By Derek DeBurger
On Monday Nov. 6, the Louisville Cardinals will take on rival the Cincinnati Bearcats in the season opener.
Louisville opened up the previous season with the Bearcats at home, this year the Cards will have to travel to Cincinnati to complete the home-and-home.
Coming off of a season where the Cards made an unexpected elite eight run and ranked No. 17 in the preseason AP poll, there’s a lot of optimism for the Cards this season.
Head coach Jeff Walz lost a lot of talent to graduation and the transfer portal, but he brought in a ton of talent to reload the roster immediately. Highlighted by who some saw as the best player in the transfer portal this offseason, Cal transfer Jayda Curry will look to provide instant impact and leadership for the Cards after averaging 15.5 points per game and 3.2 assists per game in her last season at Cal.
In the past two seasons coach Walz has relied heavily on Transfers to fit into his system and make a splash, and in the past two years they’ve delivered big with a Final Four and Elite Eight run respectively.
Walz will be bringing back some great productive players as well. Olivia Cochran and Merissah Russell are two impact seniors looking to finish out their careers with a bang, and Nyla Harris is a sophomore looking to take a big step forward after being a pleasant surprise last year.
Last year, Louisville kept it way too close for comfort against a Cincinnati team that ended up winning nine games. We didn’t know it at the time, but Coach Walz was struggling to get all the new pieces to mesh together. Once again, there’s a lot of roster movement that Walz will have to navigate, but if you ask me the toys that Walz has to play with this year are a whole lot shinier than last year.
We’ll need to see how everything meshes, but I’m expecting a win against the Bearcats and I’m excited to see how far the Cards can go this year.
Photo Courtesy // Louisville Athletics
