Louisville takes down Northern KY 92-59

I don’t know if the brunch time start threw the Cards off, but they didn’t seem to be playing their best against Northern Kentucky. They weren’t dogging it, but as the person next to me said, “they don’t really seem to have their heart and soul into it today.” The fact that Louisville got outrebounded from start to finish was indicative of that. Nevertheless, sometimes it’s nice to have the most talented players on the floor and even without firing on all cylinders the Cards were able to notch a definitive victory.

Dana Evans led all scorers with a career-high 21 points to which she added 6 assists and 4 steals. Kylee Shook and Sam Fuehring both had 15 points apiece. Coach Walz said he likes having Dana come off the bench. “She changes the tempo of the game....AC [Arica Carter] can run a team. She does a great job getting us into things, controls things, and keeps us calm. Then I throw Dana in the game and she just kind of turns things up. Defensively it’s something different coming at the opponent from what they see with AC. I’d rather have that spark.”

When asked about his team’s rebounding Coach Walz said, “They [NKU] did a fantastic job getting to the glass....We’ll spend the next four days doing a ton of rebounding drills because we just weren’t giving the effort. We were leaking out trying to get fast breaks and see how fast we could score. I’ve never claimed to be the smartest person in the world, but the one thing I have figured out is that it’s hard to score if you don’t have the ball. So rebounding might be something we want to try to do.”

With all due respect to the players in this game, the highlight of the day came at halftime when the 2009 runner ups were honored. Most of the team was there including Louisville legend/WNBA star/two-time gold medalist Angel McCoughtry. After the game Kylee Shook said, “It was pretty neat to see everybody come back and to see the joy on everybody’s faces. We did that [go to the Final Four] last year. It’s a great moment to have, and I know how they feel.”

Coach Walz said, “It was so much fun for me to see them out there. It’s been awhile since I’ve seen a few of them. You know you go back and forth on your phone. They’ve grown into wonderful young women. The basketball games and getting to a Final Four—that’s special. But seeing what they’ve turned into is worth more than those basketball games. That’s something that I’m proud of. I’m happy for them because some of them have overcome a lot and have persevered and are doing great things.”

Next up the Cards take on Central Michigan in Mount Pleasant, MI. The game is on Thursday, December 20th at 7PM. Until then, please enjoy Arica Carter doing the robot at the men’s basketball game vs. Kent St.