By Derek DeBurger
The women’s basketball team pulled out a hard-fought win against their former conference rival DePaul on Sunday.
After a 4-4 start to the game, the Blue Demons went on a 20-7 run to take a 13-point lead. DePaul jumped out to this big lead by running a press defense, sprinting back after a possession change to try and get an easy basket off of a trailing Cardinals defense.
Head coach Jeff Walz was able to light a fire under his team midway through the first quarter as the Cards went on their own 18-5 run to go into the second quarter tied at 29-29. The Cards continued their run into the second quarter, taking an eight-point lead with a little over two minutes left in the half off of a layup from big Nyla Harris. The Louisville run was predicated on attacking the paint far more than the beginning of the game and running the offense through big Olivia Cochran. Cochran would finish as the Cards leading scorer with 21 points and three assists. The defense also started to run Walz’s signature full-court two-one-two zone press, shortening possessions and forcing turnovers.
All the added pressure led to quick foul trouble for the Demons and an increasing presence of Louisville players at the free-throw line. Louisville outshot DePaul significantly from the charity stripe, going 25-of-31 compared to their seven-of-12.
The third quarter was much tighter; DePaul came out of the half with strong performances from guards Anaya Peoples and Kate Clarke. Peoples’ streak of 20-point games was broken — she finished with 19, but Clarke went off for 32 points while playing for all 40 minutes. The Demons briefly snatched a lead, but the Cards quickly took it back and started to pull away before the fourth quarter.
The fourth is where the Cards really took hold of this game, pushing the lead up to 13 points just over halfway through the quarter. Once again, Cochran was in the driver’s seat of the Louisville run, getting virtually whatever she wanted in the paint against DePaul’s smaller bigs.
The Cards would come away with the victory 81-74.
High rotations, and higher turnovers
For the second game in a row, coach Walz played ten players on the court Sunday night. Walz is known to try his rotation naturally in-game as opposed to over the offseason, and there were two fewer players to see minutes so there’s some progress on that front.
There was little progress for the Cards doing a better job taking care of the ball. They once again had 14 turnovers compared to nine assists. Louisville has played two teams that like to get in opposing teams’ faces and rack up steals, but they still need to make improvements before they see tougher competition.
The Cards also regressed in shooting from deep. DePaul made it a focus to try and force Louisville into three-point shots, and they only hit 11.8% from the line. It seems like shooting will not be the strength for this Louisville team, but it might be a case of just getting the right players with the right looks.
Luckily for Cards fans, Walz is great at having his teams play their best basketball at the end of the year, so hopefully most of these problems will become distant memories. For now, the Cards get a win in their home opener and start the year at 2-0.
Photo Courtesy // Taris Smith, Louisville Athletics
