LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) - Every team in the country, especially in the transfer portal era of college athletics, is still trying to figure things out this early in the season.
No. 17 Louisville is no different. The 1-0 Cardinals have their home opener on Sunday against DePaul and head coach Jeff Walz will keep testing things with a team featuring eight newcomers.
"When you've got as many new faces as we do, I'm trying to figure out who plays well together? Who complements who," Walz said. "It's something in practice you can watch. We sit there, scrimmage against our scout guys and do different things. But when the game starts up is really when you get to find out who performs well on the big stage."
U of L saw some of that while winning the GLOBL JAM summer tournament in Toronto, but everyone was able to get a better look in Louisville's season-opening 77-59 win over Cincinnati. The Cards showed off scoring depth as 10 different players scored with eight of them registering at least six points.
"As we go throughout the year, I think you're going to see some players, and I hope we do at least, that will separate themselves or everybody just keeps getting better," Walz said. "But normally, as the year progresses, you'll see a couple take a step forward. And it might take some more playing time to not just take it, but earn it.
"But overall, I'm really pleased with the depth that we have. I think everyone during spurts of that game on Monday played well. Now, it's a matter of just getting more consistent."
The first leading scorer from that matchup was Sydney Taylor. Taylor transferred to Louisville from Massachusetts and dropped 16 points in her Louisville debut.
The guard impressed this past summer while earning GLOBL JAM MVP and playing for USA Basketball's 3x3 Nations League Team. Known as a sharpshooter, she is just 19 points away from 1,500 career points.
"She has an extremely quick release," Walz said. "She's got a really nice sidestep, stepback and has a lot of different shot options that she's able to use. We're still continuing to work on adding to that.
"Everyone knows her as a three point shooter. So now, can you add a shot fake and get to the rim or shoot a pull-up jump shot? Those are the next steps for the evolution of her game. But I just really appreciate how hard she plays."
Sydney Taylor led Louisville with 16 points in its season-opening win at Cincinnati.
Despite an 18-point victory on the road to kick off this season, Walz wants better execution on multiple fronts. Two that jumped out from the win over the Bearcats were better half-court execution and taking care of the basketball to avoid self-inflicted turnovers. Louisville finished with 11 assists and 14 turnovers against Cincinnati.
"We missed each other a lot in transition," Walz said. "We had some people wide open up the floor and just didn't see them. It's not something where I'm concerned about a selfish issue. Nobody's not passing to somebody. It's court vision. It's making sure you're dribbling with your head up, looking for your teammates up the floor and recognizing when there might be a double team coming and somebody has to be open."
Olivia Cochran passes during a Louisville women's basketball practice on June 28, 2023.
DePaul will test that as the Blue Demons aim to play fast like the Cardinals do. Louisville is familiar with DePaul, as this will be the 35th all-time meeting, but first in Louisville since March of 2016. U of L earned an 81-67 win over the Blue Demons last season.
"They've been very impressive in their their first two games of the year," Walz said. "And it's going to be a contest I think where it's going to be up and down the court. We're going to have to make sure we take care of the basketball, which after the first quarter at Cincinnati, we did a great job of. So, we're going to need to carry that over to Sunday's game."
Louisville is 14-2 in home openers under Walz. Tipoff for Sunday's game is at 4 p.m. and it will be televised on the ACC Network.
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