Louisville Outlasts UT-Martin in Double OT

Let’s start with the positive things to take away from the game tonight:

Louisville won.........

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Oh....Kylee Shook broke the school record for blocked shots.......

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Aside from that you’d be hard-pressed to come away with much nice to say about Louisville’s 71-63 double overtime victory over UT-Martin.

The announcers for the game raved about how UT-Martin’s stellar defense was stopping the Cards, and with all due respect to the announcers and their team, Louisville helped them out greatly. I’m not sure if “terrible entry passes” is a stat that someone keeps, but if it is then Kylee’s block shot record wouldn’t be the only one set tonight. Point blank shots were missed. Frankly if UT-Martin had shot halfway decently from the foul line (they were 15-28) then Louisville would have to carry an L home with them for the holidays.

After the game Coach Walz spoke with Nick Curran and said, “That was ugly, buddy. There aren’t many wins that I’ll apologize for but UT-Martin outplayed us. Kevin (Coach McMillan) did a great job and those kids played as hard as I’ve seen them play on film. Kudos to them. Our kids played like they had one foot back home already.”

On UT-Martin he said, “They’re playing five guards...they don’t have a true post player” and talked about how the drove the ball right out our bigs. He said in the locker room he asked Liz Dixon “You came here because you wanted to play in the NCAA Tournament,” and when she agreed he said, “We do that every year. That’s not why I’m here. I’m trying to win the thing. The difference is you’ve got to have the mindset every game is important and try to win every single game and not just enough to make the NCAA Tournament.....that’s the mentality I need you to switch to.” He said he was speaking specifically speaking to Liz, but I think it’s safe to say that message was directed to the entire team.

He lauded Kylee for breaking Angel McCoughtrey’s record but then he pointed out that she “got one offensive rebound and played 43 minutes.” He said, “Jess (Laemmle) got one offensive rebound in a minute twenty. I’m like, Kylee, in 42 more minutes you couldn’t muster one more offensive rebound. I mean you can stand there and at least two should fall in your hands.” He added, “I keep challenging her: you’ve got to come and want to dominate the game. You can’t just want to come and play the big games. That’s not what elite players do.”

He did conclude with, “We’re 11-1. It wasn’t pretty. They’re not all going to be pretty, but you’ve got to figure out a way to win and we did figure out a way to win. It was a struggle. We were on the struggle bus....three flat tires...we’re out of gas...but we pushed and pushed and pushed.....it’s not exactly the way I was hoping to play.”

After a month on the road the Cards come back home for their next game. They start ACC play against Syracuse on Sunday, December 29th. The game can be seen on ESPN2 at 2PM. It is also Superhero Night so break out your capes.