LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) – Arica Carter was back out on the KFC Yum! Center court for a full practice on Saturday – her first since suffering an undisclosed leg injury late in the Cardinals’ ACC Tournament win over N.C. State two weeks ago.
She sat out the Cardinals’ ACC Tournament championship game loss to Notre Dame, and didn’t play in their NCAA opening round blowout of Robert Morris.
But the senior captain said she thinks she’ll play when top-seeded Louisville faces No. 8 seed Michigan Sunday for a spot in next week’s Albany Regional. Tipoff is scheduled for noon.
Asked if she were 100 percent sure she would play, Carter said, “In my mind yes, that’s how I’m feeling.”
Jeff Walz agreed that Carter looked good in practice, but said, “We will not put her on the floor unless she’s 100 percent confident that she feels good. And that’s all that’s going to be said. I’ve told her she has complete control. If the doctor says she can go . . . she still needs to be 100 percent confident. But she practiced well today and seems excited, so we’ll see how she feels tomorrow.”
What does Carter mean for Louisville? As an experienced point guard and solid three-point shooter, she certainly helps the Cardinals on the offensive end. But at 5-8 she also often finds herself with the job of guarding players at the three-spot or even in the post and on switches, and has done that very well this season, especially in some of Louisville’s biggest wins. She makes Louisville better defensively, in addition to being the team’s No. 4 scorer at 8.9 points per game.
“Arica understands the game at the point guard spot,” Walz said. “She’s not going to blow by you. I say it all the time, and it’s a huge complement to her – she’s the ideal men’s 50-and-over YMCA league player. She is old-school pump fake, gets you in the air, one, two dribbles. When you watch, there’s nothing where you’re going, ‘Wow. Wow.’ She just understands the game. She knows how to play and that brings confidence to our team. She’s also a 40 percent three-point shooter.”
Carter injured her knee in the final two minutes against N.C. State, but said she wanted to finish the game out because she knew how important the game was. She thought it was one of those things that would feel better by the next morning, but it didn’t. Louisville hasn’t disclosed the exact injury, though Carter didn’t appear to have any kind of special brace when meeting with reporters on Saturday.
Of being back in practice, she said, “It felt great. It was exciting and a lot of fun to be back out there with my team and working hard and struggling together, finding a way to win.”
She said she had a bit of apprehension about how she’d feel back out on the court in a full-contact setting, but said she felt pretty normal.
“For me I think the challenge is just trusting myself and really being aggressive like I know I can, not trying to guard myself or think about the injury,” she said. “But I’m not really worried at all. . . . Today felt really good, so that was a good sign. I thought I might feel a little off, but I didn’t. So I’m just ready to go.”
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