By Paul Sykes
The first meeting between the Louisville and Xavier women’s basketball teams suddenly became the Amber Harris show midway through the first half. The 6-foot-5 senior center had 28 points and 16 rebounds in a 71-59 win over U of L in November.
The Cards are faced with the dilemma again of containing Harris and Ta’Shia Phillips in the second round of the NCAA tournament Tuesday at the Cintas Center on the Xavier campus tonight at 7 p.m. Employing a stifling man-to-man defense and transition game, Louisville had built a 23-12 lead. Once Xavier adjusted, however, the Lady Cards had no answers.
So how does Jeff Walz counter the twin towers tonight? By taking the attack right at the Muskies again, hoping that a vastly improved Cardinal defense can guard, block out and repeat the impressive rebounding performance that Louisville displayed Sunday against Vanderbilt. They will need to stop the Xavier guards from “feeding the bigs,” use their speed advantage and hope Shoni Schimmel’s court awareness and creativity are on full display.
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ESPN2 will televise the contest. That is if they don’t break away for other contests as they did to Kentucky fans Monday. The game willl be broadcast on WKRD on 790 AM and 101.7 FM. Better still, the Cintas Center is less than two hours away and Cardinal fans can easily make the I-71 trek, rooting for the Lady Cards in person. Go ahead and sleep in tomorrow, you have the observer’s permission.