CRAWFORD | The Jeff Walz way, 400 wins in, still has Louisville in the national spotlight

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- The first thing Jeff Walz wants you to know about his 400th career victory at Louisville is that it was really No. 399.

You remember the one that wasn't, right? Louisville beat Robert Morris 69-34 to open the 2019 NCAA Tournament in the KFC Yum! Center, but Walz was next door in Sidebar at Whiskey Row, cracking jokes in front of ESPN cameras after an NCAA suspension handed down for an incident the year before.

The NCAA got its pound of flesh. Walz got a pound of nachos. And longtime Louisville assistant Steph Norman got her first victory, though it goes down on Walz's total.

"I'm at 399. Steph has one. She is 1-0," Walz told host Nick Curran and a crowd of supporters during a recent edition of his radio show on 93.9 FM in Louisville. "Mike Pegues, who took over for those games on the men's side, they said he had the highest winning percentage of any basketball coach in U of L history, and I said, 'Well I've got bad news for you. You don't. Steph Norman is 1-0, and her win was in the NCAA Tournament.'"

This is how Walz rolls, and 400 wins in, it continues to work. His No. 3-ranked Cardinals will take on No. 4 N.C. State tonight at 7:30 in Raleigh in one of the games of the year in all of women's basketball. Louisville is 15-1 and has the nation's longest winning streak at 15 games. That's pretty impressive, until you consider that Louisville has started each of the past four seasons at least 21-1. The last time Walz's program was outside of the AP Top 10 was November of 2017.

After Win No. 400 at Boston College last Sunday, among the first to text congratulations to Walz was the man who hired him, former Louisville athletic director Tom Jurich.

"He said, 'It's hard to believe it's been 15 years that you've been here.' Even he was surprised at the success we've been able to have," Walz said. "I can remember sitting at the Marriott Downtown when I came for my interview and the one thing he said was, 'I don't want to have just a really good team every four or five years, I want to have a program that we can be proud of.' And I think that's what we've been able to do here. Now have we won that big game, the national championship? No. But I think we've done a lot more there than anyone ever thought was possible, and that all goes back to our players."

For the record, Walz and his players haven't been outside the AP Top 10 since November of 2017.

Ask him about an accomplishment, and he can give you the players who made it happen. The biggest win of his career, Louisville's NCAA Tournament upset of Baylor and All-American Britney Griner in 2013, he'll give you Antonita Slaughter.

"If she doesn't come out and make 7 three-pointers, that doesn't happen," Walz said.

He hands an assist to Hall of Fame coach Denny Crum, who talked to the team before it got on the plane to Waco that week.

"It's been 15 years of being very fortunate to have some really good players," Walz said. "Good players make you a good coach, and we have been very fortunate to have a lot come through our program. A lot of players have believed in what we're trying to do here and it goes back to Patrika Barlow in Year 1, and Angel McCoughtry and Monique Reid from Fern Creek here. Tia Gibbs, Antonita Slaughter, a lot of local talent really got this started. And then I've got a great staff. Steph Norman has been with me all 15 years. Adrienne Johnson has also been with me for 15, and Sam Purcell, my assistant is going on Year 9. So we've had a lot of longevity, and with that you get continuity. That's what it's all about."

Walz is having fun coaching his current team. They will face challenges against physically bigger opponents, like the N.C. State team they play tonight. He's probably had teams with more talented players, though this one features five McDonald's All-Americans and some of the nation's best players in their own right. But this team has something those other teams haven't quite had, and that's the ability to instantly translate what Walz is telling them onto the basketball court. And for a coach, that makes it fun.

"We do have a group that I can talk to in a 30-second timeout, draw something up on a whiteboard that we have not practiced and not done one time in practice or a shootaround, and they can carry that over onto the court and execute it," Walz said. "Last year's team could not do that. We just weren't able to do it. We tried several times. We just could not carry it from the timeout to the court. This year's team, we're able to do it. And that's what makes my job fun. When I'm able to do things like that. Those are the things I enjoy."

