By Josie Simpson
After beating the Nebraska, Louisville is set to face the No. 2 seeded TCU Horned Frogs in the second round of the NCAA tournament.
The Tri-Star State
The Horned Frogs are star driven, and everything starts with former Louisville star Hailey Van Lith.
Van Lith leads TCU with 17.7 points and 5.4 assists per game, and she tacks on a nice 4.3 rebounds. Obviously the most eye-catching of those stats are the assists, as Van Lith has turned into a highly effective facilitator where as she used to be a pure shooting guard.
Another way Van Lith has changed since her time in the Derby City is her efficiencies. She’s shooting a career high 45.7% from the field but is shooting 33.9% from three-point range, which is tied for the second worst of her career.
She’s two years removed from playing under Jeff Walz, but he should have some ideas of how to attack her.
However, Van Lith is only one part of a dynamic duo with 6-foot-7 center Sedona Prince. Prince puts up 17.4 points and 9.6 rebounds per contest. She is dominant down low, knocking down 58.9% of his shots which is the 14th best rate nationally.
Louisville has struggled historically under Walz against giant centers, and that probably win’t change on Sunday. TCU does play their stars copious minutes, so there will be the opportunity to rack up fouls on Prince and limit her impact. However, this isn’t likely as she only gets called for 2.3 fouls a game.
The final star for TCU is Madison Conner. She averages 14.8 points, 4.1 boards and 3.7 assists a game. She is lethal from downtown, hitting 45.2% which ranks eighth nationally.
Louisville’s perimeter defense, which has shown improvement late in the season, will be tested against her and a TCU squad that shoots 37.5% from beyond the arc as a team.
But outside of the stars, the Horned Frogs run a short bench. They really only want to play seven to eight players a game, and most of those coming off the bench see fewer than 10 minutes a night.
The obvious strategy is to get mismatches and attack the paint to draw fouls, but that is much easier said than done.
Hard to come by
The Horned Frogs’ defense is just as scary, if not scarier.
They only give up 57.1 points a game on 37.1% shooting from the field, with both numbers ranking top 35.
TCU also ranks seventh in blocks per game with 5.8. Prince averages three blocks all by herself, which is more than 169 of the 353 Division-1 teams. TCU doesn’t have anyone super imposing down low other than Prince, with the next highest blocker only recording 0.7 blocks a game.
One area where the Horned Frogs don’t thrive is forcing turnovers. They force 13.5 turnovers with 6.2 steals a game, both ranking bottom 50.
Part of the reason they force so few turnovers is that when you have a defensive anchor like Prince all you need to do is try to stay in front of ball handlers. Louisville won’t have hands swiping at the ball all game long, but the tradeoff is that there are almost no easy shots.
Louisville is in for a tough fought, emotional battle. They have had games against the top-tier competition in the sport go multiple ways, so it’s hard to tell which Cardinals team will show up.
One of the biggest factors is going to be the health and availability of Jayda Curry. Curry reaggravated the shoulder injury that kept her from playing in the ACC tournament, and her absence was palpable.
Regardless, Louisville will need to give 110% effort just to have a chance at the second weekend.
Tip-off is set for Sunday at 5 p.m. in Fort Worth, Texas.
Photo Courtesy // Taris Smith, Louisville Athletics
