-spect it is getting from Big East opponentsas it seeks its second straight NCAA bid.

“Even though we were really good last year, people didn’t respect us,” he said. “Iwatch the way other teams are preparingfor us now. You can tell what they think.They know they’ve got to play really wellto beat you. I don’t think our guys un-derstand that. That’s absolutely a humpyou have to get over, and it’s nipped us attimes. We want everything to be easy attimes. We try to be too cool.”

PITT ON SUNDAYAfter meeting UC, the Cards will re-

turn home to face Pittsburgh Sunday ina nationally televised game on CBS. ThePanthers lost to UofL 73-62 on Feb. 21 inPittsburgh and are in 14th place in the BigEast as coach Jamie Dixon’s team suffersthrough its worst season in his nine years.Dixon’s previous three teams went 28-6,25-9 and 31-5.

Pitt’s most glaring problem is offense -- it has failed to score 60 points six times thisseason -- but the Panthers also are next-to-last in the league in fi eld-goal defense,allowing foes to shoot 44.2 percent.

“I think our impatience offensively is showing, and it’s hurting us,” Dixon said.“That’s why we are in the position we areright now.”

After losing to UofL in the fi rst game that point guard Tray Woodall returnedfrom a groin injury that caused him to miss10 games, the Panthers won four games in

DOUBLE-BYE A CARROT PITINO DOESN’T FIND APPETIZING

Freshman power forward Chane Behanan slammed home two of his 16 points against Syracuse last Monday. He also had nine rebounds and earned the respect of Syracuse Hall of Fame coach Jim Boeheim, who adjusted his defense in the second half to prevent Behanan from getting the ball down low because “we couldn’t stop him.” - photo by Gail Kamenish

U O F L F A C E S S U R G I N G C I N C I N N A T I N E X T

...continued on page 6


LOUISVILLE BASKETBALL

Senior shooting guard Chris Smith (and his teammates and coaches on the bench) celebrated after he hit a three against

No. 2 Syracuse last Monday night. The Cardinals have hit 38 threes in the last four games. - photo by Gail Kamenish

a row and appeared to be back on track, but then they lost four straight, making their 12th consecutive NCAA tourney ap-pearance all but unattainable.

Sunday’s 56-47 loss to USF was Pitt’s fourth consecutive loss and dropped its record to 15-13 and 4-11 in the Big East. The Panthers are in danger of posting their worst conference record since joining the Big East in 1982. The low-water mark was 5-13 they hit three times, most recently in 1988-89 under Ralph Willard.

It was Pitt’s seventh loss at the Petersen Events Center this season and the fi rst time since 1999-2000 the Panthers lost seven games at home. Before this season they had a 149-12 record in nine years at Pe-tersen.

“It’s devastating in the locker room,” Pitt coach Jamie Dixon said. “The players are extremely disappointed. I’m extremely saddened for the seniors. You always want to have a win with the seniors on Senior Night.”

The 47 points represented the second-lowest scoring output for the Panthers this season. They have been held to 51 points or fewer in three of the past four games.

Pitt doesn’t play again until UofL.

PITINO WANTS ‘VETERAN’ PERFORMANCES

Pitino talked to his players prior to the DePaul game and told them they have to fi nish the season performing at a level be-yond their years if they want to end the regular season strong and have success in the Big East and NCAA tournaments.

“I said, ‘Look, what a lot of people don’t realize about you guys, and I went around the room.... You’ve got eight guys in their freshman or sophomore seasons.’ So I said, ‘Now I want you to act differently than your age. I want you guys to start thinking you’re a 10-year veteran in the NBA and now you’ve got two wishes, what would they be? You’ve never won a ring.’

“Those guys said, ‘We’d like to get traded to a team that has a chance to win a ring.’ I said, ‘Very smart, that’s a good one.’ What else?’ ‘We’d like to get traded to a team that has 3-4 great players.’ So everybody is chasing a ring, you want to be on a veteran team. You have some veteran presence. Now you all have to start acting like you’re 10-year veterans, and you’ve been traded to team that has a chance to win a ring.

“Now what has to happen? And they all

agreed they’ve got to be great on defense all the time. I said, ‘OK, that’s been our sta-ple all year, that we try to confuse people, communicate, change our defenses. Now we have to be tougher than we’ve been at times because we’ve given up too many offensive rebounds. We’ve got to correct that and pick up our level right now, de-fensively.’

“We talked about it and I gave illustra-tions about how great defenses win ball-games. I said, ‘In every NCAA Tournament, if you’re going to make a run, there’s the one game where your offense isn’t click-ing, like the Syracuse game, and you’ve got to overcome it with defense. You’ve got to understand that.’ And they all did, and we went out and had a great practice. There are (four) games left and you want to go into the Big East Tournament playing your best ball, especially at the defensive end.”

Pitino added that he believes most peo-ple look at his team as being more expe-rienced than it really is because they see senior starters Chris Smith and Kyle Kuric and junior regular Peyton Siva.

“But the rest of the guys ... like Gorgui’s a young basketball player; he’s even young-

er than his class because he hasn’t playedbasketball that long. And certainly ChaneBehanan is very young fundamentally. NowWayne Blackshear is a different story, he isnot young fundamentally. He understandsthe game, he has a lot of Luke Hancock inhim, he knows how to play the game.”

RUSS DOES THE UNEXPECTEDPitino also said he never quite knows

what to expect when he substitutes, nam-ing sophomore guard Russ Smith in par-ticular.

“We’ve got a very unusual basketball team this year,” Pitino said. “Like last year,we have a great attitude. But there arecertain things you just don’t know. I waskind of surprised by Wayne Blackshear atWest Virginia because I didn’t see that inpractice yet.

“You put Russ Smith in the game, you really don’t know. You put him in at WestVirginia, he helps us win the game. Youput him in against Syracuse and he hasthe quickest four turnovers since JamesNaismith invented the game. Sometimeswith our team you really don’t know whatyou’re going to get when you substitute.”



By Russ BrownWayne Blackshear endured a rough

homecoming when he played in front of family and friends in Chicago during Lou-isville’s 90-82 victory over DePaul last Satur-day. Now teammate Chane Behanan has to hope the same fate doesn’t befall him.

Behanan, UofL’s starting freshman pow-er forward, will return home to Cincinnati

Thursday night when the No. 17 Cardinals (21-6, 9-5) take on the Bearcats (19-8, 9-5) in an impor-tant Big East Conference battle in Fifth Third Arena (9 o’clock tipoff).

Behanan starred at Aiken High School in

Cincinnati as a freshman and sophomore, but when his family’s apartment burned in November 2008 his mother, Heaven, moved the family four hours away to Bowling Green, Ky., to be closer to an uncle, William Jackson. Jackson had been urging Behan-an’s mom to raise her children away from the bad big-city infl uences.

“Chane didn’t want to go, and I hated to see him go, but I knew it would be good for him,” his high school coach, Leon Ellison, who had helped raise Behanan between the ages of nine and 16, told the Cincinnati En-quirer.

And Behanan easily could have wound up in a Cincinnati uniform playing beside Yancy Gates against UofL instead of being a major force this season on the Cardinals’ front line, where he is averaging 9.4 points and is the second-leading rebounder at 7.8 per game.

Behanan actually verbally committed to Cincinnati after his freshman year at Aiken, but he says he changed his mind when UofL coach Rick Pitino paid him a visit. In the end, Pitino snatched a recruit away from his for-mer assistant, UC coach Mick Cronin.

“Especially when I fi rst heard that Coach P wanted to bring me to a game,” Behanan said in recalling his recruiting experience to the Enquirer. “It was against Syracuse at Freedom Hall. To have a Hall of Fame coach interested in you is exciting. I always liked Rick Pitino, growing up watching him come into Cincinnati to play (then UC coach Bob) Huggins. Hopefully, I’m not letting him down. He gave me the opportunity to start, and he’s bringing out the best in me.”

So Thursday, Cronin and UC fans might be thinking, “What if?” as the Bearcats try to contend with the hometown kid. Behan-

an says he will always call Cincinnati home.“Ain’t nothing like Cincinnati,” he said.

“I love the people there. That’s my city. Born and raised there, and had a lot of fun there.”

Behanan is coming off a two-point game against DePaul in which he was battling the fl u and played just 20 minutes, one of his most abbreviated appearances of the sea-son. But he had shown what he could do when healthy a few days earlier when he got 16 points and nine rebounds in a 52-51 loss to No. 2 Syracuse in a nationally tele-vised Big Monday game in the KFC Yum! Center.

ESPN announcers Sean McDonough, Jay Bilas and Bill Raftery said Behanan was the best player on the court and was the main reason UofL had a fi ve-point lead with 3:38 remaining.

Syracuse coach Jim Boeheim also was impressed and said Behanan fi gured promi-nently in the Orange’s defensive game plan.

“Their freshman kid played really, really well,” Boeheim said. “We didn’t want Lou-isville to get the ball down to the baseline because when it got down there, the fresh-man made some really good fi nishes.”

Just as he will try to do Thursday to make it a successful homecoming.

17 UofL came back from a 17-point def-icit (34-17) to DePaul with just over fi ve minutes left before halftime last

Saturday. The Cardinals cut DePaul’s lead to 10 by halftime and took the lead just over six minutes into the second half. Regulation ended with the score tied at 77, but UofL outscored the Blue Demons 13-5 in overtime to triumph.

117Had the Cards scored for the entire game at the torrid pace it scored in overtime, they would

have totaled 117 points (provided the game still would have gone into overtime, of course). The Car-dinals’ 13 points in fi ve minutes in OT translate to 52 points per half. The Cards hit 4 of 6 shots in the overtime period, but they hit just 9 of 24 shots in the fi rst half when they scored just 32 points.

20 DePaul was killing Louisville in transition before Rick Pitino made some switches in his line-

up. The Blue Demons scored 20 of their 42 fi rst-half points on fast breaks. Starting power forward Chane Behanan, who was slowed by the fl u, was taken out and Russ Smith inserted in the lineup, and Louis-ville’s defense focused on stopping DePaul’s run-outs in the second half. The Blue Demons scored on just 1 of 3 fast-break opportunities in the second half and overtime, according to Pitino.

42 Senior forward Kyle Kuric played 42 minutes against DePaul, scor-ing 25 points on 9-of-17 shooting,

including 5 of 10 three-point shots. He also had fourrebounds, three assists, three steals, a block andtwo turnovers. It was one of his strongest perfor-mances of the season and bettered his previousseason high in scoring by four points. He scored 21against Pitt on Jan. 21.

38 Louisville has hit 38 three-point-ers in its last four games. The Cardinals hit 11 of 25 against

Connecticut, 10 of 22 against West Virginia, 5 of19 against Syracuse and 12 of 32 against DePaul.That’s a shooting percentage of 38.7 on treys forthose four games.

5 Gorgui Dieng blocked fi ve shots against DePaul, upping his season total to 90. That’s the fourth-highest

single-season total in school history. Dieng leadsthe Big East and is eighth nationally in blockedshots (3.4 per game), and he is fourth in the leaguein rebounding (9.2 per game).

33 Louisville has won 33 of its last 40 games in the month of February. That’s over the past six seasons

dating to the 2006-07 season. This February so farthe Cardinals are 4-1, and they have three gamesleft in the month, at Cincinnati Thursday night, Pittat home Sunday and USF at home next Wednesday.

BY THE NUMBERS

LOUISVILLE, 90 TOTAL 3-POINT REBOUNDS## PLAYER P FGM-FGA FGM-FGA FTM-FTA OFF-DEF TOT PF TP A TO BLK STL MIN 14 KURIC, KYLE F 9-17 5-10 2-2 2-2 4 1 25 3 2 1 3 42 24 BEHANAN, CHANE F 0-1 0-0 2-4 2-4 6 2 2 0 1 0 0 20 10 DIENG, GORGUI C 4-6 0-0 0-1 4-4 8 5 8 1 2 5 0 38 03 SIVA, PEYTON G 2-6 1-2 4-4 1-5 6 4 9 6 2 0 1 34 05 SMITH, CHRIS G 7-15 2-9 4-6 5-2 7 1 20 3 4 0 0 36 02 SMITH, RUSS - 5-11 3-6 3-4 2-2 4 2 16 4 4 0 6 34 21 SWOPSHIRE, JARED - 1-2 0-1 2-3 0-1 1 1 4 0 0 0 0 11 22 JUSTICE, ELISHA - 0-0 0-0 0-0 0-0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0+ 23 WARE, KEVIN - 0-0 0-0 0-0 0-1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 25 BLACKSHEAR, WAYNE - 2-8 1-4 1-3 1-1 2 0 6 0 2 0 1 9 TM TEAM - - - - 1-0 1 - - - - - - - TOTALS - 30-66 12-32 18-27 18-22 40 16 90 17 17 6 11 225 45.5% 37.5% 66.7%

DEPAUL, 82 TOTAL 3-POINT REBOUNDS## PLAYER P FGM-FGA FGM-FGA FTM-FTA OFF-DEF TOT PF TP A TO BLK STL MIN 12 MELVIN, Cleveland f 7-18 0-1 0-0 3-7 10 2 14 2 1 1 0 40 21 CROCKETT, Jamee f 2-7 2-5 3-4 2-2 4 5 9 4 2 0 1 24 23 KIRK, Donnavan f 5-8 1-1 0-0 2-2 4 4 11 1 2 2 1 34 20 YOUNG, Brandon g 10-13 2-4 5-7 2-3 5 4 27 5 6 1 4 41 32 McKINNEY, Charles g 4-7 0-2 0-1 0-4 4 4 8 2 4 1 2 30 00 CLAHAR, Worrel - 1-1 0-0 4-4 0-0 0 2 6 1 3 0 1 8 02 McGHEE, Edwind - 0-0 0-0 0-0 0-0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0+ 10 ROBERTSON, Derrell - 1-3 0-0 0-0 1-0 1 1 2 0 0 0 0 16 11 KELLY, Jeremiah - 2-9 1-7 0-0 2-2 4 1 5 5 1 0 0 32 TM TEAM - - - - 2-2 4 - - - 1 - - - Totals - 32-66 6-20 12-16 14-22 36 23 82 20 20 5 9 225 48.5% 30.0% 75.0%

BOX SCORE: LOUISVILLE, 90 VS. DEPAUL, 82 (OT)

RUSS BROWNRUSS BROWN

C A R D S ’ F R E S H M A N O R I G I N A L LY C O M M I T T E D T O B E A R C A T S

CINCINNATI GAME WILL BE A HOMECOMING FOR BEHANAN

Chane Behanan committed to Cincinnati, his hometown school, as a high school freshman but changed

his mind and opted to go to UofL after a visit from Rick Pitino. “”To

have a Hall of Fame coach interested in you is exciting,” he said.


WOMEN’S BASKETBALLCOFFEE BREAK

With the constant talk of conference realignment and the possibility that the University of Louisville will be a candidate to change leagues, this is an open letter to the conference com-missioners around the country as they consider adding new members.

