LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- The basketball always bounces, even during the days when the University of Louisville basketball practice facility is closed with no guarantee when it will reopen because of the novel coronavirus.
U of L women’s basketball coach Jeff Walz answered questions for more than 20 minutes during a teleconference Monday afternoon. Here are the highlights:
1. Louisville’s exhibition tour in Japan in August, as well as 10 pre-tour practices, have been canceled because of COVID-19.
Walz been looking forward to the trip because of opportunity for team building with the new players. It would have been a special treat Norika Konno, a guard from Sendai, Japan. Walz said that Konno returned to Japan last month to continue rehabilitation from knee surgery.
2. Walz said that he and his staff are working as if the 2020-21 season will begin as scheduled in early November.
“But who knows when we’ll be able to get back on campus,” he said.
3. Former Kentucky Miss Basketball Lindsey Duvall has placed her name in the transfer portal.
Walz said he talked to Duvall on Monday morning. She told him that she was looking at other programs in a search for more playing time. Walz said the door was open for Duvall to return if she did not find what she wanted.
“I don’t want any of them to go,” Walz said. “But her aspirations and dreams were to play more.”
After sitting out the 2018 season while recovering from knee surgery, Duvall played in 49 games the last two seasons. Her minutes actually declined from 170 to 142 from her redshirt freshman to redshirt sophomore year. She averaged 2.0 points this season.
Duvall played high school ball at Bullitt East.
4. Walz said that he took pride in the program producing two players taken in the first 13 selections of the 2020 WNBA Draft: guard Jazmine Jones and center Kylee Shook, both selected by the New York Liberty.
Walz noted that Jones was not a Top-40 recruit but was selected No. 12 and that Shook, the 13th selection, was not on any mock draft boards during the middle of her junior season.
“We must be doing something right in terms of developing players,” he said.
5. Walz said that he expected Louisville’s rivalry with Notre Dame to remain intense as the Fighting Irish transition to new coach Niele Ivey from Hall of Famer Muffet McGraw, who announced her retirement last month.
“It’s going to stay (as a top rivalry),” Walz said.
He repeated what he said last week — that although he and McGraw sometimes clashed on the court, he respected her work in South Bend, Indiana.
“It’s OK to compete on the court and not like each other while we’re competing,” Walz said. “I thought Muffet did a great job up there. I just wanted to beat her.”
Ivey moved up from an assistant coaching position and has already secured a pair of Top-20 recruits for the Class of 2021.
“It’s Notre Dame,” Walz said. “It’s a pretty darn good brand name.”
6. Walz said that the news of 40 layoffs and 45 furloughs in the U of L athletic department last week was difficult because of his longevity in the department. He said he hoped that everybody at U of L and across the nation returned to work safely soon.
“I’ve been here 13 years and built up a lot of friends,” he said. “What exactly do you say?
“There’s such an unknown with this virus that you don’t know what’s going to happen.”
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