LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- The largest crowd of the season, 12,249, packed into the KFC Yum! Center to see the University of Louisville women's basketball team take on Virginia Tech in an ACC matchup with first-place and postseason tournament implications.

Louisville senior Olivia Cochran usually welcomes fans on the team's intro video with the words, "Welcome to the show."

On Sunday, however, it was Virginia Tech that provided the show, taking charge from the start in an 86-70 victory. Louisville, which has struggled defensively at times this season, could not stop the No. 12 ranked Hokies, who shot 65 percent from the field and scored on 61 percent of their possessions.

The Hokies led by seven after one quarter and by 13 at the half. In the third quarter, they went 10 of 11 from the field and led by as many as 18. Louisville pulled within 10 points with 3:35 left in the third quarter, but could get no closer.

As hot as Virginia Tech was during the game, after the game, it was Louisville coach Jeff Walz who was hot about his team's effort."

"I just want to say thank you. I really do appreciate you and I'm really sorry about the way we came out here and performed tonight," Louisville coach Jeff Walz told the crowd in the arena while speaking with Nick Curran on his postgame radio show. "I thought our effort was inexcusable. And that's one thing that we've taken great pride in here for 17 years. We might not win every game, but we normally will compete and defend a lot better than what we showed tonight. But this was inexcusable. And I apologize to all of you. I hope you'll give this group another chance next Sunday when we come back here and play Virginia. We can't expect you all to come out here and cheer us on and then give the effort that we gave tonight, so I really appreciate you and hopefully you'll come back out here a week from today and see much better effort."

Every time Louisville threatened, Virginia Tech got big baskets from point guard Georgia Amoore, who finished with 23 points on 10-11 shooting with 10 assists, or Elizabeth Kitley, who had 26 points and 13 rebounds.

It was Louisville's first home loss of the season, and first since a Senior Day loss to Notre Dame in last season's home finale.

"You're not going to win every game," Walz said. "But we scored 70 points here tonight, and here's the stat, we were 329 and 29 when we score 70 points. But we scored 70 points today and got crushed. And that's just our defense being not very good. And that starts with a lot of heart, effort, communication and then understanding what's going on."

Virginia Tech made 10 of 23 three-pointers and outscored Louisville 30-12 from beyond the arc, in addition to a 36-30 edge in the paint. They out rebounded Louisville 35-24.

Matilde Eke added 12 points for Virginia Tech. Louisville was led in scoring by Kiki Jefferson, who finished with 19 points. Jayda Curry added 13 while Nyla Harris and Nina Rickards added 10 each. The Cards shot 42 percent from the field and made 4 of 16 shots from beyond the arc. They forced the Hokies into 14 turnovers and scored 11 points off those.

It was Virginia Tech's third straight win over Louisville in the series.

"You would have thought we didn't do anything (in practice) for two days," Walz said. "And that I guess that's what the frustrating part is. We actually had two pretty good days of practice. I would just love this group to take a game plan and go out and execute it, then we can make adjustments if that's not working. Then we can try Plan B. But when you don't execute the game plan, we can try to switch to B, but we don't even know if that will work. So it's just disheartening, but that is its sport. . . . We will get back to work on Tuesday and get ready for a very important game on the road. . . . There's no easy games. We're really going to have to understand that and get this fixed. But I'm really distraught with the effort, just sick by it." 

Next up for Louisville is a trip to Atlanta to face Georgia Tech on Thursday night.

Copyright 2024 WDRB Media. All Rights Reserved.