By Derek DeBurger

No. 13 Louisville grabs a resounding victory on the road against the Clemson Tigers.

In what was somewhat of a trap game, the Cards needed nothing more than a win before they headed for the airport. The game started ugly; the Tigers were determined to force Louisville to work for every basket, inside and out, and were initially successful. Lousiville finally broke the Tigers’ defense with a string of made shots in the paint, followed by kicking the ball outside after drawing in the defense for some wide-open threes. Two late threes in the first quarter gave Louisville a 26-13 lead.

In the second quarter, Clemson was able to cut into the lead a little bit by taking advantage of some turnovers. Louisville had three and a foul right at the start of the second, letting Clemson cut the lead down to eight. Louisville gathered themselves for the rest of the quarter, but they couldn’t pull away from the Tigers.

Louisville led 47-32 at halftime.

The Cards’ offense got bucket after bucket, and the defense held Clemson scoreless for over seven minutes in the third. The lead got as big as 27 until the Cards finally took their foot off the gas, but it didn’t matter—the game had firmly been wrapped up.

Louisville would win 81-64.

This was an interesting game for a few reasons. Louisville played very well, but they didn’t get a ton of steals or draw a ton of fouls like you would think would happen in such a dominant win—head coach Jeff Walz just made little adjustments when they mattered and outplayed Clemson. Clemson has been unassumingly tough all year long, especially at home. A 17-point win against a team with a losing record this late into the season may not seem like much, but it’s the Tigers’ second-largest loss of the season. The only team to beat Clemson by a larger margin of victory is South Carolina, the No. 1 ranked team in the country and the only remaining undefeated team.

This was not only a great win, but a great team win.

Jayda Curry continues to embrace her role off the bench and led the Cards in scoring on Thursday with 19 points. Three other players hit double-digits for the Cards—Kiki Jefferson, Olivia Cochran, and Sydney Taylor—but what is more impressive is that five different players had two or more assists. Taylor led with eight.

This is yet another great win in a string of very promising wins. Louisville advances to 16-2 on the season and 5-0 in the ACC.