Louisville women's basketball puts away Pitt 70-42 -- MONDAY CARDINAL COUPLE

HUGE FIRST HALF KEYS CARDINAL WBB WIN

On a Sunday afternoon in front of over 10,000 in the KFC YUM! Center, the Louisville women's basketball team pressured Pitt to just 12 first half (not quarter...half) points and pounced on the Panthers for 41 first half points to build up a 29-point lead 20 minutes and win easily 70-42. 

To sum it up, Walz played 'em all, the Cards used another first half blitz to sack another ACC for and move to 18-1. Coach also introduced a new "Walzism" concerning "shooting math" when he was closing his post-game presser. 0-8  shooter vs. 8-8 shooter. Who do you throw ball to? 


The Cards broke away after a close three opening minutes that had UofL with a 5-4 advantage. Over the next five minutes, Louisville went on a 12-0 run and with Kylee Shook, Sam Fuehring and Dana Evans combining for 16 points to hold a 23-6 edge at the end of the quarter. The defense was getting it done -- Pitt went 1-12 for the quarter (8%), making their first shot of the game after a minute of play and then being able to add only four free throws in the final nine minutes. 

The Cards did it all sans the services of All-American Asia Durr. We'll get into that later, Coach Walz deciding to rest her, and commenting in post-game media obligations that she had a sore knee. That remark led to a comical, inane round of "twenty questions" about her anatomy. 

If you liked the first quarter, you got more of the same in the second session. Once again, Pitt produced a mere six points (all of them on two Kauia Bradley threes). Louisville tripled that number with Arica Carter matching the total production of Pitt's point-total and Jazmine Jones grabbing three rebounds and creating two assists. The 41-12 halftime advantage featured nine of the 11 Cards players scoring and a 12-2 advantage in points in the paint, 11-0 edge in points off turnovers, plus a 12-0 whitewash in 2nd chance points for the home squad. 


The Cards reached their largest lead of the game (33 points) at the 4:04 mark of the game (41-9) when Carter connected on a jumper from a Duvall pass. 

Walz had already used quite a few different players combinations in the first half and that continued in the final 20 minutes. To their credit, Pitt didn't toss in the towel and head to the bus after the half. They came out on a 7-0 run to begin second half action and ended up winning the third session 15-14. Evans produced six of her game-high 16 points in the third quarter and Lindsey Duvall nailed a three-pointer for the Cards, who played reserves 20 of the possible 50 minutes of player on-court time. It was 55-27 in favor of "the Ville" with ten minutes to go.


Walz distributed the playing time pretty evenly in the fourth, at times going with wholesale "five-for five" substitutions, Seygan Robins showed her skills with five points in the final session (a nice three and incredible up-and-under move for 'two'. Sam added five points in four minutes of action, including a "take-that" three, halfway through the fourth...after getting pounded mercilessly on the other end of the court and getting no whistle relief. Shook added the final two of her 12 points with 20 seconds to go and the Cards improved to 18-1 with a win over a Pitt squad that they'll face again in Pittsburgh on March 3rd. to close the ACC and regular season slate. 

Another less-than-50 points performance from a Cardinal opponent (the fifth in a row). Eleven threes made from five different players (including 4-8 from Evans). A feel-good afternoon down by the river and another notch in the "win" belt for Louisville WBB. 


THE FRED REPORT

Fred Gwynne "Herman Munster" with
the "What, no Asia?" stare

Free Throws -- The Cards took 18 of them and sank 13 for a (72.2%). By Paulie standards, anything over 70% gets a capital "F". My esteemed colleague "Worldwide Jeff" prefers the 80% success rate. But, since it is my write today and he's headed to Australia and New Zealand for camel, kangaroo and koala bear research and to encounter Asia Taylor in a three-point contest, my rules hold. 

Rebounding -- A solid 48-31 triumph from the "reborn" Cards on the glass. Which led to a question to Coach Walz about the recent success on the boards from me in the post-game. Coach patiently explained to me and assured me that they practice them every practice and then went off on other things (check out the link to the post-game presser) That's worth a capital "R" in my book.  