Dear Conference Commissioner:I am a fan of the University of Louisville, and it is my understanding that you are in the market

for schools to add to your conference. I would like to make a case for the UofL Cardinals to be seriously considered as the next addition to your league.

I know that you are aware of Louisville’s reputation in basketball, but it is possible that you are unfamiliar with the many other attributes the school has to offer. Actu-ally, the Cards are quite accomplished in many sports and have won or tied for 41 championships since entering the Big East Conference in 2005. They have made a splash on the national scene in several sports. This spring two UofL performers repeated as national champions in track and fi eld, and last season the soccer team fi nished as national runner-up. The football team played in its second consecutive bowl game last December, and the baseball team recently went to the College World Series. In 2010 a men’s tennis player fi nished runner-up in the NCAA Championships, and a female golfer fi nished 11th in 2009. Currently, both the men’s and women’s swimming

and diving teams are ranked in the top 20, and women’s soccer, softball, fi eld hockey and vol-leyball have recently been ranked in the top 20.

As an indication that Louisville is no “fl ash in the pan,” the school presently stands at No. 11 in the Learfi eld Sports Director’s Cup between No. 10 Ohio State and No. 12 Texas, schools with almost double the athletic budget, proving that we can do more with less. The Cards have consistently been in the top 40 in the Director’s Cup standings and fi nished 32nd last school year. Louisville plays 23 intercollegiate sports and has excellent coaches in every one.

Not only are our teams impressive, but our facilities are among the best in the country. All but the basketball arena are on campus and within walking distance for students. All are relatively new and a soccer stadium is on the drawing board, which will give every sport a marvelous ven-ue to compete in. The football stadium was expanded to 55,000 last year and is near-capacity for every game. Entry into your conference will ensure top-notch competition and a full house for conference games. Every seat in the stadium is a chair-back, and the PNC and Brown and Williamson clubs plus the 80 or so suites make Papa John’s Cardinal Stadium one of the most comfortable college football stadiums in the country. The fi eld hockey venue has been the site of the national championship four times.

Our football team has been to 11 bowl games in the last 14 years, fi nishing 4-7, and UofL is one of only 27 schools to win a BCS game. That’s the same number of BCS games won by notable football powers Penn State, Tennessee, Virginia Tech, Arkansas and Nebraska. It is more than Texas A&M, Michigan State, Clemson, Baylor and South Carolina.

The university believes in the concept of the NCAA mission to develop student-athletes and is Title IX compliant, with the percentage of male and female athletes matching the university makeup. UofL has never had a hint of a major NCAA violation, and its athletic program is over-seen by one of the best athletic directors in college athletics. Last semester 445 student-athletes made the Athletic Director’s Honor Roll.

The school’s state-of-the-art basketball arena seats more than 22,000 and is in downtown Louisville in a marvelous location on the Ohio River. It sells out for almost every game, which is why UofL has the most profi table basketball program among Division I colleges in the U.S. It is more profi table than any football program in the Big East, ACC or Pac-10, and UofL has been in the top fi ve in basketball attendance since 1986.

The University of Louisville is not just an athletic institution. It is a public, urban university founded in 1798. It has 22,000 students, and the campus is 345 acres in the heart of Louisville. Academically, UofL is improving every year and offers graduate, professional, baccalaureate and associate degrees in more than 170 fi elds of study through 12 schools and colleges. Since 2003 UofL has had more than 60 Fulbright Scholars, and in 2009 it produced a Rhodes Scholar, Monica Marks. Here is what she said about the campus: “The University of Louisville blew all of my expectations out of the water – the friends I’ve made, the professors who’ve mentored me, the personal attention, the support system – it was the best decision I ever made.”

The university is located in a wonderful city. It was one of 30 communities selected in 2000 as attractive places to live, work, play, visit, retire, raise a family, attend a university, grow a busi-ness and promote diversity. Believe me, I know those things are true of Louisville because I have done them all. The campus is located 10 minutes from the International Airport, and I’m sure all of your schools can make an easy connection to Louisville. The city is located at the junction of I-65 and I-64 and easily accessible. There also are plenty of hotel rooms near the campus, which is located within blocks of the Kentucky Fair and Exposition Center, a leading convention destination in the U.S.

As you can see, the University of Louisville would be a perfect addition to your conference.Cordially,Jack Coffee, fan.

Only President’s Award Winner in Greater Louisville 10 out of 11 years!

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JACK COFFEEJACK COFFEE

No doubt you’ve noticed the large head-shot signs that are waved in the student section at UofL games, especially when the opposing team is shooting free throws. Here is a smiling head shot of sophomore guard Russ Smith. - photo by Gail Kamenish

A fan makes the case for UofL to

nation’s conference commissioners



By Russ BrownFor a while it looked like a nightmarish

rerun of the Providence debacle. In other words, Louisville’s No. 19/18 basketball team losing to a Big East Conference bottom-feeder on the road in what would have been a devastating -- not to mention embarrass-ing -- setback.

But the Cardinals (21-6, 9-5) rallied from a 17-point fi rst-half defi -cit and pulled out a 90-82 overtime victory in Allstate Arena in subur-ban Chicago Saturday af-ternoon to continue their domination of the hap-less Blue Demons (11-15, 2-12).

UofL has now won nine in a row over DePaul and 22 of the last 24. But this was undoubtedly one of the toughest wins, much more challenging than a 76-59 victory over the Demons on Jan. 14 in the KFC Yum! Center.

It sends coach Rick Pitino’s resilient club into Thursday night’s game at Cincinnati (19-8, 9-5) with victories in seven of its last eight games, the exception being the 52-51 loss to No. 2 Syracuse a week ago, and knowing it has the toughness to overcome adversity in enemy territory.

The Cards trailed Providence by 18 points on Jan. 10 and lost by 31. Against DePaul they allowed the hosts to shoot 54.8 per-cent in the fi rst half, trailed by as many as 17 late in the period and were behind 42-32 at intermission.

But this was a team with a different mind-set and more confi dence than it had at Provi-dence.

“We knew we could come back and win this game,” said senior guard Chris Smith, who equaled his career high with 20 points, the same number he also scored against De-Paul in the earlier meeting. “At Providence, nobody really had confi dence and we kind of let that game get out of hand. Everybody just stayed positive (this time). We knew we were going to make our run just as well as they did.”

Said senior forward Kyle Kuric, who scored a career-best 25 points: “We learned a lot from that Providence game. That’s why coming out in the second half we picked up our intensity a lot. We couldn’t let what hap-pened at Providence happen again, and we stuck together and came back.”

Pitino said afterward that he reminded his players of the debacle at Providence as UofL tried to overcome foul problems, which it hadn’t been able to do against the Friars. Against DePaul, point guard Peyton Siva picked up his fourth foul with 11:48 left in regulation and center Gorgui Dieng got his fourth with 7:56 remaining. Both remained in the game, but Siva never fouled out and Dieng didn’t exit until only 33 seconds re-mained in overtime.

“The similarities (with Providence) were Peyton is on the bench and Gorgui is on the bench,” Pitino said. “So I just told the guys it can’t be Providence -- we’ve got to play with those guys on the bench -- and we did. We could have lost, but we weren’t going to quit. This wasn’t going to be a Providence game for us because there was too much at stake. We had to have it.”

It helped, of course, that UofL was play-ing one of the worst defensive teams in the nation. The Blue Demons were allowing 76.2 points per game, last among the 74 schools in the six BCS conferences, and had surren-dered an average of 82.8 points on 50.7 percent shooting during a fi ve-game losing streak going into Saturday’s game.

The Cards, who had hit just 5 of 19 three-point shots against Syracuse, lofted a season-high 32 against DePaul and hit 12 for 37.5 percent, including 8 of 21 after halftime.

“We started hitting shots and started get-ting the fl ow going and it was just a totally different game,” Chris Smith said. “We’re all pretty good shooters, so it’s like if one of us starts hitting, we’ll feed off each other.”

RUSS, KYLE HEAT UPPitino had said before the game that

freshman forward Chane Behanan might

not play due to the fl u. Behanan started and played 20 minutes, getting six rebounds but only two points.

“Chane was trying to play through the fl u, but he was really having a tough time,” Pitino said.

So Pitino used a four-guard lineup for most of the second half and overtime, and that allowed reserve guard Russ Smith and Kuric to take advantage of mismatches and score 14 of Louisville’s fi nal 16 points in the second half and overtime.

Russ, who also had six steals, hit a spin-ning layup with 2:20 left to put the Cards on top to stay at 81-79, then he hit a base-line fl oater to make it 83-79. From there the Cards closed out the Demons, with a couple of steals leading to baskets.

“Russ is more than capable of doing some good things,” Pitino said.

Kuric’s fi ve treys (in 10 attempts) matched his season high against both Georgetown and Pittsburgh. He was 9 of 17 overall. Russ was 5 of 11, including 3 of 6 from beyond the arc, and three other players hit at least one trifecta.

“Kyle has to give that type of effort be-cause he didn’t give it in the fi rst half,” Pi-tino said. “In the second half he was all over

the place and gave great effort. We startedrunning plays for Chris, Kyle, and Russ. Aswell as we do that, we’re not going to runthe pick and roll as well, but we’re going toget some good things out of a couple of setsthat we put in, and we did.”

TOUGH HOMECOMING FOR BLACKSHEAR

As so often happens when a player re-turns to his hometown for the fi rst time andfeels pressure to turn in an impressive per-formance, UofL freshman swingman WayneBlackshear from Morgan Park High School inChicago had a rough time in front of a con-tingent of his friends and family.

Blackshear, who had scored 13 points a week earlier in his collegiate debut at WestVirginia, hit just 2 of 8 shots and scored sixpoints in nine minutes. Which didn’t surprisePitino.

“Wayne doesn’t know what he’s doing right now,” the coach said. “As I’ve toldyou, don’t think he’s the next Kobe Bryantbecause of scoring 13 points at West Vir-ginia.”

Pitino also said Blackshear became too hesitant to take open shots after he hadmissed a few.

“So I took him out and I told him, ‘If you don’t want to shoot the ball, I’m going totake you out.’ Listen, on our team we shootthe ball if we’re open whether it goes in ornot.’ The next time he came in, he took theshot and it went in.”

TRAVELING FANS PROVIDE BOOSTDePaul’s largest crowd of the season,

13,764, included a large group of Louisvillefans, many of whom made the trip north onbuses provided by local churches, and bothPitino and his players said the loud fans gavethe Cards a signifi cant boost.

“We are really appreciative of the 60 bus-loads of people from churches that got to-gether and gave us a big lift,” Pitino said.“They wouldn’t let us at any point let up.”

Said Russ Smith: “They kept us in it, they kept us alive, and it’s great to have our fanson the road. We defi nitely felt at home whenwe were making our run back, and I guessthat’s what gave us some more energy.”

QUOTABLE–Chris Smith on the physi-cal nature of the game: “This was a real BigEast game. Bumps and bruises, we’ll needice packs when we get back. I’ll probablyget in the cold tub. Today was a hard-foughtgame. I feel we earned it.”

DePaul coach Oliver Purnell: “The bad is that we didn’t get the job done and we tooka few defensive possessions off in the meatof the game, including blockout situationson long rebounds that cost us. The good, ofcourse, is that we played at a much higherlevel.... We put ourselves in position to winand played our style of basketball. We wereaggressive. We take that style of play andlevel of play into the next game and downthe stretch and we are going to win somegames. “


SHADES OF PROVIDENCE? NO, CARDS RALLY TO TOP DEPAUL

Junior point guard Peyton Siva has returned to his slashing ways since recovering from a badly sprained

ankle about three weeks ago. Saturday against DePaul he had nine points, six rebounds, six assists and a

steal with only two turnovers. - photo by Chuck Feist

We continue to be astounded by the massive crowds at UofL’s women’s basketball games. When ESPN picked up Monday’s Louis-ville-Notre Dame game early this season and set the tipoff for 2 p.m., it made us wonder what the crowd was going to be like for such a

crucial game. But when No. 3 Notre Dame and No. 16 Louisville tipped off, 13,054 fans were in their seats at the KFC Yum! Center, one of the largest crowds of the season. Louisville women’s basketball is ranked No. 2 in the nation in attendance (10,688 fans per game), behind only Tennessee, and the Cardinals women are outdrawing Connecticut (8,870), Notre Dame (8,789), Baylor (8,510) and Kentucky (5,964). The Louisville women average more fans per game than 307 Division I men’s programs and would rank 37th in the nation, just ahead of Michigan, Villanova and Oklahoma State.

Louisville’s booming women’s program caught the attention of ESPN last week, and there was a lengthy article on ESPN.com about the Cardinals’ remarkable success with fans. The largely glowing

article makes note of Louisville’s impressive commitment to gender equity led by Vice President for Athlet-ics Tom Jurich. “To me, it’s all about opportunity,” Jurich said. “These young women, whether they’re in fi eld hockey or basketball, they work just as hard as the men do in football or men’s basketball. And they’re just great ambassadors to this athletic program, they’re great ambassadors to this city. And I wanted to make sure that we elevate everybody equally in the same way. That’s why women’s sports and Title IX have been such a very important thing to me.” That’s why Jurich insisted the women get to play at the KFC Yum! Center just like the men. GOOD call.

The fi rst 15 minutes of the DePaul game were about as ugly as it gets for Louisville basketball. The Cardinals committed 10 turnovers in the fi rst 14:30 and made just four baskets during that span. Sev-eral thousand Louisville fans who made the journey to Chicago had

to be sitting stunned as their team fell farther and farther behind. Honestly, with Peyton Siva and Gorgui Dieng in foul trouble and with the team clanking shots left and right, the game appeared to be a carbon copy of the dreadful 31-point loss to Providence last month.

Nobody wants to see their team down by 17 to DePaul, but it was how Louisville responded to that challenge that we fi nd GOOD. When faced with such challenges this late in the season, you want to see a team display toughness and growth. Louisville shined in both areas.

Unlike the Providence game, the Cardinals came roaring back, played as a team and showed no signs of hanging their heads. The Cardinals cut the DePaul lead to 42-32 by halftime and closed within 44-39 just 3:06 into the second half. And toughness? Louisville outrebounded DePaul 40-36, nabbed 11 steals to DePaul’s nine and forced the Blue Demons into 20 turnovers.

Pitino says putting stock in Wayne Blackshear’s 13-point perfor-mance at West Virginia is not a good idea. Pitino has said repeatedly he believes Blackshear has the potential to be a great player, but he also notes that Blackshear is a freshman who hasn’t practiced

much this season due to injury. “Like I told you guys that all thought Wayne was the second coming of Kobe because of his 13 points at West Virginia, he doesn’t know what he is doing right now,” Pitino said. “I took him out (of the DePaul game) and I said, ‘Listen, if you aren’t going to shoot the ball I have to take you out. On our basketball team, we shoot when we are open whether it goes in or not.’ That is why I was so proud of Gorgui (Dieng) - taking that foul-line jumper after what happened to him (against Syracuse). I put Wayne back in, and the next time he had a chance he took the shot and it looked good. It didn’t go in, but he took it when he should have.”

