LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) – When Jeff Walz put out the call on Twitter that his No. 5-ranked Cardinals needed an opponent at Mohegan Sun for Friday night – after Connecticut had to pause activity for COVID-19 – DePaul’s Doug Bruno answered the call.
Bruno's No. 20-ranked Blue Demons came into the game with a high-powered offense and the hope of using 3-point sharpshooting to slow the Cardinals.
It was a faint hope. Louisville was playing its first game with redshirt junior Kianna Smith, and DePaul’s up-tempo style was like throwing gasoline on a flame. The result was the highest-scoring game in Louisville women’s basketball history, a 116-75 victory. Louisville improved to 5-0 with the win and announced on national television, once again, that it is a serious player in the women’s game.
"I’ve got a great group that was excited to play and I thought really played well," Walz said.
The Cardinals blanketed DePaul’s outside shooters early and lived in transition – scoring 32 fast-break points and 74 points in the paint overall. Of their 49 field goals, 34 were layups.
Louisville got great play from its freshmen. Hailey Van Lith had 21 points on 8-of-11 shooting. Olivia Cochran added 19 and went 8 for 9 from the field.
All-American Dana Evans added 20 points, and sophomore post player Liz Dixon added 12.
But it was Smith who gave the Cards another dimension, finishing with 21 points, 6 rebounds and 6 assists. She had missed the team’s first two games with an illness.
"It was really exciting for me," she said. "It was a long wait, last year, then these past two games I missed, so it was exciting to get to come out and play with my teammates. Dana came out and found me, and Hailey broke the press well and I got a lot of open looks."
Smith scored 600 points in two seasons at Cal, but Walz said she showed up last season determined to push herself and get better, despite not getting to play.
"She had a really good year for a redshirt year," Walz said. "She came in every day and competed every day. The great thing about it is that she and Jazmine Jones went at it every day one-on-one last summer, and every day she was on the scout team for an entire year playing against some pretty darn good competition, and she got better. Instead of being somebody who said she would wait to work on her game, she did it from Day 1."
Louisville led 30-24 after one quarter, then outscored DePaul 31-13 in the second. It hit the 100-point mark with more than three minutes left in the third quarter. U of L was shooting 77% when the Cards backed off. Even missing their final 10 shots, Louisville shot 60.5% for the game.
"The pace of the game was something we like," Walz said. "We like to get up and down the floor. We’re trying to play as fast as we can. And that’s how DePaul plays. They have a style of play; they’re going to press the whole game, and we worked hard on it the past two days of not just trying to break the press but looking to score off it. And I thought we did a really good job of looking for teammates and getting good shots, and then we knocked down some shots."
With top-ranked South Carolina losing this week, Louisville could move up in the polls, but Walz said he’s not concerned with that.
"It’s early," he said. "Right now, it’s about us getting better."
And on Friday night against a ranked opponent, the Cardinals did.
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