Louisville beats Virginia 71-49 with strong 2nd half

Louisville looked like it was going to follow up an uninspired loss against Miami (who lost tonight to Virginia Tech) with another uninspiring effort against Virginia. They were down at halftime for the first time this season although they’d cut an 8 point UVa lead to just 3. One can only assume that Coach Walz impressed upon his team the importance of playing with more focus in the second half because the team came out blazing with a 12-0 run to start the half. Virginia did cut the lead to 48-41 but from that point forward Louisville dominated on both ends of the floor and pulled away in the 4th quarter.

Louisville had five players finish the game in double figures led by Dana Evans with 13 to which she added 6 assists and 3 steals. Asia Durr had 12 points, 4 steals, and 3 assists. Sam Fuehring had 11 points and 8 rebounds. After being out-rebounded 11-23 in the first half the Cards had a 16-15 advantage in the second half.

After the game Coach Walz said of his team’s strong second half performance, “I was really pleased obviously with how we came out. Our intensity at both ends of the floor, we pushed the ball so much better in transition, we were attacking, we made the extra pass. I thought in the first half the ball was sticking a little bit too much.”

Coach Walz was pleased with how his team took care of the ball. “You’ve got to be able to not turn the basketball over to give yourself a chance. To play another game with 6 turnovers, we had 18 assists on 27 made field goals, and a few of our baskets were off of steals where there’s not going to be an assist.”

On Kylee Shook he said, “I’m still trying to challenge her to get more aggressive, “ but he added, “I thought she ran the floor better, she got a put back, a nice pass in transition, gets fouled, makes her free throws. So I was happy for her. She came up with a few really nice rebounds there...really went up after it and got it with two hands.”

The Cards come back home this Sunday to face Boston College at the Yum. The game is at 2PM.