Friday Cardinal Couple -- Bobcats Declawed....Louisville 90 -Ohio 33

FRIDAY CARDINAL COUPLE


- Dyer's 15 points leads balanced UofL attack in win

Ohio University WBB came into the KFC YUM! Center with the reputation of being a good shooting team with a propensity for hitting three-balls.
 
The Bobcats went 10-53 for the game from the field (18.9%) and 2-25 (8%) from beyond the arc.

Good defense? Absolutely, yes...but wide open looks got no closer to the rim than contested efforts. Kiyanna Black... she of 35 points off the bench against Xavier...went 2-14 from the floor and 0-7 from the deep.

Louisville jumped on the Bobcats early and led 10-2 with four minutes gone in the game after a Jude Schimmel layup. The Cards would stretch that out to 20-4 when Megan Deines scored in the paint at the 12:55 mark. Fast forward (Louisville was doing a lot of things fast Thursday night) to Shawnta Dyer's basket inside and Louisville enjoyed a commanding 31-6 advantage with 8:53 showing on the clock.

Photo by Charlie Springer - UofL Card Game

The Cards hit a brief lapse for about five minutes as time ticked off the clock in the first stanza...going scoreless with Asia, Sara, Monny, Megan and Jude in the game until Bria came in and hit a couple of free throws. No major catastrophe, though...her charity tosses made it 33-10 UofL with four minutes left in the first half. Louisville picked the pace back up...outscoring OU 10-7 the rest of the way to take a 43-17 lead into the half.

Bria had 10 and Shawnta 8 to lead the Cards scoring and Louisville was hitting at a 53.1% (17-32) and 9-12 at the free throw line. The only thing the Cards weren't doing was canning threes (0-4) but they were stopping them...the Bobcats floated 15 toward the rim in the first 20 minutes and didn't hit one until just three seconds remained in the half.

The onslaught continued in the final twenty minutes. The threes started falling also. Nita started the barrage from long range to open the half. Shoni drilled three straight from the deep and sister Jude added one and suddenly it was 60-19 Cards and 14:39 remaining in the game.

Ohio gained a moral victory by outscoring Louisville 5-0 over the next three minutes to make it 60-24 but the Cards clamped down after that and went on a 30-9 run to win going away. Ohio made just one basket (and seven free throws) over those final 14:39 ticks off the clock and Walz played 'em all except Tia Gibbs (who deserved the rest after the Oklahoma game), Starr Breedlove (concussion) and the Diamond from Bowling Green.

Cortnee Walton grabbed 10 of the Cards 54 rebounds in 18 minutes and Emmonnie Henderson put in a hard working 16 minutes with eight points and five boards.

Bobcats declawed and spayed. They never gave up, though and Quiera Lampkins delivered 13 of the Athens, OH. school's 33 points.

Shawnta Dyer, Bria Smith and Shoni were made available to the media for post game comments and were humble and matter-of-fact about the victory. They discussed Coach Walz becoming the coach with the most wins in Louisville WBB history with tonight's victory and admitted that they needed improvement from the free throw line. Bria is gaining more and more confidence with her mid-range jumper and Shawnta was happy with her performance.,..indicating that the knee isn't 100% yet. The brace she wears on it is HUGE...could probably house a family of four...but she contributed a solid 7-8 from the field.

We won't discuss her free throw floundering. She's working on it.

Coach Walz was complimentary to his squad in his post game words...and humble in discussing the fact that he is now the winningest coach in Louisville WBB history. He has recorded 153 wins in his seven years at Louisville. He credits the good players he has had for that.

Walz's wins will continue to stack up...the coach indicating again last night that the only way he ever leaves Floyd Street is either by firing or retiring.

Our money is on retiring.


Quotable Walz


"The only thing that can bring this team down is themselves."

Clips to watch below. The post game Walz has Coach instructing me on proper media room question-asking etiquette. Maybe I'll start interviewing the guys from Venue Services instead of Jeff...

FINAL STATS

POST GAME WALZ





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THE FINAL WORD



Thursday night was an expected win over an opponent that failed to produce a serious challenge to the Lady Cards. It was good to see that all that played got at least 13 minutes for Louisville and the Cards dominated the paint scoring 46-14.

Things to work on?

We'll go easy on the squad. Shawnta Dyer needs a free throw 101 refresher course. Even I would feel confident about hitting more than her in 10 attempts. Monny Niamke needs to look for her shot (although she and Jude led in assists tonight) and Emmonnie will eventually learn that bulldozers are great for road construction but tend to pile up fouls in the paint.

I fully agree with the philosophy of resting Gibbs when not needed...although I think maybe a minute or two on the court to let the crowd acknowledge what she did in the Oklahoma game with a round of applause might have been cool. She was a good bench cheerleader tonight...as all the Lady Cards are when they aren't playing. No pouty, whiny women on this squad.

Florida State visits the YUM! Sunday. The NCAA runner-up banner will be unfurled around 1:40 p.m. or so...so be there for that.  


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Louisville Volleyball is in action tonight at the YUM! to host Cincinnati. First volley is 7 p.m. The Cards look to push their win streak and undefeated record in the AAC to 16-0 against the less than stellar Bearcats.

Be there.


paulie

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