Despite all the good he does for basketball and charity, Dick Vi-tale can be easy to dislike. His penchant for blathering on about topics that don’t include the game he’s supposed to be comment-ing on is annoying. His love affair with Duke and Mike Krzyzewski

is sickening. And his ability to stick his foot in his mouth at times is impressive. Like last week when he proclaimed the following: “Teams that can’t go better than .500 in their league shouldn’t be eligible for the NCAA Tournament. These big conference teams, they made their bed, they joined that conference, and if they can’t go .500 they should be disqualifi ed from the tournament.” He would have disqualifi ed last year’s NCAA champion, Connecticut, which went 9-9 in the Big East regular season. Good thing the Huskies won the Big East Tournament, or Vitale would have lobbied for them to be left out.

The annual refrain of “The Big East is down this year” from a certain set of analysts has started again. It seems they are starting early this year. When you hear local media folks or opposing fans spout that line of thinking, just remind them of some facts. As of

Sunday, eight Big East teams were in the top 37 RPI (not including USF, a team that just notched its 10th league win and likely is headed to the NCAA Tournament). Don’t like the RPI? Fine, there are nine Big East teams in the top 53 of ESPN’s BPI. There are eight Big East teams in the top 40 of Ken Pomeroy’s rankings. We just can’t see how anyone - even a doom and gloomer like ESPN’s Doug Gottlieb - could argue that the Big East should get fewer than seven teams in the NCAA Tournament. But that is exactly what he said on a national broadcast Sunday night. What a dolt!

We genuinely like the “four-guard lineup” Pitino used against De-Paul in the second half on Saturday. For most of the half Pitino used a lineup of Peyton Siva, Chris Smith, Russ Smith and Kyle Kuric to go

along with Dieng in the pivot. That’s a small but quick lineup that really gave DePaul trouble. Pitino ex-plained his thinking in switching to the lineup -- he wanted the Cardinals to stymie the Blue Demons’ fast break. “We weren’t getting out on the shooters, and Chane (Behanan) wasn’t getting out,” he said. “He was having a diffi cult time, and he also wasn’t getting back (Behanan was suffering from the fl u). This was really about defense. Our defense broke down in transition. In the fi rst half they scored 20 of their 42 points off the break. They were 9 for 11 because we weren’t getting back. In the second half and overtime they were just 1 for 3 because we got back. We were great on the break on offense. We were 12 for 14 for the game and 7 for 8 in the second half.”

It was GOOD to see former Cardinal Edgar Sosa sitting in the front row at the Louisville-Syr-

acuse game. During one of the timeouts, the former starting point guard was introduced to the crowd and helped super-fan Rob Hickerson spell out the C-A-R-D-S cheer. Sosa suf-fered an awful leg fracture while playing overseas last year and is still recovering. According to Pitino, Sosa is progress-ing well in his recovery and should be ready to play again in a couple of months.

UofL President James Ramsey welcomed the iconic Auguste Rodin sculpture, “The Thinker,” back to its place in front of Grawemeyer Hall on Belknap Campus with a short campus-wide event on Tuesday after this week’s Louisville

SportsReport went to press. “The Thinker” sculpture at UofL is the fi rst large version of the piece that Rodin cast. It dates to Dec. 25, 1903, and is more than 108 years old. Between Dec. 3, 2011, and its return, conservators cleaned it and applied a layered, black-over-green patina. In the event of rain on Tuesday, the welcome-back ceremony will be Wednesday at 1:30 p.m. UofL will notify media Tuesday morning if that day’s event is postponed.

St. John’s coach Steve Lavin appears to have fought cancer and defeated it. While we know a relapse is always possible, it was heart-warming to receive this tweet from him Monday: “After my successful prostate surgery on Oct 6, 2011, I’m now thankfully cancer free. Criti-

cal that men have annual checkups.” Here’s hoping for a long life ahead for the Red Storm’s coach. Lavin has been away from his team during games for most of the season.

It is GOOD to see Central Florida taking its medicine after cheat-ing scandals in basketball and football over the past four seasons. The school released its self-imposed punishments Monday after the NCAA ruled it had used runners Ken Caldwell and Brandon Bender to

recruit athletes in basketball and football. The school will, among other penalties, forfeit all wins from the 2008-09 and 2009-10 basketball seasons, put a freeze on any raises for two of its basketball coaches, lose a basketball scholarship and be forced to recruit with half the offi cial visits of a normal football program over the next two seasons. The NCAA reserves the right to infl ict more punishment as it deems necessary. The only bad thing? The current student-athletes have to suffer for the misdeeds of others.

PAGE 10 LOUISVILLE SPORTSREPORT FEBRUARY 23, 2012


C O M M E N T A R Y B Y H O W I E L I N D S E Y

GOOD

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GOOD

GET DAILY UPDATES ON THE CARDS AT CARDINALSPORTS.COM - WANT MORE OPINIONS? FOLLOW @HOWIELINDSEY ON TWITTER

BAD

GOOD

BAD

GOOD

BADGOOD

GOOD

UGLY

GOOD


GAMEDAY PREVIEW - CINCINNATI

CINC

INNA

TI B

EARC

ATS

FEBRUARY 23Louisville at Cincinnati

9 PM

By Rick CushingThe Big East schedule makers must

have been confused when they scheduled this game because UofL also played at Cincinnati last year. Furthermore, Cin-cinnati is UofL’s biggest rival, with this being the 95th meeting of the schools. Shouldn’t that warrant a home-and-home series EVERY year?

OK, I had to get that off my chest.The Bearcats are doing about what was expected of them

this season. They were picked to fi nish fi fth in a preseason poll of Big East coaches, and they were ranked in the top 25 the fi rst two weeks of the season. Homecourt losses to Pres-byterian College and to Marshall knocked them out of the rankings, and they had an ugly loss to crosstown rival Xavier when a brawl erupted in the fi nal seconds and led to six-game suspensions for a couple of UC players.

But since the Xavier loss they have gone 14-5 and now are 19-8 overall, 9-5 in the Big East after beating visiting Seton Hall 62-57 last Saturday. They are tied with UofL for sixth place in the conference.

The Bearcats, who are coached by former UofL assistant Mick Cronin, are doing it with defense (opponents are averag-ing just 61.7 ppg, 47th in the country), good outside shooting (35.7 percentage on three-point shots, 109th in the country, 7.5 treys a game, 62nd in the country) and smart play (turn-over margin of plus-3.7, 16th in the country, just 10.8 TOs a game, 14th in the country).

They also have an edge on the Cards because Cronin knows UofL’s tendencies so well. UofL’s press doesn’t bother UC, and the Bearcats are able to anticipate what the Cards want to do offensively. For example, Cronin warned his players last year that anybody who allowed Kyle Kuric to take a shot from the corner would be sitting next to him the rest of the game.

UC controlled the game last February and beat the Cards 63-54. UofL will have to play well to prevail Thursday night.

GUARDSSean Kilpatrick, a 6-4 sophomore, leads the team in scor-

ing at 15.3 ppg and is second in rebounding at 5.1 rpg. He’s shooting 43.2 percent overall and 39.4 percent from beyond the arc, where he is especially dangerous. He’s averaging 2.7 treys a game, which is 32nd in the country. He was held to seven points by Seton Hall, however.

Dion Dixon, a 6-3 senior who seems to have been around forever, is second on the team in scoring at 13.3 ppg and fi fth in rebounding at 3.5 rpg. He’s shooting just 38.0 percent over-all and 27.3 percent on treys but has shot well against UofL in the past. He’s also a good defender. He led the Bearcats with 20 points, fi ve assists and two blocks against Seton Hall. He hit 2 of 4 three-point shots but was 5 of 14 overall.

The third starter in UC’s three-guard lineup is 6-0 junior Cashmere Wright, who runs the offense. He’s averaging 10.8 ppg and 4.73 assists, and his assist-to-turnover ratio is 2.12-1, which is 61st in the country. He also averages 1.9 steals a

game, which is 58th in the country. He hit 3 of 4 three-point shots and scored 13 points against Seton Hall.

The top frontcourt sub is 6-3 junior Jaquon Parker, who’s averaging 8.6 ppg and 4.9 rpg. He’s shooting 43.5 percent overall but 43.6 percent on treys. He had 12 points against Seton Hall.

Other backcourt subs are 6-3 freshman Jeremiah Davis (3.2 ppg) and 6-1 freshman Ge-Lawn Guyn (2.9 ppg), who is from Georgetown, Ky. (Scott County H.S.).

BIG MENYancy Gates, a thuggish 6-9 senior (he was suspended six

games for the Xavier incident and got off light because he was the worst offender, throwing sucker punches right and left), starts at forward but moves in and out of the pivot. He’s averag-ing 12.8 ppg, third on the team, and a team-leading 9.3 rpg, 37th in the country. He’s shooting 48.2 percent overall and is 2 for 3 on treys. He usually plays well against the Cards.

The starting center is 6-8 sophomore Justin Jackson, who’s averaging 5.5 ppg and 4.4 rpg. He’s shooting 53.2 percent overall but is 0 for 7 on treys. He leads the team in blocked shot with 36.

The top subs up front are 6-10 junior Cheikh Mbodj (2.6 ppg, 2.9 rpg) and 6-5 freshman Jermaine Sanders (1.8 ppg, 1.3 rpg).

STARKilpatrick can fi ll it up. He’s led the Bearcats in scoring

in 10 games this season, with 27 points (the team’s season high) in a 68-64 victory at Georgetown on Jan. 9.

TEAM STRENGTHSBalanced scoring, with four players averaging in double

fi gures, and the above-mentioned stats. UC made 9 of 21 three-point shots against Seton Hall.

TEAM WEAKNESSUC is making just 63.8 percent of its free throws, which is

307th in the country (out of 338 teams).COACHING RESUMECronin is in his sixth season at UC, his alma mater, and

ninth season as a head coach overall. He was on the hot seat until taking the Bearcats to the NCAA Tournament last season for the fi rst time in his tenure there. He fi gures to make the tourney this year, too. Last season UC beat Missouri in the fi rst round before falling to eventual national champion Con-necticut. He also was the head coach for three seasons at Murray State (2003-06), taking the Racers to the NCAA Tour-nament twice. He is 106-85 at UC, 175-109 overall. He was the associate head coach and recruiting coordinator at UofL from 2001-03.

ALL-TIME SERIESUofL and UC have met 94 times in a series that dates

to 1921, with the Cards holding a 53-41 edge, although UC has won the last two meetings. The teams have played many memorable games, including a 98-85 UC victory in the NCAA Final Four consolation game in 1959 at Freedom Hall when the great Oscar Robertson scored 40 points. Both UofL and UC have won two national championships.

NO NAME POS YR EXP HT/WT HOMETOWN 00 JEREMIAH DAVIS G FR. HS 6-3/200 MUNCIE, IN (MUNCIE CENTRAL)

1 CASHMERE WRIGHT G JR. 2V 6-0/175 ATLANTA, GA (URBAN CHRISTIAN ACADEMY)

2 OCTAVIUS ELLIS F FR. HS 6-9/210 MEMPHIS, TN (WHITEHAVEN)

3 DION DIXON G SR. 3V 6-3/195 CHICAGO, IL (CRANE)

5 JUSTIN JACKSON F SO. 1V 6-8/210 COCOA BEACH, FL (ARLINGTON COUNTRY DAY)

10 ALEX EPPENSTEINER G JR. 2V 6-3/210 CINCINNATI, OH (ELDER)

13 CHEIKH MBODJ C JR. TR 6-10/245 DAKAR, (GRAYSON COUNTY COLLEGE)

14 GE-LAWN GUYN G FR. HS 6-1/175 GEORGETOWN, KY (SCOTT COUNTY)

15 JERMAINE SANDERS F FR. HS 6-5/225 FAR ROCKAWAY, NY (RICE)

23 SEAN KILPATRICK G SO. 1V 6-4/215 WHITE PLAINS, NY (NOTRE DAME PREP)

24 KELVIN GAINES C FR. RS 6-10/225 OCALA, FL (ARLINGTON COUNTRY DAY)

34 YANCY GATES F SR. 3V 6-9/260 CINCINNATI, OH (WITHROW)

44 JAQUON PARKER G JR. 2V 6-3/210 SUFFOLK, VA (KING’S FORK)

2011-12 CINCINNATI BASKETBALL ROSTER

2011-12 SCHEDULEDATE OPPONENT TIME NOVEMBER Nov 13 Alabama St. W, 65-40Nov 15 Jacksonville St. W, 73-59Nov 19 Presbyterian L, 56-54Nov 21 N´western St. W, 71-43Nov 25 Marshall L, 73-69Nov 29 Miami (Ohio) W, 56-47

DECEMBER Dec 2 @Georgia W, 57-51Dec 10 @Xavier L, 76-53Dec 14 @Wright St. W, 78-58Dec 17 Radford W, 101-70Dec 21 Ark.-Pine Bluff W, 101-53Dec 23 Chicago St. W, 95-60Dec 29 Oklahoma W, 56-55

JANUARY Jan 1 @Pittsburgh W, 66-63Jan 4 Notre Dame W, 71-55Jan 7 St. John´s (N.Y.) L, 57-55Jan 9 @Georgetown W, 68-64Jan 14 Villanova W, 82-78Jan 18 @Connecticut W, 70-67Jan 21 @West Virginia L, 77-74Jan 23 Syracuse L, 60-53Jan 28 @Rutgers L, 61-54

FEBRUARY Feb 4 DePaul W, 74-66Feb 8 @St. John´s (N.Y.) W, 76-54Feb 11 @Marquette L, 95-78Feb 15 Providence W, 81-66Feb 18 Seton Hall W, 62-57Feb 23 Louisville 9:00 pmFeb 26 @South Florida 12:00 pmFeb 29 Marquette 7:00 pm

MARCH Mar 3 @Villanova 2:00 pm

Coach: Mick CroninLast season: 26-9, 11-7 Big East

Overall record: 156-101 (eight years)At UC: 87-77 (fi ve years)

Made 2011 NCAA Tournament for fi rst time since 2005

YANCY GATESYANCY GATESHEAD COACHHEAD COACHMICK CRONINMICK CRONIN

BREAKING DOWN THE BEARCATS


WOMEN’S BASKETBALLGAMEDAY PREVIEW - PITTSBURGH

PITT

SBUR

GH P

ANTH

ERS

JANUARY 21Louisville at Pitt

Louisville won, 73-62

FEBRUARY 26Pitt at Louisville

2 PM

By Rick CushingThe Panthers remain the most disap-

pointing team in the Big East. Ranked in the top 10 in the country in the preseason and tabbed to fi nish fourth in the league, the Panthers opened the season 11-1 and appeared to be on track for another suc-cessful season. Then the bottom dropped out.

