Louisville women take down Virginia, 74-59

Louisville's victory over Virginia was a tale of two sophomores.  In the first quarter Mariyah Moore scored 16 of her 18 points, and Myisha Hines-Allen bookended that by scoring 19 of her 22 points in the 4th quarter.  Mariyah added 7 rebounds and 5 assists to that total.  Myisha also had 11 rebounds for her eighth career double-double.

Both teams shot the ball well early.  About halfway through the first quarter the score was 8-8 and the Cards were shooting 100% to the Cavaliers 80%.  Eventually reality set in for both teams, and the half ended with Louisville shooting 13-30 for 43% and Virginia shooting 13-31 for 42% with Louisville taking a slight 37-33 lead into the locker room.  In other words, both teams were pretty evenly matched.

In the second half we've come to expect that the Cards wear down opponents and pull ahead.  In the end Louisville finished the game with a 15 point victory, but with as little as five minutes left in the game the lead was a mere 6 points. As mentioned, this was Myisha's quarter and Virginia had no answer for her cool confidence at both ends of the floor. The final score was 74-59.

A few player highlights:

• Briahanna Jackson seemed less plagued by self-doubt on the offensive and scored a respectable 11 points.  She also added 4 assists and 3 rebounds, but she shot 5-12.    After the game Coach Walz said that he wants her to look to the play of Myisha and Mariyah and start being more efficient and taking better shots.
• Freshman Taja Cole turned in a solid performance.  She played 16 minutes and dished out 5 assists one coming on a perfectly executed fast break with Myisha Hines-Allen.  She also had a big defensive stop at just under 3 minutes to go in the game when the final outcome still seemed precarious.
• Asia Durr had 15 points on 6-7 shooting thus drawing the ire of her coach.  Wait...what?  During the game Coach Walz ripped into her going into a timeout, and after the game he explained that anyone who is shooting that well should look to take the game over and if she doesn't he's going to wear her out.  Please.  Take the game over, Asia.  For all of our sakes.

Also since we've talked of nothing but "The Ban" for two weeks I thought this tweet by the CJ's Jonathan Lintner would be of interest:

.UofLWBB's Hines-Allen: "We support our men's team and the decision President Ramsey made." Moore: "And we're playing for our university."

— Jonathan Lintner (@JonathanLintner) February 19, 2016

Next up the Cards venture north to take on Boston College at 1pm on Sunday.  The game is not being televised.