By Derek DeBurger

By the skin of their teeth No. 18 Louisville survives and overcomes the Boston College Eagles.

The Cards looked unprepared and sloppy to start the game. Boston College forced numerous turnovers in the first half, jumping out to a 7-0 lead. Once Louisville finally scored, they continued to force the issue on offense making ill-advised passes and unable to meaningfully cut into the lead. The Eagles expanded their lead before the end of the quarter 17-8.

Boston College survived a quick punch from the Cards to push the lead to 10—the largest of the game. During the Eagles’ run, they were hyper-aggressive, quickly placing Louisville into the bonus. Louisville forced several turnovers using a full-court press and attacking the paint on offense, turning up the pressure. Louisville went on an 8-0 run scoring entirely off of free throws to cut the deficit to just two. Boston College was able to steady themselves once they put guard Kaylah Ivey back in the game, but Louisville’s momentum was enough to carry them into the half.

The Cards were tied 32-32 at halftime.

Louisville again came out of the half flat, committing some bad turnovers, and found themselves down four, fast. The Cards were able to fight back to make the third quarter back-and-forth, but the team struggled to take their first lead of the game on many opportunities to do so. They finally got over the hump with a pair of free throws from forward Olivia Cochran and went on a late push to go up by five points. The Eagles, however, ended the third on a 6-0 run to reclaim the lead, and Louisville trailed 52-51.

For the first time on Thursday, Louisville started a quarter well, using their own 6-0 run to go back up by five points. Louisville was unable to grow the lead beyond five with Boston College staying within reach. Guard Sydney Taylor tried to put the game away by scoring six straight points, but the Eagles would not go away. BC guard Dontavia Waggoner put Boston College on her back and led the Eagles storming back to tie the game up at 67-67. Waggoner finished the game with a game-high 22 points, a team-high six rebounds and four assists.

With the game tied with under 90 seconds left to go, Louisville had the ball in the half-court. After a missed shot by guard Jayda Curry, the ball rolled out of bounds off of the Eagles. Upon a further replay, the call was reversed giving Boston College the ball with 51 seconds left. After taking the ball up the court, guard Nyla Harris picked off a pass from Ivey to give the Cards possession. Guard Nina Rickards killed some clock beyond the arc, then took the ball to the rim for a layup and the lead. The Eagles then ran their offense in the half-court, but Louisville fouled twice to force Boston College to run a quick play with 6.8 seconds left. Off the inbound, Cochran stole the ball, and head coach Jeff Walz smartly called a timeout. Boston College had yet to commit a foul in the quarter, so Louisville just had to avoid turning the ball over on inbound passes and they were able to run out the clock to seal the game.

Louisville won 69-67.

This was a much closer game than anyone would’ve liked or predicted. Boston College has been on such an unfortunate stretch of games, with none of their last seven games were closer than a seven-point loss. It would not be shocking to find out that Louisville slightly overlooked the Eagles before Thursday’s game, but quickly that notion was disavowed. The Eagles had a clear strategy of clogging passing lanes and denying three-point shooters. Louisville committed 23 turnovers which is a larger number than the three-point shooting percentage for the Cards at 16.7% on one-of-six shooting.

Rickards was able to keep the Cards in the game during the early parts of the game, and she steadied her teammates before and during their comeback effort in the second. Rickards scored a team-high 16 points with 11 of her points coming in the first half. Kiki Jefferson, Taylor and Cochran also chipped in double-digits with 14, 13 and 11 points, respectively.

The game was ugly and scarier than expected, but it showed an ability for the Cards to win games that come down to the wire. With the win Louisville advances to 21-5 on the season and 10-3 in the ACC.