Lady Cards down Dayton 69-55

-Reid's 21 leads Louisville to win over Flyers


We've referenced the slow starting car scenario before in talking about Lady Cards basketball in the past and once again the Cards
sputtered out of the driveway before going on a 20-2 run in the
first half to defeat Dayton. Louisville trailed the Flyers for the first five minutes of this afternoon's game in the KFC YUM Center before Shoni Schimmel nailed a three and Louisville went on a seven minute roll to blow out to a 24-10 lead after another Schimmel three with 9:30 in the first half.

The Cards led at the break 34-22 and Schimmel and Monique Reid had 18 of Louisville's points. The Cards had capitalized on 15 Flyer turnovers for 15 points and held the prolific Flyer outside attack to 2-10 three point shooting. Schimmel had three connects from beyond the arc in the first twenty minutes.

Louisville saw Dayton creep within eight points in the second half at 36-28 with 16:24 to go but then went on a 16-4 run to lead 52-32 after a Reid jumper at the 11:06 mark. Louisville led 66-44 with 4:11 to go...but the Flyers outscored the Cards 11-3 the rest of the way as Jeff Walz emptied the bench late.

Other things to like about the Lady Card win:

-Louisville held Dayton to just 4-16 three point shooting in the game and just six attempts in the second half. The Flyers had been attempting 32 trifectas a game.

-Keisha Hines finished with a 10 point, 10 rebound double/double before fouling out with3:27 to go. Hines was mugged, thugged and banged around by the Flyers front line most of the 22 minutes Hines played.

-Besides Reid's 21 points, other Cardinals prominent in scoring were Schimmel with 17 and Tia Gibbs with 9 in 31 minutes. Sherrone Vails added 7 points and 4 boards in 27 minutes.

-Louisville went a respectable 17-27 from the foul line but Dayton capitalized on 15-22 charity stripe attempts.

-Tia Gibbs had six steals and Shoni Schimmel five against the talented Dayton guards.

FROM THE LOCKER ROOM:

Monique Reid on holding the Flyers to 16 threes:

"One of the game plans was to be there on their catch and contain then. We knew they were all good shooters so it was all about being there on the catch so the shots couldn't get launched.

Keisha Hines on her focus for the game:

" I was struggling in the beginning . I was just try to come out hard and play the best I can. It's my last year so I have to come out and do it big."

Reid on the tournament in Las Vegas beginning the 18th:

"Basically Coach Walz has us just focus on the next game. We have Cincinnati next and we start BIG EAST play and that's big for us and we're real excited about it. Our freshmen won't be freshmen any more when we hit the BIG EAST."

Reid on Dayton's earlier win over Cincinnati:

"Really it doesn't mean anything. We beat 8th ranked Kentucky by 26. Anything can happen on any given night. So we're not overlooking Cincinnati. We're just going to play our game and play hard.

Shoni Schimmel on the Cards 20-2 run:

"It was just everyone going hard and everyone working hard. Everyone kept feeding off each other and we started hitting shots right around there. We got a lot of good transition shots in the run."

Reid on the end of the semester:

"We're off tomorrow but most of us will shoot around and then get ready for finals. Coach Walz takes studies just as serious as basketball and so do we."

JEFF WALZ:

On the defense:

"I thought we did a really good job defensively. We made it a sloppy game. We came out and we knew that offensively they were a very talented team and they have a multitude of players that do a really good job of shooting the three and our goal was to try and make it as ugly as we could when they got into their offensive set. You saw the first two trips down the floor they scored back to back buckets because of their offense and the way they get things moving. And then we were able to score and we got a chance to press them. I thought our press was very effective tonight. I thought it really took a lot of time off the shot clock and forced them into some bad shots."

On Dayton's 31 turnovers:

"Again, that's what we try to do. We tried to get them to play sloppy basketball and we were very successful with it. "

On Tia Gibbs:

" I thought tia played very well tonight, especially in the press. She had very active hands tonight... comes up with six steals."

On the 47-40 rebounding edge for Dayton:

" No, I;m not happy with that. That's something we have to improve on. We gave up 18 offensive rebounds and I'm willing to bet you that they got eight of them at the free throw line. There's no excuse for that and we're going to have to work a lot harder blocking out at the foul line." (Actually it was seven...I should have taken the bet...but Walz's point was well made).

On the Vegas trip:

"Well, if I can hit a progressive slot, I won't be back." (Laughter). That's the whole idea about going out there, right? (More laughter). We've got a game at Cincinnati that we have to be prepared for first. Then, we're going to be flying down on Thursday and give us a chance for a Thursday practice and a Friday practice. We play Saturday, Sunday and Monday. It's a very competitive field."

On Asia Taylor:

"It's like I said on the air...she's suspended indefinitely. It's nothing to do with basketball. She gives us great effort on the basketball court. There are just some expectations that come along with being a part of our program and you've got to make sure that you live up to those expectations...and she's not right now. Sure, we like to win basketball games but we want to win basketball games the right way and that our behavior off the court is something we're just as proud of as our behavior on the court. "