By Derek DeBurger
The women’s basketball team is set to play their cross-town foe from the Highlands — the Bellarmine Knights — on Thursday.
Bellarmine will without a doubt be the easiest team so far in Louisville’s season. For all the teams they’ve played, Bellarmine has been the classical “bye game,” where there is such a clear and obvious talent advantage going in that the team with superior talent can easily take the game off or use the match for lineup practice.
Head coach Jeff Walz will choose the latter — and you can quote me on that. Expect to see Walz clear the entire bench against the Knights and play some lineups that’ve gotten little to no run together in-game. I would also expect — and hope — to see the Cards try to work on running the offense without committing turnovers, shoot a better percentage from three, and to run a tighter, more aggressive defense.
Big Olivia Cochran suffered an injury at the end of the DePaul game and was benched for the majority of the final minutes. Depending on the severity of the injury, it wouldn’t be out of the picture to see her play limited minutes in this contest.
These games may not be a spectator’s dream — you won’t hang off the edge of your seat to witness the dramatic conclusion — but these types of games are extremely important. Walz is known around the sport as a coach whose teams take constant steps throughout the season, always improving and who play their best basketball come March. Being the first game that one can reasonably determine the outcome before it even starts, Louisville will be able to work on things that they have yet to practice in-game.
This game should be a runaway victory for the Cards as they get off to a 3-0 start, and set up for hopefully another post-season run.
Photo Courtesy // Taris Smith, Louisville Athletics
