Louisville women’s basketball: NCAA Tournament preview

Examining what it will take for Louisville women’s basketball to make a deep run in the postseason.

The Louisville women’s basketball team and fans were on the edge of their seats Sunday for the NCAA tournament selection show. It was up in the air where the Cards would land. Jeff Walz was bringing arguably his most deep and talented team he has had at Louisville into the 2021 season. The season brought plenty of highs and lows for the team. Louisville entered the season ranked fifth in the nation, and deservedly so. You got an early season 41 point dismantling of then #19 DePaul. It was the breakout of star freshman Hailey Van Lith. The DePaul game was only the first COVID rescheduling the Cards would see after UCONN backed out of the game. Then Louisville got a 24 point victory over Duke to enter conference play and move to 5-0 on the season. This is the point where things would begin to get crazy.

Enter The Dreaded COVID Pause

After the Duke game Louisville would go into a COVID pause, and not play from December 9th till January 1st. When the Cards came back from the COVID pause you could tell it was taxing on the young team. The season saw Coach Walz take to Twitter scrambling to find games for his team after games were cancelled left and right. Even scheduling an out of conference opponent twice this year, which you never see happen. While not playing their best basketball, the team grinded out win after win. After some upsets during the stretch, the hard work and determination finally paid off.

The team makes history

On January 18th the nation saw the Louisville women’s basketball team earn its first number one ranking in program history. The Cards would hold that number one ranking for 2 weeks till they had their colossal showdown with then #2 NC State. Louisville would lose by 14 points, but would come back determined to right the ship. The Cards would reel off 4 more victories seeming to get back on track when they had a surprising upset at the hands of Florida State on February 21st. This loss seemed like it would knock the women off the one line for the tournament, and maybe even the two line. The Cards did eventually earn their fourth straight ACC regular season championship. The number one seed Cards would eventually lose their second game of the year to NC State in the ACC tournament final.

Louisville gave up controlling their own fate after that loss. Some bracketologists had Louisville on the 2 line, and some had them on the 3 line. After Georgia lost in the SEC final to South Carolina it looked like Louisville would be comfortably as a 2 seed, and that is what the Selection Sunday show revealed.

So let’s take a look at what Louisville has in front of them on their road to the championship.

How the region shapes up

Cards earned the 2 seed in the Alamo region. In the first round the Cards will contend with the MAAC champion Marist Red Foxes. The Cards are 1-1 against Marist, with the last meeting coming in 2015. Marist scores 63 points per game, and shoots 41% from the floor and 33% from three. Marist isn’t an overly big team which will play to the advantage of the Cards with Olivia Cochran and Liz Dixon on the inside. If the Cards win that first round matchup, which we are all assuming they will, they will get the winner of 7 seed Northwestern and 10 see UCF. A fun side note for the tournament is if UCF wins, Louisville will face 2021 signee Payton Verhulst’s sister Ashton.

Now lets get to the nitty gritty. The other top seeds in the Cards region are 1 seed Stanford, 3 seed Georgia, and 4 seed Arkansas. PAC 12 champion Stanford is the #1 overall seed in the tournament. Stanford is a big team that rebounds well, and shoots 46% from the field and 36% from three.

Georgia was in a battle with the Cards for that last 2 seed, and would have stolen it if they could have gotten past South Carolina in the SEC tournament final. Georgia will be a formidable opponent in the Sweet 16 as the score 73ppg, and shoot 44% from the field and 33% from three.

The second SEC team in the bracket is the 4 seed Arkansas Razorbacks. Arkansas finished the season ranked 15th in the AP poll. Arkansas scores 82ppg, shot 45% from the field, and 33% from three.

The way this bracket shapes up, I don’t see any reason it will not be a Stanford versus Louisville Elite 8. I believe while Stanford is really good and have played some good teams, but I just don’t think they have faced a team in the PAC 12 with the depth and fire power Louisville has.

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Final Four and Beyond

If Louisville makes it to the Final Four they will face the winner of the Hemisfair region. This region contains 1 seed South Carolina, 2 seed Maryland, 3 seed UCLA, and 4 seed WVU. Luckily for the Cards the big names are on the opposite side of the bracket, so they won’t have to see them till the championship. The opposite side contains 1 seed UCONN, 2 seed Baylor in one region, and 1 seed NC State and 2 seed Texas A&M.

You can catch the Cards first round action against Marist March 22nd at 8pm on ESPN.