LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) — She’s a basketball player the way a Swiss Army knife is a pocket utensil. Technically true. But you open it up, and it slices, it pries, it screws, it shaves, it rescues hikers in the Alps and disarms bombs in spy movies.
Laura Ziegler doesn’t just play basketball. She does everything but make the popcorn. (And has anyone ruled that out?)
She brings the ball up like a point guard, guards the post like she owns property there, rebounds at a clip higher than some of Louisville’s best in the past decade and passes like she’s been reading the scouting report upside down. In Danish.
If Louisville had to invent her in a lab, they’d shut the place down after one attempt and say, “Nope. We got it right the first time.”
She’s listed at 6-foot-2, but that doesn’t account for the reach, the timing, the spatial awareness, or the Danish stubbornness. She resisted basketball as a child in her home of Herlev, a suburb of Copenhagen. She played soccer and handball but finally came around to the family business. Both her parents played basketball.
Now, she plays the total game. You don’t box her out. You file paperwork and hope for approval.
“She makes it look easy, but it's not,” Jeff Walz, Louisville’s coach and occasional philosopher, said. “She's always around the basketball. And it's not like she’s jumping over everybody. She positions herself well. She hunts the basketball. She's able to watch when a shot is taken, and she can tell if it's short or long. And that's really a gift.”
On one trip down the court against Duke, she guarded the post, then brought the ball up the court, triggered the offense, screened, popped out, passed again, then tracked a missed shot for an offensive rebound. She plays the game like she’s been told the rules but never agreed to the limitations.
She's the kind of player who’ll go a whole quarter without scoring and still leave you with these notes: Smart pass, smart cut, hustles for rebound, solid denial of post.
Walz noticed it in an early practice after she showed up on campus. She went for 30 minutes without ever shooting the ball. Yet her impact was unmistakable. He remarked on it to the rest of the team after practice.
“Whatever we need,” he said, “she’s doing it.”
Translation: I hope she never gets tired, injured, or drafted by the Las Vegas Aces midseason.
Louisville coach Jeff Walz and Laura Ziegler watch a video commemorating his 500th career win.
Walz said the trajectory of Louisville’s season hinged on the decision to have her start bringing the ball up the court, and her willingness to accept that task.
“We’re looking for her in transition,” he said. “Which allows our guards to run. And because of her size she can see over the defense, and she’s a willing and good passer.”
She transferred from Saint Joseph’s, by way of Denmark. She showed up and fit like she grew up shooting on the Yum! Center’s rims.
Walz had to cut his first recruiting call short because he had to appear at a bourbon bottle signing. But he had her interest. She didn’t know the city or the school, but she knew the program and coach.
“I want to play pro,” she said. “That’s one of the biggest reasons I’m at Louisville, because they develop pros.”
And the best part? She’s not loud. She’s not flashy. She’s not on TikTok doing dances after layups. She’s just there, everywhere, and more often than not, exactly where she needs to be.
She missed a free throw at Syracuse. It was just her third miss of the season, in a year where she’s got a chance at posting a school record for free-throw percentage. Walz joked (I think) that he made her run.
Hey, he’s got to coach her on something.
Her versatility and team ego make her a force multiplier. She’s good, but she makes everyone around her better.
There’s a good chance she’d be the player you’d pick if the game was tied, your point guard had fouled out, and your only hope was someone making the right play.
“I want to be the best at everything I do,” she said. “No regrets.”
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