WICHITA, Kan. (WDRB) -- When the University of Louisville women's basketball team faced Tennessee in an NCAA Tournament game in 2013, the Cardinals were coming off perhaps the biggest upset in tournament history, and nobody thought much of their chances for an encore.
They called themselves the "party crashers," and they kept crashing right up to the NCAA Championship game, which they lost to Connecticut.
That's how it was for Louisville in those days. The common narrative goes something like this. They had a great player in Angel McCougtry and made it to a championship game. Shoni Schimmel and a hard-working group team got hot, and coach Jeff Walz caught lightning in a bottle and made the 2013 title game.
But few counted that program among the nation's "real" elites.
Fast forward to this week in Wichita and you'll see how far the program has come. Louisville is playing in its fifth straight Sweet 16 and 11th in the past 13 years. When the Cardinals face eight-time NCAA champion Tennessee at 4 p.m. Saturday, they will be seven-point favorites. Louisville is the regional's No. 1 seed. Tennessee, which made every NCAA Sweet 16 from its inception until 2009, has fallen on hard times lately and on Saturday will play in its first Sweet 16 since 2016 and is the No. 4 seed.
Walz's program hasn't been out of the top five nationally since February 2017. Yet the coach still feels the program has some things to prove to some people. Louisville is still seeking its first national title. And sometimes, when he watches national commentary on his team, he gets the feeling that some can't believe the program has done what it has done.
"We're in a situation where I still think people wonder how we keep winning," Walz said. "'How do we keep doing it? How do we keep getting ourselves to a point where we can get a 1-seed or we're competing again in the Sweet 16, Elite Eight? We're just fortunate. I'm fortunate to have a great staff. ... Our players respond to the pressure, to the expectations. It's what it's all about. It's fun. It's going to be a great game. We're playing a program (in Tennessee), obviously, that's got a ton of tradition. We're trying to continue to move on in this tournament."
Louisville sophomore Hailey Van Lith talks about not being picked in some high-profile predictions.
Louisville was picked to reach the Final Four on only 12% of brackets in ESPN's women's tournament bracket challenge. Just under 6% picked the Cards to win it all. Still, the Cards have been overwhelming favorites in the tournament's early rounds and are favored to beat Tennessee by 83% of the bracket-pickers at ESPN.
But the old "party crasher" mentality is hard to stop. Yes, more than 90% picked Louisville to beat Gonzaga in the second round. But Jimmy Fallon didn't.
Players don't forget stuff like that. Listen to Hailey Van Lith.
"I mean, we're kind of like the Bad News Bears," Van Lith said. "We upset everyone's bracket. We piss people off that we're good. Everyone gets mad when we beat teams. You learn to love that about it. It's unfortunate that it has to be that way. I mean, we got our fans back home, and that's all we care about. We are going to ride or die for them, (and) they're going to ride or die for us. That is all we need. We don't need the people picking the brackets. We don't need Barack Obama's bracket. We don't need Jimmy Fallon. We don't need none of that, OK? Look, we are still here. That is what it is. We're going to keep playing Louisville basketball and do us. If you match up with us, you better be ready to play. That's all I'm going to say, because we're coming to win. I'm going to get mad if I keep talking, so I'll stop."
If Walz is worried about his team getting caught up in the blue-blood mentality, it would appear he's safe.
What Walz has done is collect high school All-Americans and some successful transfer portal additions into a well-rounded and versatile team.
"Louisville, first off, is really good defensively," Tennessee head coach Kellie Harper said. "They play aggressive, an aggressive style. They turn you over, which leads to transition opportunities for them. In the half-court set, they have a lot of different options. They can shoot the three. They can put the ball on the floor. They can get it inside. They have a lot of different people that can do those things. I think their balance is a challenge. Their defensive aggressiveness is a challenge. They're going to play hard. You're not just going to walk out there and out-hustle them."
Maybe Walz has built the best of both worlds: players who are hungry enough to play like a low seed but talented enough to be high seeds.
Van Lith, for example, was a nationally sought-after recruit.
"I came here because I wanted to win," she said. "I think everyone else did, too. That's why we win when we come here, because everybody wants to win. So, simple."
"I think Louisville has a winning culture," added Kianna Smith, who transferred from California. "Also, I think the assistant coaches take a lot of pride in skill development. I think players get better here. So even if you came from another school or you started at Louisville, I think players develop. That's why they continue to win."
Emily Engstler, who transferred in from Syracuse, added, "When I entered the portal, the biggest thing to me about Louisville was when you have a program that's won for that long, it catches your attention. Somebody is doing something right, obviously. The coaching staff just blew me away with the way they do things. I wasn't very familiar with Kentucky, but it seemed gritty. It seemed exciting, the way they played defense, how they described all the relationships. It really is a program of its word. I think that's really hard to find. I've been in the recruitment process before college. I've been in it again when I went in the portal. People lie a lot. I got a lot of honesty when I came to this program. It's meant the world to me. That's something that definitely drew me in."
For Louisville, it has been those things that have propelled the evolution from underdog to a perennial top seed. Walz, and his assistants, have set the tone, and great players have followed.
"We have a culture that I really believe is outstanding, where if you come, if you're not going to plan to be in the gym extra and work on your game, I don't have to say anything because you're going to stand out, you're going to be the odd one out," Walz said. "Our players that are currently here love to get in the gym. They all have goals and dreams and aspirations. Of course, winning a national championship is one of them, but playing professionally also for a lot of them is one. They've been able to see what Dana Evans, Asia Durr, Jazmine Jones, Kylee Shook, Myisha Hines-Allen, what they've had to do to get to where they are. When you're able to have a culture in place where incoming freshman or a transfer can come in and see how it's done, then I don't have to do a whole bunch now. When we first got here 15 years ago, we had to change that. We had to change expectations, make sure kids understood what they had to do. We talk to the kids all the time, what are they willing to sacrifice. ... If you want to be great, then you got to spend time in the gym. We've been very fortunate to get players that that's what they want to do. So it's part of having a great staff, a great support staff, that allows us to continue to have the success that we've had. I promise you, it might look easy, but it's not easy. It's a lot of work. It's a lot of hours."
It has produced a lot of success. But Louisville keeps looking for more.
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