First came a 59-54 homecourt loss to Wagner, then came seven straight losses

in league play, including an embarrassing 62-39 homecourt loss to Rutgers. The seventh loss in that skein came to UofL, 73-62 on Jan. 21 in the Petersen Events Center, where Pitt had been virtually unbeatable – until this season. So far this season the Panthers have lost eight games at home

The return of point guard Travon Woodall, who had missed 10 games with a groin injury, seemed to turn the Panthers around as they won four in a row following the loss to UofL, but then they lost four straight -- at South Florida and Seton Hall and at home to West Virginia 66-48 last Thursday and to South Florida 56-47 last Sunday. They had won 72-66 at West Virginia two weeks pre-viously, so the 16-point homecourt loss was puzzling. And USF’s victory gave the Bulls a two-game sweep of the Panthers this season (USF won 63-51 on Feb. 9), a sweep that would have been unthinkable in previous seasons.

Pitt coach Jamie Dixon, who has taken the Panthers to the NCAA Tournament all eight seasons he has been at the helm, must be pulling his hair out.

Earlier the Panthers could point to the absence of Woodall and the defection of freshman Khem Birch, a McDonald’s All-American who abruptly left the program after 10 games, for their losing ways. But there’s no explaining the recent collapse.

“It’s devastating in the locker room,” Dixon said after Sunday’s loss to USF. “The players are extremely disappointed.... We will get back to work and get ready for Louisville. We have to get better.”

It’s a combination of things – lack of defense, lack of offense, especially on the interior, sloppiness. Opponents are shooting 44.2 percent, 238th in the country. The Panthers are having trouble scoring, having been held to fewer than 60 points six times, and fewer than 50 three times, including their last two games. And their turnover margin is minus-2.3, which is 291st in the country.

Pitt (15-13, 4-11), which currently is in 14th place in the con-ference, is off until playing at UofL Sunday. The Panthers have not been good on the road this season. They’re 1-6 in the league away from home. Now their only hope of extending their streak of 11-straight NCAA Tournament appearances would appear to be a Big East Tournament title.

But the Panthers remain dangerous. A victory over the ranked Cards on their home fl oor would be a step in that direction, how-ever unlikely that appears to be given the way that Pitt is now playing.

GUARDSAshton Gibbs, a 6-2 shooter, leads the team in scoring at

15.8 ppg but is not having a good senior season. Last season he averaged 16.8 ppg and shot 49 percent from three-point range. This season he’s shooting 34.2 percent on treys. Last season the Panthers had two other three-point threats, this season he’s the focus of the opposition’s defense, and he’s been frustrated. He had 14 points against UofL last month but hit just 5 of 13 shots.Against USF Sunday he scored just two points and made only 1 of 7 shots.

Woodall, a 5-11 junior, is second on the team at 12.2 ppg and leads in assists at 6.6 per game. He is shooting 43.2 percent over-all, 36.8 on treys. Against UofL last month he was 0 for 5 from the fi eld and failed to score, but that was his fi rst game in six weeks. He had just two points against USF. “We defi nitely have a lot to

adjust,” he said.The other backcourt starter in Pitt’s three-guard lineup is La-

mar Patterson, a 6-5 sophomore who has been coming on lately. He is averaging 8.8 ppg, fourth on the team, and 5.4 rpg, also fourth on the team. He’s shooting 40.3 percent overall but 41.1 percent on treys. He tied Gibbs for the team lead with 14 points against the Cards last month, when he hit 6 of 9 shots, including 2 of 3 treys. He did not score against USF.

The top backcourt subs are 6-1 freshman John Johnson, who’s averaging 4.9 ppg and shooting 40.3 percent on treys, and 6-4 freshman Cameron Wright (2.5 ppg). Johnson had fi ve points against the Cards last month. Wright failed to score.

BIG MENNasir Robinson, a 6-5 senior, is third on the team in scoring at

11.2 ppg and leads in rebounding at 6.6 rpg. He’s shooting 57.9 percent overall and is especially adept at slashing to the basket. He’s tried just two treys this season and missed both. He had 12 points and seven rebounds against UofL last month, hitting 6 of 11 shots.

Talib Zanna, a 6-9 sophomore who is the other starter up front, is averaging 6.0 ppg and 5.7 rpg. He’s shooting 55.9 percent and has not tried a trey all season. He had seven points and six re-bounds in the teams’ fi rst meeting.

Dante Taylor, a 6-9 junior who was a starter at the beginning of the season before being supplanted by Zanna, is averaging 5.9 ppg and 5.5 rpg. A McDonald’s All-American who has been a dis-appointment, Taylor is shooting 56 percent and is 0 for 1 on treys. He had eight points and fi ve rebounds in the fi rst meeting, when he hit 4 of 5 shots.

The other frontcourt sub is 6-6 sophomore J.J. Moore (6.1 ppg, 2.8 rpg). He had a career-high 21 points against USF Sunday.

STARGibbs is having a down year, but he’s dangerous. He has an

extremely quick release.TEAM STRENGTHSThe Panthers outrebound their foes by 8.0 a game, which is

sixth in the country. UofL held its own on the boards last month, however, with each team grabbing 30 caroms

TEAM WEAKNESSESDefense. The Panthers allowed just 61.0 ppg last season, 21st

in the country. This season they are allowing 66.4 ppg, 167th in the country.

COACHING RESUMEDixon’s only head coaching job has been at Pitt, which he has

taken to the NCAA Tournament all eight previous seasons. That streak fi gures to come to an end. Overall he is 231-93.

ALL-TIME SERIESUofL and Pittsburgh have met 11 times, with the Cards hold-

ing a 6-5 advantage. They have won the past two meetings and are 3-1 against Pitt at home.

SPECIAL NOTEThe color broadcaster on the Pitt radio network is Dick Groat,

one of the best all-around athletes of the 20th century. Groat, 81, was a National League batting champion and MVP in 1960 with the World Series-champion Pittsburgh Pirates. A shortstop who played 14 seasons in the majors, he also started for the 1964 World Series champion St. Louis Cardinals. He had a lifetime av-erage of .286 and was one of the best who ever played at the hit and run. He also was a two-time All-American in basketball at Duke, where he led the nation in scoring twice (1951 and ‘52) and was named National Player of the Year both those years. He played one season in the NBA but gave it up after Pirates GM Branch Rickey advised him to pick one sport and stick with it. Groat, a native of Pittsburgh, picked baseball, although he always said he was a better basketball player. He’s the nattily attired bald-head-ed guy sitting on press row. He was my hero (along with Roberto Clemente) growing up in Pittsburgh.

NO NAME POS HT WT EXP (L) HOMETOWN (SCHOOL) 2 EPPS, ISAIAH G 6-2 185 FR (1V) PLAINFIELD, NJ (HARGRAVE MILITARY ACADEMY)12 GIBBS, ASHTON G 6-2 190 SR (3V) SCOTCH PLAINS, NJ (SETON HALL PREP)33 GILBERT, MALCOLM C 6-11 235 FR (HS) SMYRNA, DE (THE ACADEMY OF THE NEW CHURCH)5 JOHNSON, DURAND G-F 6-6 190 FR (HS) BALTIMORE, MD (BREWSTER ACADEMY)4 JOHNSON, JOHN G 6-1 175 FR (HS) PLAINFIELD, NJ (LIFE CENTER ACADEMY)44 MOORE, J.J. F 6-6 205 SO (1V) BRENTWOOD, NY (SOUTH KENT PREP)15 NWANKWO, ARON F 6-7 205 SO (1V) BALTIMORE, MD (BALTIMORE CITY COLLEGE HS)21 PATTERSON, LAMAR G-F 6-5 229 SO (2V) LANCASTER, PA (ST. BENEDICT’S HS)14 RIVERS, NICK G 6-0 180 SR (4V) PHOENIX, AZ (BROPHY COLLEGE PREP)35 ROBINSON, NASIR F 6-5 225 SR (3V) CHESTER, PA (CHESTER HS)11 TAYLOR, DANTE F 6-9 240 JR (2V) GREENBURGH, NY (NATIONAL CHRISTIAN ACADEMY)1 WOODALL, TRAVON G 5-11 195 JR (3V) BROOKLYN, NY (ST. ANTHONY HS)3 WRIGHT, CAMERON G 6-4 205 FR (1V) CLEVELAND, OH (BENEDICTINE HS)42 ZANNA, TALIB F 6-9 230 SO (2V) KADUNA, NIGERIA (BISHOP MCNAMARA HS)

2011-12 PITTSBURGH BASKETBALL ROSTER

Coach: Jamie DixonLast season: 28-6, 15-3 Big East

Overall record: 216-80 (eight years)At Pitt: 216-80 (eight years)

Made NCAA Tournament last 11 years

ASHTON GIBBSASHTON GIBBS

2011-12 SCHEDULEDATE OPPONENT TIMENOVEMBER Nov 11 Albany W, 89-56Nov 13 Rider W, 86-78Nov 16 Long Beach St. L, 86-76Nov 22 La Salle W, 73-69Nov 25 @Penn W, 78-58Nov 27 Robert Morris W, 81-71Nov 30 @Duquesne W, 80-69

DECEMBER Dec 3 @Tennessee W, 61-56Dec 6 VMI W, 97-70Dec 10 Oklahoma St. W, 74-68Dec 17 S.C. State W, 69-55Dec 20 St. Francis (Pa.) W, 71-47Dec 23 Wagner L, 59-54Dec 27 @Notre Dame L, 72-59

JANUARY Jan 1 Cincinnati L, 66-63Jan 5 @DePaul L, 84-81Jan 11 Rutgers L, 62-39Jan 14 @Marquette L, 62-57Jan 16 @Syracuse L, 71-63Jan 21 Louisville L, 73-62Jan 25 Providence W, 86-74Jan 28 Georgetown W, 72-60Jan 30 @West Virginia W, 72-66

FEBRUARYFeb 5 Villanova W, 79-70Feb 8 @South Florida L, 63-51Feb 12 @Seton Hall L, 73-66Feb 16 West Virginia L, 66-48Feb 19 South Florida L, 56-47Feb 26 @Louisville 2:00 pmFeb 29 St. John´s (N.Y.) 7:00 pm

MARCHMar 3 @Connecticut 12:00 pm

HEAD COACHHEAD COACHJAMIE DIXONJAMIE DIXON

BREAKING DOWN THE PANTHERS


LOUISVILLE SWIMMING

By Howie LindseyThe Louisville women’s swimming and

diving team didn’t just win the Big East title Saturday in Pittsburgh, they crushed the competition, including conference rival Notre Dame. The Cardinals scored 758.5 points, topping the Irish by 165 points.

Prior to last year when Louisville ended Notre Dame’s reign as the elite program in the Big East, the Irish had won 14 straight Big East women’s swimming and diving ti-tles. The Irish came into the meet telling lo-cal South Bend, Ind., media that they were going to enjoy being the hunter for once instead of the hunted.

“Our team was talking about how this year is the fi rst time we will be able to be on the offense instead of on the defense, since we were previously always looking to defend the title,” junior Kim Holden said. “We’re looking forward to just focusing on putting up some impressive times, but we like knowing that we’ll be on the hunt in-stead of being hunted.”

Louisville, the quarry in Notre Dame’s sights, pushed into the lead by the end of Day 1 of the swimming portion of the meet (the diving competition is completed days ahead of the swim meet). The Cardi-nal women won the 200-medley relay and came in fourth in the 800-free relay to hold a 144 to 135 edge over the Irish at the end of Day 1.

“It was a great night for both the men’s and women’s team,” UofL coach Arthur Al-biero said. “Those were big wins for both the men’s and women’s 200-free relay.”

On Day 2, Louisville notched four of the top 12 spots in the 200-IM, placed four in the top seven in the 50-free and won the 200-free relay to push their nine point lead to a 304-212 lead on the second-place Irish.

The Hunted (Louisville) ran off and left The Hunters in the dust by day the end of day three of the four day meet. The Car-dinals held a commanding 136 point lead (539.5 to 403.5) heading into Saturday’s fi nal set of events.

“This is what Louisville swimming is all about,” Albiero said. “A night like tonight is what we prepare for all season. We com-peted as a team and the results speak for themselves.”

Louisville nabbed the top three spots in the 400-IM, scoring 58 points in that event alone. The Cardinal women scored four of the top eight spots in the 100-fl y, scored three in the top eight in the 100-breast fi n-ished fi rst and fourth in the 100-back.

By the fi nal day, Louisville just needed to maintain its lead, but the Cardinals pushed further away from the competition with two swimmers in the top four of the 200-back, fi ve fi nalists in the 100-free, three fi nalists in

the 200-fl y and two of the top three spots in the 200-breast.

By the fi nal day, Louisville could have skipped the last two individual events and the fi nal relay and still have won the title.

MEN EARN RUNNER-UPThe Louisville men, winners of the last

two Big East titles, fi nished second to Notre Dame at the end of the four-day meet in Pittsburgh Saturday. The Cardinals, ranked No. 12 in the dual meet rankings nation-ally, fell short by just 27.5 points, a margin which meant the meet literally came down to the fi nal event.

The Cardinals took a big hit in the diving events as Notre Dame scored 129 points to Louisville’s 30 before the swimming portion of the meet started. The Cardinals won both relays on the opening night of the swim-ming portion, earning 80 points to move into a tie with West Virginia for third place.

After Day 2 of the swimming portion of the meet, Louisville was behind by 75.5 points, mostly because the Irish dominated the 500-free, earning fi rst, second, fourth, seventh, eighth and 11th to score 81 points in that event (to Louisville’s 36). The Irish scored 82 in the 200-IM to the Cardinals’ 57, another big event for the Irish.

Louisville made up signifi cant ground by placing six into the eight-man fi nals of the 50-free, scoring 110.5 points to Notre Dame’s 14, but the margin was still 75.5 points by the end of Day 2.

The Cardinals made up 24 points on Day 3 and won the 400-medley relay, but Notre Dame still held the lead by 51.5 points at the end of the day’s events.

UofL’s hopes of a comeback win on the fi nal day were dashed when the Irish scored

four of the top fi ve spots in the men’s mile swim, racking up 66 points to Louisville’s 28 points from two swimmers.

The Cardinals beat the Irish in the 200-back, dominated the 100-free and 200-breast and the fi nal relay, but Notre Dame’s lead was secure.

NCAA QUALIFYING MEET NEXT Quite a few Louisville swimmers made

likely NCAA qualifying times over the past week, but those that didn’t will have a chance to make the cut this weekend in Knoxville, Tn., at the Championship Quali-fying Meet.

After that, Louisville will participate in the Grand Prix of Columbus on March 10-11 before heading to the Women’s NCAA Championships March 15-17 in Auburn, Ala. The men’s meet is the following week in Federal Way, Wash.

Louisville hopes to have its largest group ever at the NCAA Championships this year.

M E N F I N I S H S E C O N D A T B I G E A S T C H A M P I O N S H I P S

CARDINAL WOMEN BAG BACK-TO-BACK BIG EAST TITLES

Louisville’s senior swimmers and divers were honored after the Big East Championship Meet in Pittsburgh.

