Louisville Women’ s Basketball Marching Toward The Top
By Jeff Nunn of CardinalSportsZone. com | Photos by Adam Creech, courtesy University of Louisville Athletics
The old saying is“ If you wanna be the best you gotta beat the best.” The University of Louisville Women’ s Basketball team wants to be the best and they are dominantly marching their way straight to the top and taking on all comers.
Louisville came into this season ranked No. 10 in USA Today’ s preseason coaches poll. The schedule ahead of them appeared daunting, as they would have to face six teams ranked in the preseason top 25( No. 1 UConn, No. 5 Notre Dame, No. 8 Ohio State, No. 12 Duke, No. 14 Florida State and No. 24 Miami).
Louisville also had the possibility of playing No. 11 Oregon and / or No. 23 Michigan in the Preseason Women’ s National Invitation Tournament, making that potentially eight preseason top 25 teams as well as a trip to Lexington to face nemesis Kentucky – never an easy trip.
The Cards are coming off of a season that ended in the Sweet 16 and are returning nine players from that team. Included in that nine are Asia Durr, the ACC’ s preseason player of the year, and Myisha Hines-Allen. They also bring in the nation’ s top recruiting class that includes Dana Evans, Lindsey Duvall and Loretta Kakala.
UofL head coach Jeff Walz confidently marched his wealth of talent into this season like a proud peacock. The look in his eye during preseason interviews was as easy to read as a mother goose nursery rhyme. And that message was that he was sitting on something very special.
It didn’ t take long for everyone to see exactly what coach Walz already knew when, in the second game of the season, Louisville played No. 8 Ohio State in Columbus, Ohio. It took overtime, but Louisville prevailed 95-90. Just four days later, Louisville faced No. 24 Michigan in the Preseason Women’ s National Invitation Tournament. Louisville destroyed them by 25 points and, only two days later, would play No. 11 Oregon in the championship of the NIT. The Cards easily handled that challenge winning by 13 points.
Since winning the NIT, Louisville has been smashing opponents like they are driving an armored tank through a pumpkin patch. This well-oiled machine has enjoyed a school record run of victories that include a 22-point win over Vanderbilt, a 13-point victory at Indiana, a 24-point victory at Kentucky, a 6-point win over Duke and highlighted by a 100- 67 win over then second ranked Notre Dame.
With that victory over Notre Dame, Louisville climbed to the second ranked team in the country, which is the highest regular season ranking in school history. Also with that victory, the Cards improved to 19-0 that extended a program record for consecutive wins to start a season, which previously stood at 15.
All the winning is fun for the Cards but looming ahead is a date with top ranked UConn. On Feb. 12, Louisville will travel to Storrs, Connecticut, for a 7 p. m. battle that will likely be the barometer of how close they are to being the best.
32 EXTOL SPORTS / FEBRUARY 2018