Walz loves the coaching element of it. And the development angle of it. He's had chances to move into the men's game at an assistant coaching level, but said he would miss the four-year development that you get in the women's game, and the strategy level that has fascinated him from his early days as a coach. I once watched him run through the team's out-of-bounds plays in mirror-image, sides reversed, before a Final Four game. Anything for a different look.

Earlier this season, he noticed Georgia Tech late reacting to a handoff from Emily Engstler to Hailey Van Lith that resulted in a Van Lith three. He ran the play again in the closing seconds, had Engstler fake the handoff, watch the defense react, then drive for a game-winning layup.

"I was fortunate to work for Paul Sanderford at Western Kentucky for two years and then at the University of Nebraska for four, and he's the best I've ever been around at in-game coaching," Walz said. "And he taught me even during the first quarter -- the first half at that point in time because it was halves -- when you run a play, don't watch to see if you score, watch to see how the opponent defends it. So, if you run an on-ball screen, then you get a chance to see how they're guarding it. So then at the end of the game, if it comes down to where you need to run something, you know what they're going to do. . . . Now the really great coaches and teams switch up what they do, and you have to anticipate that and have the confidence to do something a little different yourself, tell your team, 'I know we don't normally do this, but you want to confuse your opponent.' So he taught me those things, and it has paid off for me."

It has also paid off for Louisville. Times have changed in college sports, and Walz has, too. I wouldn't call him a kinder, gentler version, but he understands players, and understands when not to take himself too seriously too.

Recently when he shouted something at Engstler and she snapped back a bit as she came out of a game, Walz brushed it off.

"There are times where you've got to try to motivate a kid and challenge them and you're going to say some things to them that are probably going to get under their skin," Walz said. "And they're going to say things back. I'm not one, you know, if I'm going to challenge you and get after you and really going to push some buttons, I'm not expecting you to just sit there and say, 'Yes, sir.' So if you say something back I'm not worried about it. I don't. The reason we've been successful here is because I have what I like to call short-term memory. And I don't hold a grudge. . . . I never have. I think it’s childish. Now we'll sit down and talk about it later and discuss things and figure out how we make sure it doesn't happen again. But Emily is a special player. And I've talked to her and told her I'm trying to save her from herself. Officials have group texts like everybody else and you get a reputation. But basketball-wise, she's pretty remarkable. She had 6 steals our last game and probably forced 8 jump balls."

Tonight's game at N.C. State poses a different kind of challenge. The Wolfpack can put five players on the court who can score from the perimeter. You can't cheat off anyone. Your players have to outperform their players both one-on-one and as a group. Louisville, defensively, has been one of the best teams in the nation. Offensively, it has been good, but not always consistent.

Win or lose, Walz said, his team has to be ready to bounce back and play again Sunday.

"It'll be a great game to show us where we are," he said. "But either way, we've got to come home and get ready for Wake Forest. This league is really good. We had 7 teams ranked at some point. I don't see anybody going undefeated. There is a lot of basketball to play."

In the meantime, after 400 wins, Walz has learned that the basketball isn't always what the players remember. He tries to be realistic with them.

"We're not naïve," he said. "Like, we know you can't expect college kids not to go to parties. We don't talk about that. We just talk about them knowing when to leave."

Whatever he is doing, continues to work. And that's a fortunate thing for Louisville.

"We had our 2009 Final Four team come back two or three years ago for our 10-year reunion," Walz said. "And we had just about everyone there, I think, except for one. And one night we sat there and got together and they didn't hardly talk about one game. It was all the experiences they had during those four years and during that that 2009 year. You know, we got stuck at Providence or somewhere traveling back and we get delayed. Well, Adrianne Johnson is a person that watches everybody she takes everything in. So, during the delay, she started to imitate everybody. Oh boy, you laugh and laugh until she got to you. And then it was like, 'That's not me. I don't do that.' And I mean everybody is getting it, and those are the things our kids were talking about. You know, the times they went Perkins and had an hour of laughs. That's what it's all about to us. So sure, you obviously have to win games, but it's the experiences that you get to share with those kids, to me, that are what's the most rewarding part of the job."

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