Breaking News: Swimming Starts NCAA Championships -- Two Days Til Tipoff -- WEDNESDAY CARDINAL COUPLE - News Paper

Swimming Starts NCAA Championships

Austin, TX will be busy the next few days as women swimmers and divers from all across the country prepare to stand atop the podium at the NCAA Championships.  For UofL, 16 Cardinals will attempt to bring home the gold.

Here are the Cardinals and their events:

• Mariia Astashkina (100 breast, 200 breast)
• Sophie Cattermole (200 free, 500 free, 1650 free)
• Mallory Comerford (50 free, 100 free, 200 free)
• Molly Fears (platform, 3 meters)
• Morgan Friesen (100, breast, 200 breast)
• Alina Kendzior (100 back, 200 back, 200 IM)
• Alena Kraus (200 free, 500 free, 200 fly)
• Grace Oglesby (100 fly, 200 fly, 200 IM)
• Arina Openysheva (100 free, 200 free, 500 free)
• Michaela Sliney (1 meter, 3 meter)
• Maria Sumida (200 IM, 400 IM, 400 fly)
• Lainey Visscher (50 free, 100 free)
• Kaylee Wheeler (100 breast, 200 breast)
• Avery Braunecker (relay)
• Diana Dunn (relay)
• Casey Fanz (relay)
• 
  

Last season the Cards set a program record by finishing 5th overall.  Mallory Comerford won an individual national championship (her second straight) in the 200 free, where she enters this season as the top-ranked swimmer.

Can the Cards better last year's finish? Will anyone give Comerford a challenge in her three events?

Follow the UofL Swim and Dive twitter for the latest news at @uoflswim_dive  You can also follow the Tweets for Card Couple Radio that are over on the "Right Side of the Site" Here.

Here's hoping Arthur Albiero's Cards make waves !

Almost Tournament Time

Despite the fact that Louisville got cheated by having to play at noon on Friday with many folks stuck at school or work there is a couple bright spots to it.

It's the very first game of the NCAA Women's Tournament so all eyes will be on the Cards for it.  Coincidentally, Louisville's men are also the first for their respective tournament.

Also, assuming UofL wins it gives the team a couple hours of rest as well as a couple extra hours of scouting and preparation for the Sunday game, time TBD.

If you have not started your bracket there is still plenty of time!  You can't do any worse than Charlie Creme, right?

There are many ways in which you can fill your bracket out:

• Coin flip
• Favorite colors
• Favorite teams
• Higher seeds
• Upsets
• Expert picks
• Random guesses
• Lots of research

I personally prefer to go with the latter as I find it has a better rate of success than other methods.  I have my 'rough draft' completed but have not begun the revision and editing stages quite yet.  A few of you have already submitted your brackets and others of you are taking your time like myself.  Here are a few match-ups in the tournament (assuming teams get to that point) I would like to point out that have potential to be fairly close with a higher chance of upsets based on higher vs lower seeds:

• 12-Little Rock vs 5-Gonzaga (1st rd)
• 9-Clemson vs 8-South Dakota (1st rd)
• 10-Buffalo vs 7-Rutgers (1st rd)
• 12-Rice vs 5-Marquette (1st rd)
• 10-Auburn vs 7-BYU (1st rd)
• 6-Kentucky vs 3-NC State (2nd rd)
• 6-South Dakota State vs 3-Syracuse (2nd rd)
• 5-Florida State vs 4-South Carolina (2nd rd)
• 3-Syracuse vs 2-Oregon (Sweet Sixteen)
• 3-NC State vs 2-Iowa (Sweet Sixteen)

Of course, upsets in women's basketball are far fewer than that of their men counterparts, but upsets still happen.  5-seed vs 12-seed and 7-seed vs 10-seed are the games where upsets happen the most, scientifically speaking.

Do not rely solely on what is listed above as those are just some games where upsets seem more probable than others.

Please aim for clarity when submitting your bracket, either in the comments section or emailing Paulie (cardinalcouple@twc.com) and myself (eupherjared@gmail.com).  Like the ACC Tournament, I will send Paulie updates periodically to have him double-check me to help reduce the margin of error if unfortunate circumstance were to occur.

Best of luck with your brackets and happy picking!  Your odds of a perfect bracket are 1 in 9,233,372,036,854,775, 808 (approximately 9.2 quintillion), according to Duke math professor Jonathan Mattingly.

Note: This link should take you directly to a downloaded PDF of the bracket that you can print-

https://i.turner.ncaa.com/sites/default/files/images/2019/03/18/2019_wbb_bracket.pdf

Happy Wednesday and Go Cards!

Jared

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Breaking News: Swimming Starts NCAA Championships -- Two Days Til Tipoff -- WEDNESDAY CARDINAL COUPLE - News Paper