LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) — If basketball games were only 10 minutes long and played at the end of cardio workouts, this team would be No. 1 in America.
The Louisville women’s basketball team keeps missing their wake-up call. But by the fourth quarter, they’ve had their coffee, tied their shoes, and started running laps around the opponent.
It’s as if they’ve set an alarm for the 30-minute mark, and only start hooping once the iPhone marimba kicks in.
Through two games, Louisville has been outscored 117-88 in the first three quarters. In the fourth, they’ve flipped the script, outscoring opponents 59-31, including a 33-13 finish Sunday to run away from Northern Kentucky in an 89-61 win in the KFC Yum! Center.
Against No. 1 UConn, the Cards trailed by as many as 28 but won the fourth by eight to make the final result respectable. Against NKU, they turned a close game into a 20-point blowout with 72 percent shooting, ball pressure, and a level of urgency that made the first three quarters feel like a dress rehearsal.
“I've never seen anything like it in back-to back-games,” Walz said. “Our lack of focus, attention to detail. That’s what we've got to improve on. … The way it looks now, I'm just going to need to run them for about an hour and a half before each game so they think it's the fourth quarter when the game starts.”
It may take them a while to crank the engine, but when they do, the results have looked good. Sunday’s late defensive pressure left the Norse feeling as if they’d made a wrong turn into the Kentucky Derby infield. Very little breathing room.
“I thought defensively, we were much better," Walz said. "Now, they still got some open shots, but I thought that they got a little tired, because we were actually starting to put on some ball pressure and making them uncomfortable. And we finally started converting in transition, where we can be really good.”
Tajianna Roberts led the way with 23 points on 10-of-16 shooting. St. Joe’s transfer Laura Ziegler had nine points, 11 rebounds and five assists. Reyna Scott had 13 points and Mackenly Randolph added 10. Imari Berry chipped in 9. Eleven players scored. Four had at least five rebounds. Nine logged an assist. The fourth quarter, again, was a party.
But Walz isn’t here for parties. He’s here for standards.
“I think we’re a good basketball team. We’ve got good pieces,” he said. “But we’re not a team where Dana Evans is going to drop 30 in a half, or Asia Durr’s going to score 47. We’ve got to play team basketball. And that means everyone doing their job. Not everybody’s a scorer. Everybody thinks they’re a shooter, but they’re not all makers. We need makers.”
That includes the dirty work: screening, rebounding, defending. And yes, finishing around the rim.
“I know it’s a difficult concept,” Walz said. “But go up off two feet and put the round ball in the round basket and bank it off the backboard. It’s up there for a reason.”
Part of the challenge is cultural. Louisville’s jersey carries history. But the current roster includes seven newcomers. They didn’t hang Final Four banners or go to championship games. But they do carry that legacy.
When a team like NKU visits, a win would be something they talk about at the postseason banquet. And for three quarters Sunday, the Norse were getting their highlight video ready.
Last week, NBA 2K engineers showed up on campus to do the technical work to make Louisville’s players one of 16 programs to be included in an upcoming version of the game.
“They came in and scanned our players,” Walz said. “And I told them: ‘It’s not because of what you’ve done. It’s what the players before you did.’ That’s your responsibility now.”
That message has started to sink in.
Jeff Walz talks to his team during a second-half timeout in a victory over NKU in the KFC Yum! Center.
“We realized how hard we have to go,” Randolph said, talking about lessons from the UConn loss.
“We can put the ball in the basket,” Roberts added, “but it’s the mental toughness, the focus on the little things.”
Sunday, those little things added up. Louisville scored 48 points in the paint, forced 18 turnovers, and turned a game that was tied midway through the third into a track meet.
They didn’t sprint out of the gate. But they finished fast.
There’s belief in this group. It shows in the fourth quarter. What Walz wants now is buy-in for the first 30 minutes.
The scoreboard looked fine on Sunday. But the calendar says Louisville’s margin for error won’t look like this for long.
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