WOMEN’S RESULTSPLACE TEAM TOTAL POINTS1 Louisville 785.52 Notre Dame 593.53 West Virginia 5244 Pittsburgh 375.5 5 Villanova 368.56 Connecticut 3507 Cincinnati 254.58 Rutgers 247.59 Georgetown 8610 Seton Hall 8211 Providence 73

MEN’S RESULTS PLACE TEAM TOTAL POINTS1 Notre Dame 887

2 Louisville 859.5

3 Pittsburgh 520

3 West Virginia 509.5

5 Connecticut 232

6 Georgetown 151

7 Cincinnati 146

8 Seton Hall 139

9 Villanova 129

10 Providence 77


LOUISVILLE SWIMMING PHOTO GALLERY

WOMEN WIN BIG EAST, MEN RUNNER-UPLouisville swimming and diving had a successful week in Pittsburgh

last week, bringing home dozens of individual trophies and three team trophies. The Louisville women beat Notre Dame for the second year in a row and were crowned Big East champions. The men won the league ti-

tle the last two seasons but fell to runner-up this season to Notre Dame.Louisville won the combined team competition over second-place NotreDame. Here are some selected scenes from the championship meet fromphotographer Kathryn McGinty.


RECRUITING NOTEBOOK

By Jeff WaffordHaving just concluded a successful 2012

recruiting season, the University of Louis-ville coaching staff handed out a slew of scholarship offers over the past two weeks as they look to get a fast start on the 2013 recruiting class.

While offers were made to juniors all throughout the Southeast, it’s no surprise given UofL’s recent history that the offer sheet includes a signifi cant contingent from Florida.

Here’s a run-down of some of the players who picked up offers over the last week and a half, headed by a familiar name:

Jayron Kearse (6-4, 195), a wide receiver who may play outside

linebacker in college, is a nephew of former Florida Gator and NFL star Javon Kearse, a defensive end nicknamed “The Freak” be-cause of his size and speed. Jayron, a prod-uct of South Fort Myers H.S. (Fla.), com-mitted to Miami early on in the recruiting process. Rated as the No. 223 player in the class of 2013 and a four-star prospect, he still is considering other schools, and you can bet UofL assistant coach Clint Hurtt is trying to talk him out of sticking with that Miami pledge.

The Cards were the fi rst program to of-fer Bartow H.S. (Fla.) linebacker Freddie Stevenson (6-2, 224), but they aren’t alone now. Iowa State, Massachusetts and South Florida have joined the mix.

Likewise, Louisville was the fi rst to of-fer Donel Elam (6-1, 190), an outside line-backer from Fleming Island H.S. (Fla.). Ohio State is also giving an early look at Elam.

Sticking with the Sunshine State theme, Louisville offered Marcell Harris (6-2, 205), a four-star safety prospect from Orlando’s Dr. Phillips H.S. who is rated as the No. 39 player overall in the early 2013 rankings. Harris also has early offers from Florida, Florida State, LSU and many others.

Louisville also extended an offer to Champagnat Catholic H.S. (Fla.) standout Charles Williams last week. Williams (6-2, 180), who also holds offers from Bethune-Cookman, Massachusetts, Bowling Green

and Purdue, is expected to play safety at the collegiate level.

The Cardinals spent some time near Val-dosta, Ga., recruiting prospects last season, and it appears they’ll be there again in 2013. UofL offered Valwood H.S. athlete Rashad Mathis (6-2, 185), who had more than 1,000 yards receiving as a sophomore. He is being recruited by Cardinals assistant coach Ron Dugans. Louisville is Mathis’ fi rst offer.

Staying in the Peach State, the Cards offered Juwaan Williams (6-1, 180), an athlete from Tucker H.S., a school that produced offensive lineman Aaron Epps a couple of years ago. Williams also holds of-fers from Clemson, East Carolina, Florida State, Georgia Tech, Kentucky, N.C. State, Notre Dame, South Carolina, UCF, Vander-bilt and Wake Forest.

“He led Tucker to a state title in 2011 as the QB, but he’s likely a wide receiver in college,” said Rivals.com analyst Keith Nie-buhr. “He’s an excellent young player who could someday possibly be a four-star.”

Meanwhile, back in Florida, UofL offered Madison H.S. (Fla.) cornerback Sheddrick Williams (6-0, 185). Currently also with an offer from South Florida, Williams was slat-ed to visit Florida last weekend.

One of the hottest prospects over the past two weeks has been defensive end De’Asian Richardson (6-4, 270), an Orange Park H.S. (Fla.) product whose offer sheet

now includes Alabama, Duke, Ole Miss, North Carolina, Penn State, South Carolina, Louisville and others. Richardson saw most of those scholarship offers come over the past 15 days as colleges began to get their fi rst looks at his high school fi lm.

Moving a bit north, the Cards offered four-star athlete Jalen Ramsey this past week. Ramsey (6-0, 185), who likely will play cornerback in college, is rated as the No. 135 player in the class of 2013. The Nashville native has a slew of scholarship offers, including from Arkansas, Auburn, Cincinnati, Kentucky, Georgia Tech, Tennes-see, Nebraska and others.

“I’m just blessed to be in the situation that I am,” Ramsey said. “I have 18 of-fers now, and the whole process is great and exciting for me. Since I wasn’t able to play my sophomore year (knee surgery), I wouldn’t have thought some teams would have offered me as early as they did. After they saw me in action they had confi dence in me, stuck with me and knew they had made the right decision. From there it’s just been rolling on.”

The Cardinals became the fourth schol-arship offer this week for John Marvin (6-0, 194), a cornerback from Fort Walton Beach H.S. (Fla.) who also claims offers from South Florida, Troy and Western Michigan.

“Marvin is still a bit raw at defensive back, but he has great speed and athleti-

cism,” said Rivals.com analyst Chris Nee.UofL also offered Jones H.S. (Fla.) defen-

sive end Devin Washington (6-3, 225), whoalso has scholarship offers from Illinois, FIU,Cincinnati, Ole Miss, South Carolina andUCF. One of the most amazing numbers onhis Rivals.com profi le is a 3.8 GPA.

“I’m just waiting it out, and I’m going to visit a lot of schools this summer andspring,” Washington said. “I’ll probablyhave a list of leaders after that. Most im-portant to me will be academics. I’ll alsobe looking for a great coaching staff, fam-ily atmosphere and a place where I can seemyself being for four or fi ve years.”

Finally, in what seems like a move “way up north,” UofL offered Indianapolis PikeH.S. defensive end David Kenney. Rated asa four-star prospect and the No. 238 playerin the class of 2013, Kenney (6-2, 250) alsohas offers from Indiana, Iowa, Iowa Stateand Minnesota.

It’s likely no accident that Louisville’s offer sheet is growing this quickly. During his re-cent National Signing Day press conference,UofL coach Charlie Strong made it clearthat the 2013 class would likely be small,perhaps only about 15 players. Becauseof that, the staff is seeking to fi nd top-rated players early in the process and letthem know the Cards are interested. Then,if they don’t land a player at a given posi-tion, they can quickly move on.

UofL is expected to host several visitors this weekend for a Junior Day event includ-ing Kenney and Avon, Ind., four-star de-fensive end Elijah Daniel (6-4, 253). Duringsuch an event, prospects and families cancome visit the campus and athletic facilities,meet with coaches and academic advisorsand learn more about the program.

Although these Junior Day visits are un-offi cial – meaning the schools don’t pay theplayer’s way – they are a great opportunitynot only for a player to check out a school,but for the coaches to gauge an athlete’sinterest in their program. For example, if aplayer is willing to pay his way from Floridato check out your program, there’s a goodchance he is highly interested in playing foryou, and the coaches weigh that in recruit-ing that player.

CARDS GET AN EARLY START ON 2013 FOOTBALL RECRUITING CLASS

JEFF WAFFORDJEFF WAFFORD DAVID KENNEY ELIJAH DANIEL

FOR UP-TO-THE-MINUTE RECRUITING NEWS, LOG ON TO

CARDINALSPORTS.COM


NATIONAL SPOTLIGHT Big East Basketball Standings

1. Syracuse 26-1 (13-1)The Orange will host USF Wednesday, at UConn Saturday.

2. Marquette 22-5 (11-3)Golden Eagles host Rutgers Wednesday, at WVU Friday.

2. Notre Dame 19-8 (11-3)Irish, winners of seven straight, host WVU Wednesday, at St. John’s Saturday.

4. Georgetown 20-5 (10-4)Hoyas at Seton Hall Tuesday, host Villanova Saturday.

4. South Florida 17-10 (10-4)Surprising Bulls at Syracuse Wednesday, host Cincinnati Sunday.

6. Louisville 21-6 (9-5)Cards at Cincinnati Thursday, host Pitt Sunday.

6. Cincinnati 19-8 (9-5)Bearcats host UofL Thursday, at USF Sunday.

8. West Virginia 17-10 (7-7)Mountaineers at Notre Dame Wednesday, host Marquette Friday.

9. Seton Hall 18-9 (7-8)Pirates host Georgetown Tuesday, Rutgers Saturday.

10. Connecticut 16-10 (6-8)Puzzling Huskies played at Villanova Monday, host Syracuse Saturday.

11. Rutgers 12-15 (4-10)Knights at Marquette Wednesday, at Seton Hall Saturday.

11. St. John’s 11-16 (4-10)Red Storm played DePaul Monday, host Notre Dame Saturday.

11. Villanova 11-15 (4-10)Wildcats played UConn Monday, at Georgetown Saturday.

14. Pittsburgh 15-13 (4-11)Panthers at UofL Sunday.

15. DePaul 11-15 (2-12)Blue Demons played St. John’s Monday, host Providence Saturday.

16. Providence 13-15 (2-13)Friars at DePaul Saturday.

By Mike Huguenin, Rivals.comThere are just two weeks left in the regular

season, and as you might imagine, this week is fi lled with important games involving teams looking to make an NCAA statement.

This is a huge week in the Big East as teams vie to fi nish in the top four – which gets them a double-bye in the league tourney – or at least in the top eight – which gets them a fi rst-round bye. In addition, defending na-tional champ Connecticut needs to reverse its precipitous slide; the Huskies are hoping a victory Monday night at Villanova will start a new winning streak.

This week also has important games in the ACC, Big Ten and West Coast Conference races.

Here’s a look at the key games this week. All times Eastern.

TOP FIVE GAMES THIS WEEKGeorgetown at Seton Hall, Tuesday, 7

p.m., Big East syndication/ESPN FullCourt: Georgetown, which has won 4 of 5 and 7 of 9, is tied for fourth in the Big East. Seton Hall lost Saturday at Cincinnati, and this matchup is the last tough remaining game for the Pi-rates, who close out the regular season with Rutgers andDePaul. The Pirates, who are ninth in the Big East, are trying to fi nish in the top half of the league, and a victory over the Hoyas would help greatly in that quest.

West Virginia at Notre Dame, Wednes-day, 7 p.m., ESPN2: The Irish have won eight in a row to move into a tie for second in the Big East. WVU has lost fi ve of its past seven and is eighth in the league. The Mountain-eers, who lost by four at home to the Irish on Feb. 8, could use another top-50 win to im-prove their NCAA Tournament chances. The Irish could use a win to help their seeding.

Duke at Florida State, Thursday, 7 p.m., ESPN: These teams are tied with North Caro-lina atop the ACC standings. FSU beat UNC in the teams’ only meeting this season – the Seminoles crushed the Tar Heels, actually – and FSU already has won at Duke. The Semi-noles are 14-1 at home this season, but they still have two tough road games left (Miami and Virginia).

Louisville at Cincinnati, Thursday, 9 p.m., ESPN: Louisville has a shot at a top-four fi nish in the Big East, which would give the Cardinals a double-bye in the league tourney. Cincinnati, meanwhile, has the same league record (9-5) as the Cardinals, but the Bearcats have some work to do in relation to an NCAA bid. A victory over the Cardinals would pro-vide a big boost.

BYU at Gonzaga, Thursday, 11 p.m., ESPN2: These teams are tied for second in the West Coast Conference, one game behind Saint Mary’s. Teams that fi nish fi rst and second in the regular season gets byes into the league tourney semifi nals, so there is a lot on the line. Both fi nish their conference schedules against teams that are less than .500 in the league. BYU won by 10 in Provo on Feb. 2.

“MID-MAJOR” GAME OF THE WEEKXavier at Massachusetts, Tuesday, 7 p.m.,

Fox Sports Ohio: UMass can move into a tie for third in the Atlantic 10 with Xavier if it can down the Musketeers. UMass had been in the mix for the regular-season title until it lost three of its past fi ve. Xavier is coming off a home win over Dayton on Saturday; that was its fi rst

victory against a team with a winning record since Jan. 18, a span of eight games. Xavier is looking to improve its NCAA seeding.

SOMETHING TO PROVETexas: The Longhorns had won four in a

row and put themselves back in the NCAA dis-cussion, but then came a loss Saturday at Okla-homa State. Texas has a shot at erasing that loss Monday when Baylor visits (9 p.m., ESPN) in what might be a last stand of sorts for the Longhorns. Baylor has lost three of its past four and is seeing its projected seeding fall.

KEEP AN EYE ONAlabama: The Tide have a tough closing

stretch, beginning with Thursday’s game at Arkansas (7 p.m., ESPN2). The Hogs haven’t won a road game but are 17-1 at home. Ala-bama has lost six of its past 10 but beat the Hogs by six in Tuscaloosa on Jan. 28.

Connecticut: UConn lost for the seventh time in nine games when it fell at home to Marquette on Saturday. Still, the Huskies have fi ve top-50 wins and eight top-100 wins, so this team is far from buried when it comes to an NCAA bid. The Huskies beat Villanova Mondayon a three-point buzzer-beater by Shabbazz Napier after Villanova tied the score at 70 just seconds earlier.

Kansas State: K-State enhanced its NCAA hopes by winning at Baylor on Saturday to earn a season split with the Bears. Tuesday, the Wildcats go for further enhancement and a season sweep of Missouri when they travel to Columbia (7 p.m., ESPNU). Mizzou is in the running for the Big 12 title and a No. 1 seed in the NCAA tourney. K-State whipped the Ti-gers by 16 at home on Jan. 7.

Miami: The Hurricanes are 2-2 since their stirring upset of Duke in Durham on Feb. 5. They play at Maryland on Tuesday (8 p.m., ESPN FullCourt) in a key game for their tour-ney hopes. While beating the Terps won’t nec-essarily enhance Miami’s NCAA résumé, a loss would be damaging. UM, which is just 3-9 against teams in the top 50, beat the Terps by four in double-overtime at home on Feb. 1.

Minnesota: The Gophers have lost three in a row, 4 of 5 and 5 of 7, and they are 5-9 in Big Ten play. Their NCAA hopes are in des-perate need of a pick-me-up, and Minnesota has a shot for just such a victory when league leader Michigan State heads to Minneapolis on Wednesday (8:30 p.m., Big Ten Network). The Spartans beat the Gophers by 16 in East Lansing on Jan. 25.

