By Jordan Shim–
In their first home game of the new year, women’s basketball (15-3, 3-1 ACC) defeated the Pittsburgh Panthers (10-6, 1-2 ACC) 73-52 at the KFC Yum! Center Sunday afternoon.
After a poor first half, Mariya Moore led the way for the Cards with 18 points, 12 of them in the second. Pitt’s Brandi Harvey-Carr scored a game-high 25 points. Depth separated the two teams as Louisville’s bench outscored Pitt 35-13. Jazmine Jones and Ciera Johnson added 13 and 11 points to make up for the bad shooting night of the starting five.
A good fourth quarter masked what would have been U of L’s worst offensive game of the year.
“We very stagnant on offense with the ball,” coach Jeff Walz said. “We held the ball way too much. We just got to get better as players understanding who made shots and where they are on the floor. It’s unacceptable. We have to get smarter as basketball players.”
Pitt started the game strong, shooting 5-for-5 from the field, 2-for-2 from the free throw line. Their success came from graduate student Brandi Harvey-Carr, who scored eight of the team’s 10 points in the paint in the opening five minutes.
Their offensive momentum dried up once Louisville limited Harvey-Carr’s touches. After Pitt jumped out to an 18-13 lead with 3:19 remaining in the first quarter, they ended going 0-for-2 from the field and five turnovers. The Cards capitalized off of those turnovers, finishing the period with a 19-18 lead.
Their offense was still cold in the second quarter. However, offensive rebounding kick started their 16-2 run. Eight offensive rebounds, four by Myisha Hines-Allen, led to eight second-chance points. The bench contributed with 10 points, giving Louisville a 34-25 lead going into halftime.
Inconsistency in the execution of Pitt’s half-court offense led to 17 first-half turnovers, therefore masking their shooting success.
“Coach emphasized ball pressure,” Moore said. “I didn’t even know they had that many turnovers, so we just kept rolling and kept our intensity on the defensive end.”
Louisville shot 11-for-36 from the field and 1-of-9 from three in the first half. Leading scorer Asia Durr didn’t find any rhythm as she struggled for the third straight game, scoring three points, going 1-for-9 in 14 minutes.
“She looked tired,” Walz said. “If I didn’t have to play her in the second half, I wasn’t going to.”
Pitt came out of the locker room with four quick points before Louisville answered. The Panthers then went on a 7-0 run to cut the lead to two at 38-36 with 5:47 remaining.
“It was a lack of focus,” Moore said. “We just weren’t all together on the same page, and they capitalized on our mistakes. Then we had to pull back together and dial in and figure out if wanted to win or lose the game.”
The Cards answered with a 9-0 run in the next three minutes to stretch their lead to 11. They were able to mitigate their abysmal 5-of-16 shooting in the third quarter by draining all six of their free throws.
Louisville finally found their outside shooting touch in the second half, knocking down 4-of-8, with three by Moore.
“I got a lot of confidence after the Duke game,” Moore said. “And it made me realize that me missing and getting upset about it was more affecting myself because my team still needed me. So I stayed confident to keep shooting and eventually there were going to go in.”
Pitt kept the game within single digits going into the fourth quarter. However, costly turnovers interrupted their rhythm, which lead to trailing by as much as 23.
Louisville goes on the road against Florida State on Jan. 12, before returning home Jan. 15 to host Miami. Tip-off against FSU scheduled for 1:30 p.m. on ESPN2.
Photo by Nancy Hanner / The Louisville Cardinal
