Cards Hang On At Virginia 68-65 -- MONDAY CARDINAL COUPLE

 CARDS WBB BENDS BUT DOESN'T BREAK AGAINST HOOS

It was a fourth quarter that Cards fans would just soon as forget, but UofL went to Charlottesville Sunday afternoon and left with a three-point win. 

Louisville led the Cavaliers 62-45 after 30 minutes of play and were getting great production from Jayda Curry (with five threes), Nyla Harris and had a massive rebounding edge, but then UVA got a rally going that saw them outscore UofL 20-6 in the final quarter and draw within three at 68-65 with 3:30 to play. 

The Cards took control early in the game, and jumped out to a nine-point lead.  But, at the end.., the scoring ended. For both teams. Louisville missed seven shots in those final three minutes and UVA was equally as woeful and missed a three attempt at the buzzer, to preserve the win for UofL..

.A "W" for the Cards that was their eight in the last nine games and improved their overall record to 14-6 and conference record to 7-2. 

In the beginning, a 13-4 UofL lead with 3:35 gone in the first quarter. Louisville led 25-10 with 39 seconds left in the quarter after two Curry free throws. They took a 25-12 lead to the end of the quarter. 

UVA was not giving up the battle, though and cut the Cards advantage to 29-23 with 6:43 until  halftime. It stopped there, though, as Louisville countered with 13-4 run to go up 42-27 with 1:01 until half after a Taj Roberts layup. The squads went to the halftime locker rooms with the Cards comfortably ahead 44-29. 

Both squads were pretty evenly match in the third quarter, UofL winning the 10 minutes 18-16 and getting six straight points from Nyla Harris to go up 60-45.  A layup at the buzzer from Curry was whistled "good" and UofL led 62-45. 

Then, the fourth. The Cards did not score in the first three minutes and saw the lead shrink to 64-55 with 6:25 to play. Two UVA free throws cut it even further making the score 66-63 with 4:21 left in the contest. The Cards final two points came from Ja'Leah Williams free throws with 3:27 to go...and UVA would just score once from then on. 

Road wins are worth their weight in goal in the ACC and the Cards did enough to win the road contest today, although they didn't finish particularly well... they missed nine of their final ten shots. Jeff Walz had plenty of material today to lament about his squad's penchant for allowing the "dribble drive".

Curry had a Louisville career high with her 19 points. Louisville shot a dismal 38.6% from the floor but still left John Paul Jones Arena with a win

(Fred Gwynne aka Herman Munster fits the scary Cards finish today. It was a "W", though)

THE FRED REPORT

FREE THROWS -- Louisville went 8-10 from the line, a marked improvement for the Cards that surpasses our 70% mandate and earns them a capital "F". 

REBOUNDS -- 43-31 in favor of the Cards...Cochran had 11 and Roberts nine. A double-double for "O" today and we see a capital "R". 

EFFORT /EXECUTION -- The 38.6% shooting isn't particularly pretty, and the six fourth quarter points were flat ugly, but the Cards looked pretty sharp before that and 15 turnovers is down from previous games..so we'll award a lower case "e" here. 

DEFENSE -- Louisville had nine steals, but allowed 52 of the Virginia points in the paint and 50.9% shooting for UVA. Still, despite the fade at the end, they held UVA to under 70 points and the defense allowed less points than the Cavaliers did. It's a win, let's go lower case "d" 

FINAL FRED TOTAL:  F-R-e-d

Louisville goes to SMU next for a Thursday 1/30/25 contest in Dallas.

POST GAME JEFF WALZ 1/26/25

paulie