Mississippi State: The Bulldogs have lost three in a row – to Georgia, LSU and Au-burn, which isn’t exactly a college basketball’s “Who’s Who.” A college basketball blueblood will be in Starkville on Tuesday when Kentucky comes calling (9 p.m., ESPN). UK is unbeaten in SEC play and is trying to become just the third program in 55 seasons to go unbeaten in league play. Mississippi State is in danger of playing its way out of the NCAA fi eld. Can a team that lost to Auburn somehow fi nd a way to stun Kentucky?

Northwestern: The Wildcats beat Min-nesota at home on Saturday to remain in the NCAA discussion, but they are 2-8 against teams in the RPI top 50 and 5-10 against top-100 teams. Northwestern has a chance for a truly marquee victory Tuesday when it plays host to Michigan (8 p.m., Big Ten Network), which will be coming in off a win over Ohio State that put the Wolverines squarely in the mix for the Big Ten title.

EXPECT INTENSITY TO RATCHET UP AS SEASON WINDS DOWN

LOUISVILLE BASEBALL


By Russ BrownIf the University of Louisville’s baseball

team enjoys the success it believes it can ac-complish this season, it will be due in no small measure to its four seniors, two of whom turned down professional offers to

return for another sea-son.

The four veterans -- pitchers Derek Self, Travis Tingle and Justin Amlung and outfi elder/fi rst baseman Stewart Ijames -- fi rmly believe the Cardinals are ready to bounce back from last year’s disappointing 32-

29 record and return to the upper echelon they’ve become accustomed to during head coach Dan McDonnell’s regime.

Two of those four-year players, Amlung and Self, rejected the opportunity to sign with professional baseball teams to return to UofL. Amlung was selected in the 39th round by the Cincinnati Reds in the 2011 Major League Draft, and Self was picked in the 27th round by the Oakland Athletics.

Amlung actually told the Reds he intend-ed to sign and left the Cape Cod League early and returned to Louisville thinking it was a “done deal,” in his words. But then he began thinking things over again and re-alized he was just two semesters away from graduating and could spend another year under highly regarded pitching coach Roger Williams.

“I fi gured I had nothing to lose,” said Amlung, a St. X High School product who is a senior academically but a junior eligibility-wise.

Self said he too wanted to spend another year in Louisville’s program.

“As the summer went on, I still loved it here,” said the Cave City, Ky., native. “If the A’s really wanted me, they would have drafted me earlier and given me closer to what I wanted to sign. I realized that com-ing back would be the best thing for me. It was the best decision of my life.”

Ijames was drafted out of high school and again after a couple of seasons at UofL, but not in 2011, although he could have taken the free-agency route.

“It just never has been the right time for me to leave,” he said. “I still had a lot of things I felt I wanted to accomplish as a baseball player and for this university and this team. I didn’t feel I was ready, and I wanted to do more for the team and as far as baseball goes in general.”

McDonnell says he wasn’t surprised to see the trio return to school.

“There’s a lot here at UofL for them, so any time players get drafted our goal is to get them to look at the big picture,” Mc-Donnell said. “Map out what’s best for them individually at this point in their careers. It’s not like they were in the top-100 picks, and if they were we would have encouraged them to sign. But where they were drafted and the opportunity to come back and fi n-ish their degree, as well as another oppor-

tunity to win a championship and get to Omaha (for the College World Series), was very appealing to them.”

Tingle, a Butler High School product, is hoping to make a name for himself after transferring from Cleveland State Commu-nity College last season and pitching well, then going 5-1 with 11 saves in 27 relief appearances in the Coastal Plains League last summer.

The seniors and all the returning players are eager to atone for last season, when a campaign that started with great hopes end-ed barely above .500 and left a bitter taste. That isn’t what is expected under McDon-nell, who has produced two Big East regular-season titles, two league tournament cham-pionships, four NCAA Regionals, two NCAA Super Regionals and a trip to the College World Series during his fi ve seasons.

“Absolutely, we have something to prove,” Amlung said. “Last year the fresh-men played well at times, but the consis-tency that comes with age was lacking. Now we’re a year older and you can see the consistency with everybody.”

Ijames was a second-team all-Big East selection and was second on the team in home runs with 11 and in RBIs with 45 while batting .247. Amlung, the ace of the staff, compiled a 10-2 record with a 2.31 ERA and 80 strikeouts in 15 starts and 105 innings and earned fi rst-team all-Big East honors. Self was 3-3 with one save, a 2.26 ERA and 34 strikeouts in 75 2/3 innings, while Tingle was 3-1 with a 2.60 ERA in 19 appearances, including fi ve starts.

Ijames, Tingle and sophomore outfi elder Adam Engel are tri-captains this season, but

Self said there are numerous players who are capable of leadership roles.

“We’ve got a lot of leadership on this team,” he said. “I feel everybody can be a leader, no matter whether you’re a fresh-man or a senior. I’m a captain, and I want that responsibility. I feel like we’re all lead-ers, even though we don’t have that label of captain on our chest.

“Everybody listens to us. I’m not saying we’re always right, but we show them the right way. It’s a long season and you might get frustrated, be in a slump, and it’s our job to step in and say, ‘Do what’s best for the team and don’t worry about yourself.’”

Said Amlung: “I’ve been here four years. It’s about infl uencing the rest of the team, how to act off the fi eld, too. The younger players should be able to look at us as an example to see what they should be doing. Don’t get wild on weekends. Have fun, but there’s a time and place for fun, and right now is not the time and place.”

All the seniors say this is the hardest-working group they’ve ever been around, pointing to long, productive hours under strength and conditioning coach Eric Ham-mer. Ijames says he has gained 25 pounds, up to 225, and feels stronger than ever. Self has put on 20 pounds.

“I’ve never seen a baseball team work as hard as we have,” Ijames said. “It’s a big-time contribution to (Hammer) because he’s pushed us and we’ve responded. We’ve got a ton of guys who have put on weight and strength. He’s put us through some rough days, and we’ve kept pushing. It was awe-some to see. We’ve always worked hard in the past, but this year it’s just a different

level.”Said Amlung: “Last year, not to say bad

about people, but some didn’t want to workhard in the weight room. It was, ‘I don’t feelgood today, so I don’t want to do it.’ Whenyou go into the weight room this year, it’sa whole different atmosphere. People areready to get after it. We’re pushing eachother and trying to be better.”

The returning players also say the ca-maraderie and chemistry is better than lastseason.

“We had a lot of people pulling in differ-ent directions (last year),” Tingle said. “Noteverybody was buying in. We had goodleaders, but certain guys who aren’t hereany more wouldn’t listen, they just wantedto do their own thing. We don’t have thatnow. I feel like everybody has a commongoal and knows what it takes to get thataccomplished.”

CARDS GET 2 WINS IN CHALLENGE, LONG HOMESTAND NEXT

After posting a 2-1 record in the Big Ten/Big East Challenge in St. Petersburg, Fla.,last weekend, No. 15 UofL will begin anine-game homestand at Jim Patterson Sta-dium on Wednesday at 3 p.m. against East-ern Kentucky. The opener will be followedby a three-game weekend series againstOakland.

The Cardinals closed out the Challenge with a gritty 7-6 victory over Michigan Stateon Sunday to improve to 8-1 all-time in theevent. After a season-opening 7-1 loss toMinnesota on Friday, the Cards bouncedback with a pair of one-run wins against Il-linois (4-3) and MSU.

“We did some good things on the mound with two quality starts and two qualitysaves, and it was nice to get some youngguys out there,” McDonnell said. “Offen-sively, we got contributions from 11 or 12different guys, which was good for us. Oneof the goals going into the weekend was tomake sure those 11 or 12 guys got at-bats.We certainly would’ve liked to have won allthree games, but we just didn’t play wellenough in that fi rst game. Hopefully, welearned a lot about ourselves and about thegame of baseball with these three games.”

NOTES -- Cole Sturgeon is the Cardinals’ leading hitter through the fi rst three gamesof the season after going 5 for 9 for a .556average. He also has an RBI and two runsscored to go with two sacrifi ces.

Self made two appearances out of the bullpen and was outstanding. He pitchedfour scoreless innings, allowing three hitswith two strikeouts and earning one save.

Engel fi nished the weekend hitting .385 (5 for 13) with two RBIs, two runs and 2for 2 on stolen bases. He also made severalbig plays in center fi eld, including a divingcatch late in Sunday’s win over MSU to roba Spartans hitter of an extra-base hit.

Overall, fi ve different players made their Louisville debuts - position players ShaneCrain, Matt Helms, Nick Ratajczak and Ma-son Snyder, and pitcher Jared Ruxer.

FOUR SENIORS A KEY FOR UOFL’S PROMISING BASEBALL TEAM

Senior outfi elder/fi rst baseman Stewart Ijames, a team tri-captain, could have pursued a professional career last summer but decided to return to school because, “I still had a lot of things I felt I wanted to accomplish as a baseball player and for this university and this team.” - photo by Howie Lindsey



GAMEDAY PREVIEW - WEST VIRGINIA

LACROSSEDATE OPPONENT / EVENT LOCATION TIME / RESULT 02/19/12 at Ohio State Columbus, Ohio L, 21-702/24/12 at Longwood Farmville, Va. 4:00 p.m. ET02/26/12 at Old Dominion Norfolk, Va. 12:00 p.m. ET03/02/12 vs. DENVER UofL LACROSSE STADIUM 2:00 p.m. ET03/07/12 vs. NORTHWESTERN UofL LACROSSE STADIUM 5:00 p.m. ET03/10/12 vs. Presbyterian Cumming, Ga. 1:00 p.m. ET03/14/12 at Vanderbilt Nashville, Tenn. 4:00 p.m. ET03/17/12 at Jacksonville Jacksonville, Fla. 12:00 p.m. ET03/24/12 at Notre Dame # South Bend, Ind. 1:00 p.m. ET03/27/12 at Cincinnati # Cincinnati, Ohio 5:00 p.m. ET04/05/12 vs. LOYOLA (Md.) # UofL LACROSSE STADIUM 5:00 p.m. ET04/07/12 vs. GEORGETOWN # UofL LACROSSE STADIUM 12:00 p.m. ET04/13/12 at Rutgers # New Brunswick, N.J. 5:00 p.m. ET04/15/12 at Villanova # Philadelphia, Pa. 1:00 p.m. ET04/20/12 vs. SYRACUSE # UofL LACROSSE STADIUM 5:00 p.m. ET04/22/12 vs. CONNECTICUT # UofL LACROSSE STADIUM 1:00 p.m. ET05/03/12 BIG EAST CHAMPIONSHIP Syracuse, N.Y. TBD

SWIMMING AND DIVINGDATE OPPONENT / EVENT LOCATION TIME / RESULT 01/14/12 at Cincinnati # Cincinnati, Ohio M 2-0, W 2-001/28/12 at Indiana Bloomington, Ind. M 165.5-134.5, W 128-16502/03/12 vs. KENTUCKY Ralph Wright Natatorium M 188-107, W 183-10702/10-12/12 BIG EAST Diving Championship # Pittsburgh, Pa. M 4th, W 1st02/15-18/12 BIG EAST Swimming Championship # Pittsburgh, Pa. M 2nd, W 1st02/24-25/12 Championship Qualifying Meet Knoxville, Tenn. TBA03/08-10/12 NCAA Diving Zones TBA All Day03/09-11/12 Grand Prix - Columbus (LC) Columbus, Ohio All Day03/15-17/12 NCAA Women’s Swimming and Diving Championship, Auburn, Ala. All Day03/22-24/12 NCAA Men’s National Championship Federal Way, Wash. All Day03/29-31/12 Grand Prix - Indianapolis Indianapolis, Ind. All Day05/03-06/12 Grand Prix - Charlotte Charlotte, N.C. All Day06/07-09/12 Mutual of Omaha Swimvitational Omaha, Neb. All Day06/25/12 US Olympic Trials

BASEBALLDATE OPPONENT / EVENT LOCATION TIME / RESULT Big Ten/BIG EAST Challenge02/17/12 vs. Minnesota Clearwater, Fla. L, 7-102/18/12 vs. Illinois St. Petersburg, Fla. W, 4-302/19/12 vs. Michigan State St. Petersburg, Fla. W, 7-602/22/12 vs. EASTERN KENTUCKY JIM PATTERSON STADIUM 3:00 PM ET02/24/12 vs. OAKLAND UNIVERSITY JIM PATTERSON STADIUM 3:00 PM ET02/25/12 vs. OAKLAND UNIVERSITY JIM PATTERSON STADIUM 1:00 PM ET02/26/12 vs. OAKLAND UNIVERSITY JIM PATTERSON STADIUM 1:00 PM ET02/28/12 vs. EASTERN ILLINOIS JIM PATTERSON STADIUM 3:00 PM ET03/02/12 vs. PEPPERDINE JIM PATTERSON STADIUM 3:00 PM ET03/03/12 vs. PEPPERDINE JIM PATTERSON STADIUM 1:00 PM ET03/04/12 vs. PEPPERDINE JIM PATTERSON STADIUM 1:00 PM ET03/06/12 vs. INDIANA JIM PATTERSON STADIUM 3:00 PM ETAlabama Tournament03/09/12 vs. Oral Roberts Tuscaloosa, Ala. 2:00 PM ET03/10/12 at Alabama Tuscaloosa, Ala. 5:05 PM ET03/11/12 vs. East Carolina Tuscaloosa, Ala. 11:00 AM ET03/13/12 vs. OLE MISS JIM PATTERSON STADIUM 6:00 PM ET03/14/12 vs. OLE MISS JIM PATTERSON STADIUM 12:00 PM ET03/16/12 vs. BALL STATE JIM PATTERSON STADIUM 6:00 PM ET03/17/12 vs. BALL STATE JIM PATTERSON STADIUM 1:00 PM ET03/18/12 vs. BALL STATE JIM PATTERSON STADIUM 1:00 PM ET03/20/12 vs. OHIO STATE JIM PATTERSON STADIUM 6:00 PM ET03/23/12 vs. CINCINNATI # JIM PATTERSON STADIUM 6:00 PM ET03/24/12 vs. CINCINNATI # JIM PATTERSON STADIUM 1:00 PM ET03/25/12 vs. CINCINNATI # JIM PATTERSON STADIUM 1:00 PM ET03/27/12 at Purdue West Lafayette, Ind. 4:00 PM ET03/30/12 vs. VILLANOVA # JIM PATTERSON STADIUM 6:00 PM ET03/31/12 vs. VILLANOVA # JIM PATTERSON STADIUM 1:00 PM ET04/01/12 vs. VILLANOVA # JIM PATTERSON STADIUM 1:00 PM ET04/03/12 vs. WESTERN KENTUCKY JIM PATTERSON STADIUM 6:00 PM ET04/05/12 at Georgetown # Bethesda, Md. 3:00 PM ET04/06/12 at Georgetown # Bethesda, Md. 4:00 PM ET04/07/12 at Georgetown # Bethesda, Md. 12:00 PM ET04/10/12 at Kentucky Lexington, Ky. 6:30 PM ET04/13/12 vs. SETON HALL # JIM PATTERSON STADIUM 6:00 PM ET04/14/12 vs. SETON HALL # JIM PATTERSON STADIUM 1:00 PM ET04/15/12 vs. SETON HALL # JIM PATTERSON STADIUM 1:00 PM ET04/17/12 at Indiana Bloomington, Ind. 3:00 PM ET04/20/12 at USF # Tampa, Fla. 7:00 PM ET04/21/12 at USF # Tampa, Fla. 6:00 PM ET04/22/12 at USF # Tampa, Fla. 1:00 PM ET04/24/12 vs. KENTUCKY JIM PATTERSON STADIUM 6:00 PM ET04/27/12 vs. CONNECTICUT # JIM PATTERSON STADIUM 6:00 PM ET04/28/12 vs. CONNECTICUT # JIM PATTERSON STADIUM 1:00 PM ET04/29/12 vs. CONNECTICUT # JIM PATTERSON STADIUM 1:00 PM ET05/01/12 at Western Kentucky Bowling Green, Ky. 7:00 PM ET05/05/12 at West Virginia # Morgantown, W.Va. 2:00 PM ET at West Virginia # Morgantown, W.Va. 5:30 PM ET05/06/12 at West Virginia # Morgantown, W.Va. 1:00 PM ET05/08/12 at Vanderbilt Nashville, Tenn. 7:00 PM ET05/11/12 vs. ST. JOHN’S # JIM PATTERSON STADIUM 6:00 PM ET05/12/12 vs. ST. JOHN’S # JIM PATTERSON STADIUM 1:00 PM ET05/13/12 vs. ST. JOHN’S # JIM PATTERSON STADIUM 1:00 PM ET05/15/12 vs. MOREHEAD STATE JIM PATTERSON STADIUM 6:00 PM ET05/17/12 at Pittsburgh # Pittsburgh, Pa. 6:00 PM ET05/18/12 at Pittsburgh # Pittsburgh, Pa. 6:00 PM ET05/19/12 at Pittsburgh # Pittsburgh, Pa. 1:00 PM ET05/23-27/12 BIG EAST Championship Clearwater, Fla. TBA

