Breaking News: Louisville Women's basketball -- Media Day...Comments and Clips -- TUESDAY CARDINAL COUPLE - News Paper

WALZ TALKS TO MEDIA...MEDIA TALKS TO PLAYERS

I'm into my second decade of covering Louisville women's basketball media days and this is the first time I can remember them feeding us. That's how the day started...sub sandwiches, chips and water. Sonya and I arrived at the Yum! Practice Center (the first time the event has been held there) in time for that and got to share a table with Daryl Foust, who's been on the radio with us and writes for The Crunch Zone,  Mike Gilpatrick, another alumni from The Cardinal Couple Radio Hour and Nick Curran, radio voice of the Louisville women's basketball squad. The conversation was generalized...football's woes, a scrimmage the WBB squad had against Bellarmine on Sunday (which Nick got to attend) and the ACC Network Extra pulling the rug out from under Daryl for softball play-by-play this year. 

That, in itself, could be a whole different article and shame on UofL (seems we've been saying that a lot lately) for sidelining one of the best and brightest upcoming female, hell...any gender...announcers in our area. The decision was to go with Maryssa Becker instead and we'll wait until spring to diagnose that....other than questioning why BOTH of them couldn't be in the booth together? 

From Nick, both teams shot well in the scrimmage and the coaches got to spread the time pretty equally. It was there we found out that Lindsey Duvall did not play and is having knee-clean up surgery that will sideline her for the season. She'll take the red-shirt and the team was planning to go visit her after Monday's practice. 

After the chow, we headed downstairs the media interview room in "the little YUM". It's a smaller room that the one in the SAC, where we've gone in the past for these, and the attendance was larger than I've seen in the past. So, seating was at a premium...but ol' Paulie got one of the last ones. I got to sit next to Paul Rogers, the affable play-by-play caller for football and men's hoops. He probably doesn't remember the time he signed the back of a promotion shirt for me...nor the story...where, several months later, I was wearing that shirt in a restaurant with Sonya and this middle-aged women cam e up from behind me and started gushing about how well I did play-by-play and explained game. After my initial bemusement, I finally told her that I wasn't Paul Rogers, he has just signed this particular shirt...but I knew him and would pass on the compliments. 

I don't think I've ever worn a shirt I've autographed and I'd guess that Paul Rogers hasn't either. In fact, I'm not sure if I have ever autographed a shirt. 

Walz came in and the interview process began. Jeff doesn't like to do opening statements...so after greeting us, he opened up room up for questions. I went first. This gave Coach Walz the chance to get his first zinger of the year in on me. 

"Coach, what's the main thing you're looking to see out of this group early on in the season?" I queried? 

"Well, I guess our number one goal is to score more points that the the people we play. We hope to make more baskets than our opponents." Walz psuedo-seriously replied. 

He did on go to remark that he was looking to see a few players improve this year. Mentioning Sam Fuehring and Jazmine Jones specifically, Walz commented that has been impressed with their practice performances and is waiting to see if that will transfer over to game day.

In the almost half-hour long session with the media...Walz covered a lot of things. Some highlights: 

-- Freshman Dana Evans is looking spectacular on the court and Loretta Kakala is very productive in the minutes she plays...while still working on conditioning. 

-- Myisha Hines-Allen progression from her freshman to senior is quite amazing. She's in the best shape ever since she's been her. He's looking for a consistent season from her. 

-- Kylee Shook has become more of a force with her back-to-the-basket this year. 

-- Walz will not re-appear as "The Man in the Yellow Hat" tonight for Halloween, he would not disclose this year's outfit but did mention that homes with full-size candy bars would likely get a second visit...even if it necessitated the kids changing costumes. 

You can hear the entire Walz media session here: JEFF WALZ ADDRESSES THE MEDIA ON MEDIA DAY

(This clip and the players' clips are available through SoundCloud. SoundCloud is FREE and we use it for our audio files. You can download it for free at soundcloud.com) 

After a few useless questions from uninformed media, including Chipmunk Boy, it was time to go talk to the players. Without question, this is always my favorite part of Media Day and I get in as many player chats as we can before they toss me of the practice court. Assisting me for the third year in a row on some of these was Arica Carter...it was a little harder to get her freed up this year since she's become such a celebrity...but we were able to get some good clips in...

I started wiht Sydney Zambrotta. You can hear that one here:  http://ift.tt/2iNzddl

Here's Bionca Dunham:  http://ift.tt/2zl8lbx

We also caught up with Retta Kakala: http://ift.tt/2iR27JP

Next up, our buddy J.J. Jazmine Jones: http://ift.tt/2zlIL6y

We finally drug our assistant interview away from the hoarding masses and got her to accompany us to complete the interviews. First up was Kylee Shook. Hear Kylee hear:
http://ift.tt/2iM5GAG

We got a two-for-one in our final interview...as Arica and I started with Jess Laemmle and ended with Dana Evans. Listen! http://ift.tt/2zkfetM

I did at least get a quick chat with Myisha before the girls went to review the scrimmage film against Bellarmine. Myisha speaks: http://ift.tt/2iNzehp

I probably didn't get to some of your favorites, but...they keep things on a tight schedule for practice and they let Walz run pretty long...however, it's always a pleasure to "do" the Media Day thing and we hope you enjoy the clips! 


paulie
xxxxx






from Cardinal Couple http://ift.tt/2yg849H
Breaking News: Louisville Women's basketball -- Media Day...Comments and Clips -- TUESDAY CARDINAL COUPLE - News Paper