Louisville women’s basketball dominated Bellarmine on Saturday. Recapping the victory and looking at the Cards’ scheduling issues.
Louisville women’s basketball didn’t get to play for 23 days. However, over the New Year holiday, they got to play two games in two days.
Louisville, as expected, showed rust from their COVID layoff in their game with EKU. I fully expected the Cards to come out strong and more fluid against Bellarmine. Louisville shot far better from two-point range but struggled again to get going from three. They did a good job limiting fouls in this game, which is great given the propensity to be aggressive in previous games.
Bellarmine came out and took an early 5-4 lead over Louisville in the opening minutes. The Cards’ defense clamped down after that, only allowing Bellarmine to score 7 more points in the first quarter.
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Meanwhile, Louisville scored 22 more points led by Dana Evans and Liz Dixon’s six points apiece. The Cards ended the first quarter up 26-12. Louisville began the second quarter on a 12-2 run, pushing its lead out to 36-14. The defensive pressure for the Cards was just too much in the second quarter for Bellarmine as the Knights could only manage to score 9 points in the second quarter.
The Cards matched their first-quarter scoring with another 26 point quarter. Olivia Cochran and Ramani Parker took over in the second quarter, as Cochran scored 8 and Parker added 6 points. The Cards went to halftime with a 52-21 lead, being led in scoring by Cochran with 12 points.
Second Half
Louisville came out of the locker room in the third quarter and jumped on Bellarmine with a 9-4 run. As much as the Knights tried, UofL just had too much defense as they only allowed 11 points in the quarter. Louisville stayed on pace offensively adding 25 more points in the third quarter. Kianna Smith led the Cards in scoring with 8 third-quarter points. Meanwhile, Cochran and Evans added 5 each to send the game into the final quarter with the Cards up comfortably 77-32.
The fourth quarter was much of the same as the first three. Though it was Bellarmine’s biggest offensive quarter, Louisville still topped it with 20 points. The fourth quarter saw an unexpected scoring leader as Merrisah Russell put up 8 big points.
What to love
The Cards dominated from start to finish.
The Louisville bigs really showed out in this game as Cochran scored 15, which led all Cardinals in scoring. Dixon added 14, Parker had 10, and Russell gave them 8. Liz Dixon is finally coming out of her shell, scoring in double figures in back-to-back games.
This was the first game all season that Ramani Parker and Norika Konno scored in double figures, as Konno added 11 points.
Evans and K. Smith were the other 2 Cards in double figures with 11 apiece.
Areas for concern
For only the second game all season Louisville didn’t have a player record double-digit rebounds. Though playing time is limited for starters in blowouts, I would like to see the Cards crashing and dominating the boards.
Louisville has some issues to figure out from three-point range. Only shooting 18 percent over the last two games is an area of concern as they move into the full slate of ACC games.
Looking ahead
For the 11th time this season, Louisville women’s basketball had a game postponed on Sunday. This time, the Cards were forced to push back their January 5th match-up with North Carolina for the third time. Additionally, a January 10th game against Florida State was replaced with a date with Clemson.
At this point, Louisville women’s basketball head coach Jeff Walz is working as hard to get his schedule in order as he is preparing his team.
Ultimately, persistence will pay off, but for everyone around the program, it has been a rough time.
You can catch the Cards in action again on Tuesday, January 5th at 2:30pm as Louisville plays host to Tennessee Martin. The game is on ACC Network and 790 WKRD.
Hate to nitpick, but Friday’s opponent was NKU, not EKU.
Thanks for the heads up!