SOFTBALLDATE OPPONENT / EVENT LOCATION TIME / RESULT Florida International University Tournament02/10/12 vs. Michigan State Miami, Fla. W, 4-1 vs. Illinois Miami, Fla. W, 8-302/11/12 vs. UAB Miami, Fla. W, 5-4 at Florida International Miami, Fla. W, 4-202/12/12 vs. Massachusetts Miami, Fla. W, 2-0East Carolina University Tournament02/17/12 vs. Virginia Greenville, N.C. W, 2-102/17/12 at East Carolina Greenville, N.C. W, 5-002/18/12 vs. UNC Greensboro Greenville, N.C. W, 5-402/18/12 vs. Hofstra Greenville, N.C. W, 7-6 02/24/12 vs. Creighton ULMER STADIUM 2:00 p.m. ET02/25/12 vs. Creighton (DH) ULMER STADIUM 12:00 p.m. ETTennessee Classic03/02/12 vs. Middle Tennessee State Knoxville, Tenn. 1:30 p.m. ET vs. Dutch National Team Knoxville, Tenn. 8:15 p.m. ET03/03/12 vs. Memphis Knoxville, Tenn. 12:15 p.m. ET at Tennessee (W) Knoxville, Tenn. 2:30 p.m. ET03/04/12 vs. Boston University Knoxville, Tenn. 9:00 a.m. ET03/02/12 vs. Tennessee Tournament Knoxville, Tenn. TBA03/03/12 vs. Tennessee Tournament Knoxville, Tenn. TBA03/04/12 vs. Tennessee Tournament Knoxville, Tenn. TBARed and Black Tournament03/10/12 vs. Saint Louis ULMER STADIUM 11:00 a.m. ET vs. Michigan ULMER STADIUM 1:00 p.m. ET03/11/12 vs. Saint Louis ULMER STADIUM 3:00 p.m. ET03/12/12 vs. Illinois State ULMER STADIUM 12:00 p.m. ET vs. Illinois State ULMER STADIUM 2:00 p.m. ET03/14/12 vs. Western Kentucky Bowling Green, Ky. 5:00 p.m. ETSacramento State Capital Classic03/16/12 vs. Colorado State Sacramento, Calif. 1:00 p.m. ET vs. Princeton Sacramento, Calif. 5:00 p.m. ET03/17/12 vs. Akron Sacramento, Calif. 2:00 p.m. ET at Sacramento State Sacramento, Calif. 6:00 p.m. ET03/24/12 vs. Pittsburgh # ULMER STADIUM 12:00 p.m. ET vs. Pittsburgh # ULMER STADIUM 2:00 p.m. ET03/25/12 vs. Pittsburgh # ULMER STADIUM 12:00 p.m. ET03/28/12 vs. Kentucky Lexington, Ky. 5:30 p.m. ET03/31/12 vs. DePaul # Chicago, Ill. 1:00 p.m. ET vs. DePaul # Chicago, Ill. 3:00 p.m. ET04/01/12 vs. DePaul # Chicago, Ill. 12:00 p.m. ET04/04/12 vs. Kentucky ULMER STADIUM 6:00 p.m. ET04/06/12 vs. Rutgers # ULMER STADIUM 12:00 p.m. ET vs. Rutgers # ULMER STADIUM 2:00 p.m. ET04/07/12 vs. Rutgers # ULMER STADIUM 12:00 p.m. ET04/11/12 vs. Villanova # Villanova, Pa. 11:00 a.m. ET vs. Villanova # Villanova, Pa. 1:00 p.m. ET04/14/12 vs. Longwood ULMER STADIUM 12:00 p.m. ET vs. Longwood ULMER STADIUM 2:00 p.m. ET04/15/12 vs. Longwood ULMER STADIUM 12:00 p.m. ET04/18/12 vs. USF # ULMER STADIUM 2:00 p.m. ET vs. USF # ULMER STADIUM 4:00 p.m. ET04/21/12 vs. Seton Hall # South Orange, N.J. 12:00 p.m. ET vs. Seton Hall # South Orange, N.J. 2:00 p.m. ET04/22/12 vs. Seton Hall # South Orange, N.J. 12:00 p.m. ET04/25/12 vs. Indiana Bloomington, Ind. TBA04/28/12 at Georgetown # ULMER STADIUM 12:00 p.m. ET at Georgetown # ULMER STADIUM 2:00 p.m. ET04/29/12 at Georgetown # ULMER STADIUM 12:00 p.m. ET05/05/12 vs. St. John’s # Jamaica, N.Y. 12:00 p.m. ET vs. St. John’s # Jamaica, N.Y. 2:00 p.m. ET05/06/12 vs. St. John’s # Jamaica, N.Y. 12:00 p.m. ETBIG EAST Championship05/10-12/12 BIG EAST Championship South Bend, Ind. TBA

SPRING SPORTS SCHEDULES


LOUISVILLE WOMEN’S BASKETBALL

By Howie LindseySitting one victory away from the coveted

20-win mark, the No. 17/16 University of Louisville women’s basketball team will wel-come DePaul to town Saturday at noon at the KFC Yum! Center. And, after getting waxed 86-61 at DePaul on Jan. 31, UofL coach Jeff Walz said his team better have fi re in their eyes Saturday.

“They should be (motivated), we got em-barrassed last time,” he said. “...If you don’t come out excited to play DePaul after what they did to us up there, then we have the wrong players. I know they are going to be

excited.”As if the Cardinals

needed any extra motiva-tion, Saturday also will be Senior Night.

“It’s going to be Senior Night for Becky Burke,” Walz said. “She has had a great career, and I’m look-ing forward to sending her out on a good note.”

Burke is one of only two seniors on this year’s team, but the other senior, All-Big East forward Monique Reid, was injured early this year and is planning to return next season with a medical redshirt waiver. Burke, who began her career with a trip to the NCAA Tournament title game in 2008, played in 105 games her fi rst three seasons and is averaging 11.3 points in 27 games so far this season. She is currently third all-time in games played with 132, six behind last year’s top senior, Keshia Hines, and seven behind all-time great Angel Mc-Coughtry.

With 67 threes this season, Burke has made 235 three-pointers for her career, good for third all-time at UofL. She trails only UofL Hall of Famers Sara Nord (260) and Kristin Mattox (271).

“We defi nitely want to get a win for Becky, and if we play hard we should get that win,” freshman Shawnta Dyer said.

The Cardinals will close their regular sea-son at Seton Hall on Monday at 7 p.m. before the start of the Big East Tournament March 2-6 at the XL Center in Hartford, Conn. But don’t ask Walz about the Seton Hall game or the Big East Tournament yet.

“All I know is that we play on Saturday,” he said. “I can’t afford to look at anything but that right now.”

Louisville, a preseason top-10 pick, is cur-rently No. 16/19 in the country and sitting at seventh in the league standings at 8-6 despite losing two of its top three players to injury, Reid and junior guard Tia Gibbs.

“It’s amazing to me how fast a year goes by,” Walz said. “We started off the year with aspirations of going to a Final Four, which is still our goal. When you lose Tia Gibbs and Monique Reid, you are losing a big bunch of the scoring. We are just trying to fi nd some people to step up and to take over that role. I’m not expecting someone to step up and put in 15 points a night to replace Monique, but we need three or four of them to give us six or seven a night. We really just miss Tia’s leadership; she handles the ball well, she can shoot the three, and she defends well. I’m challenging Bria (Smith) to be able to do that, and that’s a lot to ask from a freshmen.”

BIG EAST STRONGThe Big East had eight teams receiving

votes in the AP poll this week, with seven

teams ranked in the top 25. Notre Dame is third, Connecticut fourth, Georgetown 15th, Louisville 16th, St. John’s 20th, DePaul 21st and Rutgers 24th. West Virginia is the top team in the also-receiving-votes category with 65 points. No. 25 Gonzaga has 75 points.

“How many did we have in the poll this week? Six? Seven?” Notre Dame coach Muf-fet McGraw asked. “Any others receiving votes? St. John’s should be ranked if they aren’t already, and West Virginia is defi nitely in (the NCAA Tournament).”

CARDS FALL TO IRISHThe previous time Louisville played on its

home court, the Cardinals hit a school-record 18 three-point shots during a 27-point blow-out of Syracuse on Feb. 11. The Cardinals needed a similar shooting performance if they hoped to upset No. 3 Notre Dame (26-2, 13-1) Monday, but it wasn’t to be.

The Cards missed 12 of their fi rst 13 three-point attempts and made just two treys (in 16 attempts) for the game as the Irish turned a three-point halftime margin into a 16-point win, 68-52. It wasn’t just threes Louisville couldn’t hit, the Cardinals shot just 31 per-cent for the game.

“I thought we had some really good looks,” Walz said. “We had free-throw-line

jump shots that were open, and we are just not fi nishing those right now. We have got to continue to get in the gym and work on those shots. We forced a few today. We need to work on getting the ball to a teammate on time. We missed some opportunities get-ting some people the ball for easy baskets, but instead we are a second or two late on the pass and then when our players catch the ball, they are already being defended.”

Star sophomore point guard Shoni Schim-mel typifi ed Louisville’s struggles. She missed all seven of her shots in the fi rst half and fi n-ished 3 of 16 for just nine points with fi ve turnovers. Notre Dame put All-American Skylar Diggins on Schimmel for most of the game.

“It was tough when they were doubling the screens and providing help,” Schimmel said. “... I know what Skylar can do from last year. We played last year and she picked me up at half-court, so I know she is tough.”

In a battle of two of the top guards in the league, Diggins had 21 points on 5-of-11 shooting and 11 of 12 from the foul line, while Schimmel struggled.

“We were just one-on-one with her, but if there were any screens then we would dou-ble her,” McGraw said. “We had the post step out and help the guard with that. We thought that was pretty effective.”

Said Walz: “Diggins did a nice job defend-ing her, but there were a lot of shots Shonitook that she usually makes. A few of thedrives, I thought she just drove a little toointo the defense. She is doing a better job ofgetting by her defender, now she just has torealize when to pull up and when to take theball all the way.”

The Cardinals stuck with the Irish through-out the fi rst half. Notre Dame scored the fi rstfi ve points, but Louisville came back to tie thescore. The Irish pushed ahead 12-5 by the14:55 mark after a 7-0 run as Louisville com-mitted three turnovers in a span of fi ve pos-sessions, but the Cardinals closed within 15-13 by the 11-minute mark and had a chanceto take the lead when a three-point shot byAntonita Slaughter rimmed out with 10:28left in the half. Shawnta Dyer tied the scoreat 15 on Louisville’s next possession, prompt-ing a loud cheer from the 13,000-plus fansin attendance.

The score was tied again at 17, but the Irish scored four straight as Louisville struggled tohit shots. A pair of free throws by Slaughtercut the margin to two, but the teams tradedbaskets on the next two possessions. TheCardinals trailed 25-23 when a three by Turn-er pushed the Irish ahead 28-23 with 1:30before halftime. A layup by Bria Smith cut themargin back to three at the half.

The second half was a different story. The Irish pushed the lead to 36-29 by the 16-min-ute mark, and the Cardinals trailed 40-31by the 14-minute mark as shot after shotclanked off the rim.

“I am really pleased with the second half,” McGraw said. “I feel like we are our old selvesagain. We scored the ball well, passed theball well and shot the ball well. Pretty mucheverything needed we did in the second half.I was really pleased with that. Overall, thefi rst half was sloppy, a lot of turnovers, andwe didn’t rebound well. I thought Skylar wasoutstanding and amazing.”

Louisville (19-8, 8-6) had opportunities to cut into the Notre Dame lead in the fi nal 10minutes, but each time the Cardinals wouldthreaten, the Irish would score at the otherend. The most glaring example was whenNotre Dame took a timeout after Dyer slippedpast the defense and scored on a baselinebankshot to cut the margin to 46-39 with8:48 left. The Irish got a three by BrittanyMallory out of the timeout to push the leadback to 10, and they had a 12-point lead aminute later.

“We just could not come up with a big stop,” Walz said. “We got it within sevenwith fewer than nine minutes left, and thenwe had a little breakdown on defense andgive up a three. Their lead then grows to12, and we once again get it back down tonine. Then we don’t double an on-ball screenand foul Diggins, and she goes and makestwo free throws. We continue to fi ght andwe get the score back to nine, but we couldnot come up with a stop when we had to.It’s a 10-point game with 3:30 left, we justgot a little frustrated and we did not fi nishthe game in the last three minutes as hardas we played the fi rst 37 minutes. I thoughtdefensively for 36 or 37 minutes we playedwell. I just have to continue to work with thisteam offensively to help get us some easierbaskets.”

Shelbyville, Ky., native Antonita Slaughter led Louisville with 12 points. Notre Dame’sNatalie Novosel, who is from Lexington, Ky.,had six points and four assists.

