LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- University of Louisville women's basketball coach Jeff Walz had several irons in the fire heading into this postseason. He had, first and foremost, a basketball team that was starting to come around.
But he also had what has become a rarity lately, a team that hadn't rolled through the regular season unscathed, that hadn't been one of the top 16 teams in the nation at the end of the season. A team that, was not, in fact, even ranked in the Top 25, and would have to win on the road if it wanted to advance to its customary Sweet 16 spot and beyond.
And Walz has something fewer people can see, a looming NIL challenge when pitted against programs like South Carolina, Connecticut, Tennessee and others whose well-funded infrastructure is raising the financial stakes. It used to be that winning and great facilities and big crowds at home games were enough. That day is over. A basketball coach can't really facilitate NIL operations, but he (or she) sure does have to deal with their impacts.
Against all of those backdrops, with Walz acknowledging the difficulties of the season but continually reminding fans and anyone else who would listen that the team was starting to play pretty good basketball, the Cardinals crashed into the NCAA's regional parties Monday night with an emphatic 73-51 win at Texas.
At the end of a "down" season, here were Walz and his players, once again the last team standing, locally speaking, the only show in town. Louisville will face No. 8 seed Ole Miss Friday night at 10 p.m. in Seattle for a chance to return to the Elite Eight for a fifth straight tournament.
"I said it at the beginning of the year, at our tip-off luncheon, 'I said, this is going to be a team that's going to take some time, OK? You've got to be patient with us,'" Walz said. "And we have several of our fans out there that weren't. 'Oh, it's a bad year, it's a bad year.' Well, if it's a bad year, I'd hate to see what a really bad year looks like. Because I don't think it's too bad because it's not over yet."
The Louisville bench celebrates a score against Texas during the second half of a second-round college basketball game in the NCAA Tournament in Austin, Texas, Monday, March 20, 2023. (AP Photo/Eric Gay)
Underscoring what Walz has been able to build was a graphic ESPN ran after the game. The graphic was meant to tout the unparalleled sustained excellence of UConn's women's program, which is headed to a 29th straight Sweet 16. To underscore the impressive nature of that accomplishment, ESPN put up the two programs with the next-longest streaks. One was South Carolina, with 9 in a row. The next was Louisville with 6.
To be in that graphic, given the ups and downs of this season, is an impressive statement for what Walz has built.
"We have figured something out, and I'm not saying we have all the answers because we don't," Walz said. "But we have figured out how to get our kids to play the best when it matters. You know, it's not like we've won -- I think we've won one conference tournament championship, OK, one. Because three games in three days is not what we're built for. It's just not what we're built for. But you give us a game, day off, rest, scout, play, the next, we're pretty darned good. And we figured it out. Now it don't guarantee you wins, but man, for the past two ballgames here, our kids have played pretty damn hard. They know I believe in them and what's exciting for me, they believe in me because I do some stupid stuff, some crazy stuff on the basketball court."
He's likely to say anything. He broke into a question for Hailey Van Lith about the team being able to silence the crowd in Austin, Texas, when he said, "We did a pretty good job except for the jackass who was sitting behind our bench."
I think the press conference moderator was stunned. "What?" Walz said. "He was a jackass."
In fact, Walz's entire 31-minute press conference after Monday' night's win was typical, free-wheeling Walz theater.
"I should get more time," he is always arguing, "because of my stutter."
But it also, unmistakably, was a chance to take a little bit of a victory lap for a team that was not expected to get this far after losing 11 games, yet has become the 11th straight Louisville team to record 25 wins or more.
🫶🫶🫶#GoCards X #MarchMadness pic.twitter.com/hMCSeYSt24
— Louisville Women’s Basketball (@LouisvilleWBB) March 21, 2023
ESPN's Muffet McGraw was the first to say it publicly, "They are playing like a Top 10 team," after two wins in the ACC Tournament.
Texas coach Vic Schaefer said it after Monday's loss, "That's probably not a 5 seed. And they probably need to be ranked."
Even so, there is motivation around every turn. Van Lith was passed over in All-American balloting, receiving honorable mention status, a fact one Texas player took a moment to remind her of after Monday's game. The Las Vegas odds have No. 2 seed Iowa the heavy favorite to advance out of the Seattle 4 Regional, at odds of 8.5/5 (a win probability of 37%). Louisville is next at 4-1, and a 20% probability.
Still, that's more of a chance than the Cardinals were given when entering the tournament. One thing the team definitely has going for it is tournament experience. Its core leadership of Van Lith, Mykasa Robinson and Olivia Cochran have all been there and performed on the biggest stage.
"Yeah, I've been doing this for quite a while, I would say," said Robinson, who is Louisville's all-time leader in tournament games played, as her teammates started laughing. "For a little bit. Just the experience that we have, we can tell our teammates that it's going to be OK. We can control the tempo of the game and we're poised and keeping everything in our control."
And they have Walz, and with each successive round in the tournament, coaching matters more. Walz is now 26-2 in the first two rounds of the NCAA Tournament. He is 9-6 in games where Louisville is the lower seed. He's 30-5 as the higher seed. Before he arrived at Louisville, the program had played only one NCAA Tournament game as the higher seed. Walz is 7-4 in the Sweet 16. He's 39-11 in the tournament.
"It's all coaching. Players are terrible," he quipped. "It's players. It's players that believe. Players that know we care about them, OK? . . . This program is not made for everybody. Because if you don't want to work, do not come. And everybody, when you recruit, they are like, oh, yeah, I want to compete for a championship, I want to do this. And that's what they tell you and you're banking that that's what they mean, but some of them don't mean it. So not everybody is going to last. But I'm thrilled. I love my kids."
And then, in an old Texas trope, Walz rode off, if not into the sunset, at least into Seattle and the Sweet 16. But, in an old Walz trope, he had to get one last word.
Consider the ending exchange to his press conference:
WALZ: I'm waiting to get back for to the hotel for a Tito's and soda. I'm trying to get an NIL deal.
MODERATOR: I think on that note, we have concluded our press conference.
WALZ: Is it done?
MODERATOR: It is done, Coach.
WALZ: Can you get me a deal?
MODERATOR: Oh, no, no, I can only end the press conference.
WALZ: They (Tito's) are here, right?
MODERATOR: They are. Right down the street, right down the street, Coach.
WALZ: Put the word in -- I have seen it. I wanted to the take the big bottle home and put it on the bar at my house. Conversation piece. Thank you all.
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