CRAWFORD | No. 9 Louisville women keep commanding attention in 86-67 win over Wake | Sports

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) – The question floated somewhere in the third quarter, like a balloon losing helium.

Why are we here?

A 30-point game. A Thursday night. The KFC Yum! Center less than a third full — 7,436 announced, fewer engaged. The Cardinal Bird wandered down and took a seat beside me on press row, which, like the Louisville bench, had plenty of open space.

Why are we here?

Well. Alabama football doesn’t take Saturdays off. The orchestra doesn’t skip the quiet passages. And Jeff Walz, leading a Top 10 team with ACC title ambitions, doesn’t sit quietly through garbage time.

“If you are a guard, you have to cut!” he barked to the floor during the third quarter of what ended as an 86-67 win over Wake Forest — a game that was over about 15 seconds after the national anthem echoes finished bouncing off the rafters.

And there’s your answer.

Louisville women’s basketball this season isn’t a curiosity. It’s a certainty. A Top 10 team doing what Top 10 teams are supposed to do: win big, win early, and scream about the little things in the third quarter of a rout.

The symphony and the sledgehammer

Louisville led 21-9 after the first. Made 4 of its first 6 threes. Closed the second quarter on a 15-1 run and led by 25 at the break.

Walz played eight players in the first half. All eight scored. Six handed out assists.

“When we share the basketball, we’re a good team,” Walz said. “We had 25 assists tonight. I was proud of that.”

And when this team is clicking, it hums like a machine: no squeaks, no rust, just motion and intent. Everyone moves. Everyone passes. Everyone contributes.

The lead swelled to 32 in the third, as Louisville’s bench — ranked second nationally in scoring — poured in 41 points. Reyna Scott handed out eight assists with no turnovers. Elif Istanbulluoglu, the longest name on the roster and maybe the purest shooter, knocked in a pair of threes.

Even Louie the Cardinal mascot sat beside me for a while. I asked if he had a good lede.

He shrugged. Beak humor is subtle.

The numbers behind the noise

Shooting: 51.5% from the field, 44% from three (11-of-25).
Ziegler: 13 points, 5 assists in 19 minutes.
Hardy: 6 points, 2 boards, 2 free throws in 10 minutes.
Taj Roberts: 12 points, 4-7 from three.
Turnovers forced: 22, turned into 18 points.
Bench scoring: 41-10.
Assists: 25 on 34 made field goals.

Wake made the score look closer with 28 points in the fourth quarter, but the hay had been in the barn so long it needed dusting.

That late slippage? Walz didn’t love it.

“One thing I keep challenging everybody with is, you know, obviously everybody wants to play more. OK, when I put you out there, I need to see growth,” Walz said. “So then I've got that confidence. When it's a six-point game and we're at Georgia Tech, Virginia or Florida State. But all of a sudden, if you're turning the ball over, you're not rotating on defense, you're just getting beat off the dribble. I don't care who we're playing, because I know what they say. ‘Well, we're up 30.’ That's even worse. I need you to guard.”

He praised Grace Oliver’s standout night for Wake — 20 points, 9 rebounds — and lamented that his team didn’t heed halftime instructions to guard her.

“I literally said, ‘We might want to guard her,’” Walz said. “Apparently they didn’t hear me.”

Louisville | Kentucky | Indiana | Eric Crawford

So why are we here?

Because conference titles aren’t won in the last week of February, but they are built on nights like this.

Because excellence — real, daily, vocal, sweaty excellence — deserves to be covered.

Because Louisville is now 23-4, 13-1 in the ACC, and playing for more than just seeding.

Because when a Top 10 team steps on the court, it deserves an audience. Even if the crowd is small. Even if the game is out of reach. Even if the mascot has to help fill out press row.

“I always joke with our players, you guys are really good players on a really good team,” Walz said. “And you can look at the team that’s 346 in the NET, whatever it might be, and that team might have won a game or not won, but it has a leading scorer. But that doesn’t mean you’re good. Just means you score the most points on a bad team. I challenge our players and people we’re recruiting. You can go score a bunch of points, or do you want to be on a really good team and have an important role. And they’ve all bought into that. And I appreciate it.”

Fill your role. And sometimes, that role is just showing up.

Even if you're a writer.

Or a mascot.