By Derek DeBurger

No. 22 Louisville hit the road and left with a huge victory over the No. 12 North Carolina Tar Heels.

Pace yourselves

The old adage is defense travels, but the Cards brought their offense with them, too.

Louisville jumped out to a quick 4-0 lead, later pushing the lead to 12-5 before the midway point in the quarter.

Louisville-transfer Nyla Harris hit a three-pointer and a layup to cut the lead to two, but a 7-0 run extended the lead back up to nine points for Louisville.

Louisville stayed comfortably in front until right at the end of the first. UNC exploded on the offensive end, finding a ton of success beyond the arc.

To end the period UNC hit a three, Laura Ziegler matched it with a three of their own then Lanie Grant drilled one from deep before the buzzer.

Louisville still led 26-24 to end the first.

In the second quarter the defenses finally arrived.

The period wasn’t sloppy, but after Reyna Scott hit a quick layup, almost five minutes past before the next score by either side.

Once again the Cards pushed their lead to nine, but the Tar Heels came storming back at the end of the quarter.

But Imari Berry eased some of the pain by throwing up and hitting a fadeaway right before the buzzer sounded.

Louisville led 38-33 at halftime.

Carolina chaos

Out of the break UNC went on a 7-0 run to take their first lead of the game at 40-38.

But just like every quarter prior, Louisville responded. They went on an 11-0 run of their own to go back up by nine points.

But back-to-back threes from the Tar Heels cut the lead back down to five. After some jockeying for position, that’s where the lead would stay.

Louisville led 56-51 going into the final quarter.

Elif Istanbulluoglu scored a triple and a layup to help put Louisville up by seven.

But two layups from Harris cut the lead down to three, and a triple from Taliyah Handerson cut it down to just two.

Louisville had a two-point lead and the ball with about a-minute-and-a-half left, but Berry turned it over on a called charge.

On the next possession, Henderson was left wide open in the corner for another three and the second North Carolina lead of the day.

After a missed shot by the Cards, UNC drained as much of the shot clock as they could before Grant hit a layup to extend the hole to three points.

Jeff Walz called a timeout to draw up a play, but it busted immediately and Skylar Jones was forced to improvise with a push shot, cutting the deficit to just one.

UNC then called a timeout to advance the ball, but turned it over on the inbound pass and Walz called another timeout.

The next couple of tries were busts, as Louisville’s inbound got swatted out of bound, and the second attempt went sailing into the crowd resulting in a turnover.

Louisville was forced to foul and put UNC at the line.

However, the Tar Heels missed both free throws and Ziegler was able to grab the board and find a streaking Berry for an outlet pass.

Berry had a wide open lane to the rack. She wasn’t able to convert, but she drew a blocking foul on Grant who was out of position.

With just 0.4 seconds left on the clock and a chance to essentially win the game at the line, Berry missed the first free throw.

But she shook it off, and hit the second.

Regulation ended tied at 66-66.

Running away

There were clearly some dead legs on both sides as overtime started out as sloppy as can be.

Both teams committed fouls and turned the ball over, with the first two minutes basically yielding nothing.

Jones finally took the lid off the basket with a jumper, and Berry added some cushion to the lead with a steal and a coast-to-coast score to put Louisville up 70-66.

After more bad possessions on both sides, UNC tightened up ever so slightly. They got needlessly physical on defense, and fouled Jones to put her at the line.

After sinking both, UNC missed yet another shot in OT, then fouling Ziegler to put her at the line and ice the game.

Louisville won 76-66.

Onto something

Last week the close loss to South Carolina was a moral victory for a program that’s outgrown those.

Sunday’s win proves that that was no fluke.

Like many Louisville teams of the past, Walz has just incrementally improved this team one step at a time.

In a massive conference game where Louisville lost all the momentum at the worst possible time, they weathered the storm and gritted out a tough victory.

Berry was huge off the bench, with 13 points and seven rebounds—11 of her points coming in the second half and OT.

Ziegler led all scorers with 17 points and eight boards, and Istanbulluoglu added 17 crucial points in regulation.

As a team the Cards shot well from three, going 8-for-26 (30.8%). But what was more impressive was the dominance in the paint.

Louisville scored 34 points in the paint and out rebounded UNC 44 to 39, all without Anaya Hardy for most of the game due to foul trouble.

This was a huge win for a Cardinals squad that has already taken massive steps forward and has more to go.

Louisville is now 10-3 on the season and 2-0 in the ACC.

Photo Courtesy / Mason Seidt / Louisville Athletics