Louisville Stampedes Over Bucknell 77-44

At one point in the first quarter Louisville was up 20-18 and Bucknell was in the sweet spot with their shooting going 4 for 7 from 3. Then at one point after another made jumper Coach Walz called a timeout and shouted some things at his team that cannot be repeated in a family blog. After that timeout Bucknell did not make another 3 until the fourth quarter. In fact, the Cards held the Bison entirely scoreless from the 1:20 mark in the 1st quarter until the 4:17 mark in the 2nd.

Ten Cardinals were in the scoring column for Louisville and Sydney Taylor led all scorers with 17. Olivia Cochran had 11 points and 8 rebounds in 22 minutes. Nyla Harris had 10 points and 6 rebounds.

After the game Coach Walz said, “Everybody is going to come out strong. All teams you’re playing are teams who are competing and try to do their best so you can’t walk into any type of game and think it’s going to be an easy win.” He talked about how defensive breakdowns when helping off of Bucknell’s Isabella King hurt the team, “She had 11 of their first 15 and then we finally realized we should probably stop doing that and then it made things a little bit better for us.” Sydney Taylor said, “In the beginning they were finding open gaps in the press so we kind of got back and just stayed with our five and she cooled off a little bit thank god.”

Coach Walz said, “We’re a better shooting team than we’ve shown the first four games. I see it in practice so I’m not as much concerned about that. I’d be more concerned if we didn’t making them in practice.” He finished with, “It’s a fun group to coach. We’re not gonna go 40-0. I’m not anticipating that, but I do anticipate a group that’s always going to come out and compete. We’re going to fight. And we’re getting better and better each day at understanding defensive concepts and how hard we have to play in order to get the results that we want.”

Next up the Cards will participate in the Van Chancellor Classic in Texas. The first team they will face is Alabama on Friday at noon.