Louisville women’s basketball: Recapping stunning loss to FSU

Louisville women’s basketball suffers second loss of season at FSU. What we learned, and what that means for Louisville moving forward

For the second time this season the Louisville women’s basketball team has been on the wrong side of the scoreboard. After suffering their first loss to then #3 NC State 20 days ago, Louisville has now fallen to FSU. The Seminoles came into Sunday’s game looking to defend their 28 point loss at Louisville a month earlier. Defend that loss they did as they upset the #3 Cardinals in Tallahassee.

This was a very tightly contested affair between the conference rivals. Louisville ended the first quarter up 3 points, 17-14. FSU came back in the second quarter, and outscored Louisville 14-9 to take a 28-26 lead into the half. The Cardinals regained the lead again at the end of the third quarter, 43-39. Louisville could not close the game though as FSU outscored them 29-16 in the fourth to take the win 68-59.

Here are some of my takeaways from the Florida State game.

WATCH: Chris Mack & Eric Wood make a rivalry video

Louisville’s three point shooting was abysmal

Louisville has been a streaky team from three-point range all season, but this game was on another level. As a team, Louisville is shooting 35.7% from three, and they couldn’t even get to half of that this game. The Cardinals were 3-20 from the field for 15%. Their only threes coming from Kianna Smith and Dana Evans.

Evans came into the game shooting 38% on the season was 1-9 in the game. Smith came into the leading the Cards at 39% from three was 2-6 in the game. The only other threes attempted by the Cards were Hailey Van Lith going 0-1, and Elizabeth Balogun going 0-4. Van Lith is a 36% three-point shooter, and Balogun is a 32% three-point shooter.

This is the second game in a row the Cardinals have shot under 20% from three-point range, shooting 18.8% against Pittsburgh Thursday night. This is also the second game in a row Louisville has only hit 3 three-point field goals in the entire game. The Cardinals really rely on their deep shooting to stretch their leads out in games, so this is something that really needs to be fixed.

Dana Evans had a very off night

As talented of a roster that Louisville has, this team can still only go as far as Dana Evans can take them. Evans may have led the team in scoring, but it was only 13 points. This is the first game Evans has scored less than 30 points since she scored 13 against UNC January 28th.

Evans’ 13 points is 7 below her season average of 20.8 points per game. The 11% she shot was 27% below her season average of 38%. Not only was she off from deep, but she was off from inside the three-point line as well. Evans was 5-21 on field goals in the game. That 23% is 16 below her season field goal average of 44.5%. Evans did make both of her free throw attempts, and she also led the team with 5 assists so it all wasn’t bad.

The team really needs Evans to play at her player of the year potential every game. There is a good core around her, but no one that can take over a game like Evans can. I think with Evans having games like this, it is going to be hard for Louisville to go far in the tournament.

What this means for Louisville women’s basketball going forward

This game was a huge blow to Louisville in a couple of different ways. It is surely going to drop the Cards from their #3 ranking to probably #7 or 8 in my opinion. This game will also knock Louisville off of the 1 seed line in the NCAA tournament. This loss will also make Louisville the #2 seed in the ACC tournament with NC State holding the tiebreaker with their win over the Cardinals.

In my opinion I think this loss means Louisville will have to win the ACC tournament, or get a lot of help to get back on the 1 line. With NC State having 2 regular season games left Louisville has a chance to get their #1 ACC seed back though. I am basing that upon Louisville taking care of business in their regular season finale next Sunday.

Previewing Notre Dame

Louisville ends their regular season travelling to South Bend to take on Notre Dame February 28th at 3 p.m.

The Cards and Irish have had some classics over the years, but Notre Dame is in a rebuilding phase. In their first season without head coach, Muffett McGraw the Irish are 8-8 overall and 6-6 in conference.

The Cardinals won a 71-65 game against Notre Dame on February 7th. The Cards were led in that game by Evans with 27 and Kianna Smith with 16. Louisville is 9-16 against Notre Dame, and currently have a 3 game win streak.

The Notre Dame game is a must win game for Louisville. They need this game for conference tournament and NCAA tournament seeding. A loss to Notre Dame could mean Louisville has to win the ACC tournament to stay on the 2 line. The media and analysts have not been on the Cardinals side when projecting their NCAA tournament seed, so Louisville needs to take care of business the rest of the way.

The game can be seen on ESPN and you can hear it on 790 WKRD.