REVENGE ON UOFL’S MIND IN REMATCH WITH DEPAUL

Louisville freshman guard Bria Smith laid the ball up before Notre Dame’s Devereaux Peters could block it. Smith had six points, three rebounds, two blocks, two steals and seven turnovers during Louisville’s 68-52 loss Monday. - photo by Chuck Feist

HOWIE LINDSEYHOWIE LINDSEY

P O O R S H O O T I N G D O O M S C A R D S V S . I R I S H


2011-12 MEN’S SCHEDULE DATE OPPONENT SITE TIME / RESULTS OCTOBER10/14/11 Red-White Scrimmage KFC YUM! CENTER White, 86-8510/22/11 Red-White Scrimmage KFC YUM! CENTER Red, 105-6010/26/11 vs. PIKEVILLE * KFC YUM! CENTER W, 74-55NOVEMBER 11/03/11 vs. BELLARMINE * KFC YUM! CENTER W, 62-54GLOBAL SPORTS INVITATIONAL11/11/11 vs. TENNESSEE-MARTIN KFC YUM! CENTER W, 83-4811/13/11 vs. LAMAR KFC YUM! CENTER W, 68-4811/19/11 at Butler Indianapolis, Ind. W, 69-5311/22/11 vs. ARKANSAS STATE KFC YUM! CENTER W, 54-2711/25/11 vs. OHIO KFC YUM! CENTER W, 59-5411/28/11 vs. LONG BEACH STATE KFC YUM! CENTER W, 79-66DECEMBERBIG EAST / SEC CHALLENGE12/02/11 vs. #19 VANDERBILT KFC YUM! CENTER W, 62-6012/07/11 vs. IUPUI KFC YUM! CENTER W, 90-6012/10/11 vs. FAIR. DICKINSON KFC YUM! CENTER W, 80-58BASKETBALL HALL OF FAME SHOOTOUT12/17/11 vs. MEMPHIS TV KFC YUM! CENTER W, 95-8712/20/11 vs. C. OF CHARLESTON KFC YUM! CENTER W, 69-62BILLY MINARDI CLASSIC12/23/11 vs. WESTERN KENTUCKY KFC YUM! CENTER W, 70-6812/28/11 vs. GEORGETOWN # KFC YUM! CENTER L, 71-6812/31/11 at Kentucky TV Lexington, Ky. L, 69-62JANUARY01/03/12 at St. John’s # TV New York, N.Y. W, 73-5801/07/12 vs. NOTRE DAME # KFC YUM! CENTER L, 67-6501/10/12 at Providence # Providence, R.I. L, 90-5901/14/12 vs. DE PAUL # KFC YUM! CENTER W, 67-5901/16/12 at Marquette # Milwaukee, Wis. L, 74-6301/21/12 at Pittsburgh # Pittsburgh, Pa. W, 73-6201/25/12 vs. VILLANOVA # KFC YUM! CENTER W, 84-7401/28/12 at Seton Hall # Newark, N.J. W, 60-51FEBRUARY02/04/12 vs. RUTGERS # KFC YUM! CENTER W, 78-6602/06/12 vs. CONNECTICUT # KFC YUM! CENTER W, 80-5902/11/12 at West Virginia # Morgantown, W.Va. W, 77-7402/13/12 vs. SYRACUSE # KFC YUM! CENTER L, 52-5102/18/12 at DePaul # Chicago, Ill. W, 90-82 (OT)02/23/12 at Cincinnati # TV Cincinnati, Ohio 9:00 p.m.02/26/12 vs. PITTSBURGH # TV KFC YUM! CENTER 2:00 p.m.02/29/12 vs. USF # KFC YUM! CENTER 7:00 p.m.MARCH03/03/12 at Syracuse # TV Syracuse, N.Y. 4:00 p.m.BIG EAST CHAMPIONSHIP: New York, N.Y. (Madison Square Garden) 03/06-10/12 TBD TBA * - Exhibition game, # - Big East Conference game

2011-12 WOMEN’S SCHEDULE

DATE OPPONENT SITE TIME / RESULTS

OCTOBER

10/30/11 VS. LINDSEY WILSON * KFC YUM! CENTER W, 118-41

NOVEMBER

11/13/11 at Missouri State Springfi eld, Mo. W, 73-64

11/15/11 at #4 Texas A&M College Station, Texas L, 76-58

11/17/11 at Eastern Kentucky Richmond, Ky. W, 77-53

11/20/11 vs. XAVIER KFC YUM! CENTER W, 62-44

11/22/11 vs. AUSTIN PEAY KFC YUM! CENTER W, 78-60

11/25/11 at #24 Florida State Tallahassee, Fla. W, 85-76

11/26/11 at Florida A&M Tallahassee, Fla. W, 86-66

11/29/11 vs. MURRAY STATE KFC YUM! CENTER W, 105-62

DECEMBER

12/04/11 at Kentucky Lexington, Ky. L, 74-54

12/10/11 vs. GARDNER-WEBB KFC YUM! CENTER W, 92-27

12/14/11 at Cincinnati # Cincinnati, Ohio W, 64-59

12/17/11 at Portland Portland, Ore. W, 71-42

12/19/11 at Washington State Pullman, Wash. W, 75-71

12/28/11 vs. UT-MARTIN KFC YUM! CENTER W, 70-57

JANUARY

01/03/12 vs. MARQUETTE # KFC YUM! CENTER W, 70-53

01/08/12 at St. John’s # TV Queens, N.Y. L, 72-64

01/11/12 vs. SOUTH FLORIDA # KFC YUM! CENTER W, 63-57

01/14/12 at Rutgers # Piscataway, N.J. L, 68-71 (OT)

01/18/12 vs. PROVIDENCE # KFC YUM! CENTER W, 64-48

01/22/12 at Georgetown # Washington D.C. W, 64-61

01/28/12 vs. VILLANOVA # KFC YUM! CENTER W, 62-58

01/31/12 at DePaul # TV Chicago, Ill. L, 86-61

FEBRUARY

02/04/12 at West Virginia # Morgantown, W.Va. L, 66-50

02/07/12 vs. CONNECTICUT # KFC YUM! CENTER L, 56-46

02/11/12 vs. SYRACUSE # KFC YUM! CENTER W, 89-62

02/14/12 at Pittsburgh # Pittsburgh, Pa. W, 71-66 (OT)

02/20/12 vs. NOTRE DAME # KFC YUM! CENTER L, 68-52

02/25/12 vs. DEPAUL # TV KFC YUM! CENTER 12:00 p.m.

02/27/12 at Seton Hall # South Orange, N.J. 7:00 p.m.

MARCH

BIG EAST CHAMPIONSHIP: Hartford, Conn.

03/02-8/12 TBD TBA


LOUISVILLE WOMEN’S BASKETBALL

Sophomore Shoni Schimmel struggled

to score against Notre Dame’s stifl ing defense.

Schimmel hit just 3 of 16 shots, scoring just nine points in 36 minutes. -

photo by Chuck Feist

Freshman forward Shawnta Dyer had seven

points and three rebounds against Notre Dame.

Dyer’s defense helped hold Devereaux Peters

(14) below her average. - photo by Chuck Feist

Freshman McDonald’s All-American Sara Hammond had four points and seven

rebounds against No. 3 Notre Dame Monday. - photo by Chuck Feist

Short but fi esty guard Shelby Harper gave Louisville six crucial minutes at the point guard spot. Harper, pictured here trying to pass around Notre Dame’s Devereaux Peters, had an assist, a steal and two turnovers. - photo by Chuck Feist


CARDINAL STARSKHADIJA ABDULLAH - WOMEN’S TRACK AND FIELDThe junior from Markham, Ill., captured her second straight Big East indoor shot put title to lead the UofL track and fi eld teams on the fi nal day of competition at the Big East Indoor Championships in New York City last Sunday. Abdullah became the fourth UofL female student-athlete to win at least two indoor league titles during their careers (Jere Summers, Rachel Gehret and D’Ana McCarty are the others). Abdullah won with a toss of 53 feet, 7 1/2 inches (16.34m), and teammate Amashi Kendall placed second with a throw of 51 feet, 5 3/4 inches (15.69m).

AMASHI KENDALL - WOMEN’S TRACK AND FIELDIn addition to coming in second in the shot put, Kendall won the indoor weight throw at the Big East Indoor Championships last Friday. The junior from Owensboro, Ky., heaved the weight 65 feet, 7 3/4 inches (20.01m) to score 10 points for the Cardinals. The mark was four feet better than the runner-up, teammate Patrice Gates, who took second with a throw of 61 feet, 5 inches (18.72m). Kendall’s marks in the weight throw and shot put both bettered her previous lifetime bests.

GISSELLE KOHOYDA - WOMEN’S SWIMMINGThe sophomore from Midland, Mich., broke a pool record last Saturday evening at the Big East Championship meet when she swam the 200 breaststroke in a time of 2:07.69. That broke the Trees Pool (University of Pittsburgh) record of 2:09.02 she set in a preliminary heat Saturday morning, as well as qualifying her for an automatic berth in the NCAA Championships. Kohoyda also fi nished 12th in the 200 IM, second in the 100 breast and helped Louisville fi nish second in the 400 medley relay. UofL’s women won the meet with 758.5 points, well ahead of second-place Notre Dame (593.5 points).

PEDRO OLIVEIRA - MEN’S SWIMMINGThe senior from Rio Maior, Portugal, jumped out to an early lead in the men’s 200 backstroke and held on for the victory with a time of 1:44.23. He actually swam much faster in a preliminary heat, setting a new Big East and Trees Pool record with a time of 1:42.73. Oliveira also helped Louisville win the 400 medley relay by nearly four seconds, and he also fi nished sixth in the 500 free and 200 fl y. During last year’s Big East Championships he competed in the 200 and 400 medley relays, the 500 free, 200 back and 200 fl y. He swam the butterfl y leg in the 200 and 400 medley relays and helped both teams to fi rst-place fi nishes.

CARLOS ALMEIDA - MEN’S SWIMMINGAlmeida won the 400 IM by more than two seconds. His time of 3:48.33 was 2.03 ahead of teammate Michael Pryor, who touched in 3:50.36, and more than four seconds ahead of the third-place fi nisher from West Virginia. Almeida also won the 200 breast in 1:55.52, nearly two seconds ahead of teammate Kameron Chastain, fi nished second in the 200 IM and helped UofL win the 400 medley relay.

TANER FOWLER - SOFTBALLThe sophomore from Morganfi eld, Ky., had a big day last Saturday as the No. 21/23 Cards beat UNC Greensboro and Hofstra to improve to 9-0, tying the school record for the best start to a season. Fowler, who batted in the cleanup spot, was 5 for 9 with six RBIs in the two games Saturday. She also caught all four games over the weekend in the East Carolina Pirate Clash, two on Friday and two on Saturday. For all four games she was 7 for 16 with two doubles and a triple and six RBIs. BRENDON ANDREWS - MEN’S SWIMMINGThe senior from West Palm Beach, Fla., won the 50 free in 19.68 seconds at the Big East Championships, leading the way in a UofL domination of the event. Andrews was one of six Cardinals in the eight-man fi nal, and they fi nished fi rst, second, third, fourth, seventh and eighth. Andrews also won the 100 backstroke in 46.61 seconds, setting a new conference and pool record. He fi nished second to teammate Joao De Lucca in the 100 free and swam the leadoff leg for the 200 medley relay team, which won by more than two seconds, touching in 1:28.04. Andrews also swam the leadoff leg in the 200 free relay, which UofL won in 1:17.74, and he swam the leadoff leg in the 400 medley relay, which the Cards won in 3:07.84, a new Big East and pool record. In all, Andrews was a part of 177 of UofL’s 859.5 points. The men fi nished second to Notre Dame, which had 887 points.

OLIVEIRAOLIVEIRA

ANDREWSANDREWS

KENDALLKENDALL

KOHOYDAKOHOYDA

ABDULLAHABDULLAH

FOWLERFOWLER

ALMEIDAALMEIDA

HOWIE LINDSEY’SHOWIE LINDSEY’S

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KEEP UP ON ALL THE LATEST CARDINAL NEWS!AMERICA’S FOREMOST AUTHORITY ON UofL ATHLETICS

NO NAME HT WT POS CL HOMETOWN (PREVIOUS SCHOOL)

1 Angel Nunez 6-7 190 F FR Washington Heights, N.Y. (Notre Dame Prep)

2 Russ Smith 6-0 160 G SO Brooklyn, N.Y. (Archbishop Molloy/South Kent)

3 Peyton Siva 6-0 180 G JR Seattle, Wash. (Franklin)

4 Rakeem Buckles 6-7 215 F JR Miami, Fla. (Monsignor Pace)

5 Chris Smith 6-2 195 G SR Millstone, N.J. (Manhattan)

10 Gorgui Dieng 6-11 235 C SO Kebemer, Senegal (Covenant/Huntington Prep)

11 Luke Hancock 6-6 200 F JR Roanoke, Va. (George Mason)

12 Zach Price 6-10 235 C FR Louisville, Ky. (Jeffersontown)

14 Kyle Kuric 6-4 195 G/F SR Evansville, Ind. (Memorial)

15 Tim Henderson 6-2 185 G SO Louisville, Ky. (Christian Academy)

21 Jared Swopshire 6-8 200 F RS JR St. Louis, Mo. (IMG Academy)

22 Elisha Justice 5-10 175 G SO Dorton, Ky. (Shelby Valley)

23 Kevin Ware 6-3 185 G FR Conyers, Ga. (Rockdale County)

24 Chane Behanan 6-6 245 F FR Cincinnati, Ohio (Bowling Green)

25 Wayne Blackshear 6-5 225 G/F FR Chicago, Ill. (Morgan Park)

33 Mike Marra 6-5 200 G JR Smithfi eld, R.I. (Northfi eld Mt. Hermon School)

44 Stephan Van Treese 6-8 235 F JR Indianapolis, Ind. (Lawrence North)

2 0 1 1 - 1 2 M E N ’ S B A S K E T B A L L R O S T E R

LOUISVILLE SPORTSREPORT FEBRUARY 23, 2012 L

OUIS

VILL

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PAID

LOUISVILLE SPORTSREPORT’S CARDINAL KIDS

These Cardinal Kids posed for a picture with former Louisville quarterback Adam Froman.

Brayden Lee Vaughan, great grandson of Glenn and Carolyn

Canaday, Vine Grove, Ky.

Sisters Molly and Abby McElroy trying on their new Cardinal gear from Christmas.

Their parents, Neil and Emily McElroy, are both graduates from UofL and big fans.

DO YOUKNOW A

CARDINALKID?

SUBMIT A PICTURE OF YOUR CARDINAL KID BY

SENDING AN EMAIL TO:

[email protected]

Chadwick McTighe, pictured at the WKU game Dec. 23, is the son of Laurie Beth McTighe, a second-

year student at the University of Louisville School of Law.

Louisville fans Malayne Mingus (left) and Miranda Bowling

(right) posed with a Louisville cheerleader at a recent game.

feb. 23 issue - louisville sportsreport

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