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Rivalry Day

Well, it's here, that one day of each year when we're virtually guaranteed a visit from "Matthew Mitchell for Governor" in our comments section.  I could barely sleep last night with anticipation of what gifts of rhetorical exposition we'll receive.

Love ya Guv!

We do love the visits that we get from fans of our opponents, and we're particularly blessed when some of them stick around and become regular readers (Hi Arthur!).

How happy will he be around
5 p.m. today? 

Today is, of course, the annual Battle of the Bluegrass - Women's Basketball Edition, where our Louisville Cardinals match up with the Kentucky Wildcats.  This one will be televised on the SEC Networks as Kentucky are the hosts, so they get it on their channel.  The benefit is that SEC Network is a linear ESPN network, so you can tune it in on your normal pay TV service, giving you another option to watch this one.  Of course, being an ESPN property, it is also available on the WatchESPN streaming platform, so if you're away from a TV, you can pull this one up on your phone, laptop, tablet, or whatever Internet accessing device you have available to you.

An honest appraisal of the past few years of UofL vs UK teams I believe would show that UofL has had, overall, the better squads, but The Wildcats have that certain something that sees them frequently prevail over the Cardinals.  We'll see if this year's Cardinals can get over that mental block and take our friends to the east down as the numbers, rankings, and records suggest they should.

The Cardinals are coming into this one undefeated on the season so far, a 12-0 record, with wins over some highly competitive teams, including Ohio State (I will not put "the" on the front of that, deal with it Columbusians), Oregon, Michigan, and virtually the whole state of Tennessee.  The biggest struggles came from then #5 Ohio State, and a better-than-most-realize South Dakota State team.

Can the Cards win in Memorial for the first time since
1978? 

Kentucky comes into the Battle 8-3. and truth be told, none of their wins are over particularly
impressive teams, so we're still looking to figure out how good this team really is.  Right now, there's a lot of skepticism about their quality.  They've lost to a quite good Baylor team, what will probably turn out to be a pretty good Miami team (who we will, of course, see during conference play), and a bit of a head-scratcher to Florida Gulf Coast.  I took a look at FGCU's schedule and they are similarly situated with a difficult to judge record so far, they have wins over Illinois, Kent State, squeaked out an OT win over DePaul (Doug Bruno typically puts together a decent team).  FGCU lost by 10 to Belmont (a squad largely put together by former UofL Assistant Cameron Newbauer, before he stepped up to the Florida Gators helm).

The net takeaway, in my mind, from all of this is that perhaps we shouldn't dismiss Kentucky too quickly based on that loss to FGCU as it appears that they may be putting together a respectable squad down there.

Santa wears "red" for a reason. 

All in all, I expect this to be a Battle worthy of the moniker.  I do believe that UofL is probably the better overall squad, but they need to get over this "thing" about UK, plus Kentucky gets the benefit of home floor and a largely blue crowd cheering them on.  I believe I predicted an 85-79 victory for the Cards on the Cardinal Couple Radio Hour yesterday.  I don't expect this one to be a blow-out either way.

Just as a "what we're thinking" the four participants in The Cardinal Couple Radio Hour yesterday provided their guesses on today's final score. Got a thought? Leave it in the comments section. Whoever gets closest to the actual score will be entered in out Panera Card drawing. Here's what the "knuckleheads" came up with:
Paulie   77-61  Louisville
Julie     83-69  Louisville
Case     77-65  Louisville
Jeff       85-79  Louisville

May the better team win, and let's hope it stays clean and respectful.

Cardinal Couple Radio Hour

Speaking of CCHR, we did have our last live show of the calendar year yesterday as we will not be able to produce live shows until after the beginning of the new year due to WCHQ moving studios to a new location.  We are contemplating trying to put together a pre-recorded show or two, and are considering the logistics that would be necessary to accomplish that.

In the meantime, you can check out the replay up on the soundcloud :

 http://ift.tt/2osaf5Q.

 Julie JC Sullivan joined Case, myself, and the car-challenged Paulie in studio for a fun hour of hilarity and even some discussions of UofL Sports.

Volleyball Season Wrap

A quick note on the conclusion of the NCAA Volleyball season.  5 seed Nebraska defeated the 2 seed Florida in the championship match of the NCAA tourney last night 3 sets to 1.  I was at a friend's Christmas party last night, so I didn't get to watch this one closely, though I did have it streaming on my phone intermittently.  My takeaway is that it appears to me that the better team won.  I think Nebraska proved that they did deserve better than the 5 seed that they were placed with.  That seeding was certainly a post-selection show discussion point.

This may prove some small bit of consolation for our blue friends to the east to know that they were eliminated in the Elite Eight by the eventual champion of the tournament.  Honestly, though, they don't need much consolation for this volleyball season as they had one of the best seasons ever for Kentucky Volleyball.

The connection to UofL Volleyball here is that, of course, head coach Dani Busboom Kelly was born and raised a CornHusker, played her collegiate play at Nebraska, and after a single season as an assistant here at Louisville, went back home to Nebraska for a 5 year stint as an assistant to legendary coach John Cook, before returning to her first head coaching role back here at Louisville.  I'm sure she and her husband Lane, who was a Husker footballer, wishes there were a direct flight between Louisville and Lincoln.

Louisville has another coach on staff with a Nebraska connection.  Associate Head Coach Dan Meske also spent time at Nebraska, overlapping 3 years with Kelly's time.  Overall, Meske spent 8 years as an assistant at Nebraska, starting as a Graduate Assistant, moving on to Volunteer Assistant, and finally a full-time Assistant position.  He did leave Nebraska to take a head coaching position at Augustana, a DII school in South Dakota, before joining the Louisville staff with Coach Kelly.

Dani and Dan are both justifiably proud of their association with Nebraska, and particularly Nebraska Volleyball.

--
JMcA


Paulie Plug

I had the fortune to be invited to a restaurant opening last night. 4 Seasons Restaurant has opened their doors at 8402 Hudson Lane. They're right across Hudson from St. Gabriel Catholic Church off Bardstown Road in Fern Creek.  

I left two hours later very impressed, quite full and happy.

I don't normally do restaurant reviews. All I can tell you is that everything I tried (sausages, lamb, rice, vegetables, bread, chicken soup, home-made yogurt and baklava) was delicious. I would encourage you to try them. They are on Facebook 4 Seasons Restaurant.

They have a vast menu. There was a buffet set up for the invited yesterday and I had to limit portions to try everything. I didn't want to, but there comes a time when capacity is reached before want is fulfilled.

You should go. You won't be disappointed.   (Paulie) 

from Cardinal Couple http://ift.tt/2CxZlxm
Breaking News: Governor's Cup Winter Edition - Sunday Cardinal Couple - News Paper