Effort/Execution -- The turnover margin is still higher than most would like to see, with 18 "in the oven" against the Panthers. But, second chance points and points off turnovers were solidly in the Cards favor. Given the team-wide equal distribution of minutes (no one had more than 26 or less than 10) and number of combinations, I was pleased overall with the execution and effort... but, I suppose, I wanted to see a continued blow out in the second half. We'll roll out a lowercase "e" here. 

Defense -- Another game, another less than 50-point performance from the foe. The Cards absconded with 10 steals and forced 18 turnovers. Pitt shot 28.3% from the floor (15-53 and 4-21 (19%) from the deep. Say it with me...a capital "D". 

FRED TOTALS:  F-R-e-D


NO "DUR-RES" JUST "DURR-REST"  

Miss Kentucky GBB 2017 and 2018 share
a happy moment. 

Coach Walz discussed the possibility of keeping Asia out of this one and the fans were questioning why, as witnessed on my Twitter account after the starting lineups were introduced. She was available for action, warmed up before the game, but was not needed. I got all kinds of questions on this...was she hurt? why was she out? was it a disciplinary move? and on and on. No, no, and no. Asia had been seeing a lot of minutes lately, the ACC is a brutal stretch of then season and Walz wants her fully rested for UConn and the rest of the schedule. 

Coach mentioned there was some Durr knee pain in the post-game presser and that led to a silly round of "knee, knee, which knee and why" from a couple of media that was almost comical. That, combined with the dogged pursuit of nonsensical UConn questions led to a presser that was riddled with redundancy. 

Asia is fine. Turn off the air-raid sirens, take down the amber alert and wait for the probable Wednesday presser for a further exploration of the Cards vs. Dogs on Thursday. 

This is why we can't have nice things...


AN ACTIVE ACC SUNDAY

A major upset and a few close calls in a crazy Sunday ACC slate.

-- Paris Key went off for 30 points and North Carolina pulled off the upset of #1 Notre Dame in Chapel Hill with a 78-73 win. The Tar Heels saw a 10-point lead evaporate in the fourth quarter after a 12-0 Irish run, but UNC bounced back to get the win. 

-- Miami got all they wanted from visiting Boston College before putting together a 21-14 fourth quarter to hold on 76-73. The Canes got 21 from Mykea Gray to preserve their one-less record in the ACC. 

-- Duke led Syracuse 26-21 at the half before Quentin Hillsman's Orange erupted in the third quarter in Durham to spur a 64-55 win. The 'Cuse improves to 6-1 and Duke goes to 1-6 in the ACC. 

-- Florida State trailed the entire way versus home-standing Virginia Tech before getting two free throws with 22 seconds left to take a 56-54 lead and win. The Hokies missed their final three shots and two free throws late to remain 0 for ACC. 

-- Wake Forest got their first ACC win on the road at Charlottesville against Virginia 52-42. Ivana Raca led the Demon Deacons with 21 points.  The Cavs never led in the contest and are now 2-5 in the ACC. 

Plus...#15 UK fell at Texas A&M 72-71. Former Cardinal Ciera Johnson had 21 points for the #24 Aggies. Morris and Howard combined for 43 points for UK, who has lost three of their last six games. 

Hey, a former Card getting a win over UK is almost as good as the current Cards conquering the Cats, right?




THEY SAID IT

Your post game remarks:

JEFF WALZ

DANA EVNAS AND KYLEE SHOOK

PITT HEAD COACH LANCE WHITE (AUDIO ONLY)



CAPTION THIS

Here we go again with another of those "What is Coach trying to get across here?" photos. Sometimes, we think  he's worth the price of admission alone for the fans. Fire away in the comments on Mr. Jared Anderson's shot of Coach at work. Jared sends dozens of pictures each home game to choose from and it's hard to narrow it down to just a "couple/few" for the articles. We feature his work again today. 


paulie
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