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Louisville women’s basketball handles Boise State on the road

By Michael Tignor

COLUMBUS, OH - MARCH 30: Jazmine Jones #23 and Asia Durr #25 of the Louisville Cardinals celebrate the play against the Mississippi State Lady Bulldogs during the second half in the semifinals of the 2018 NCAA Women's Final Four at Nationwide Arena on March 30, 2018 in Columbus, Ohio. (Photo by Andy Lyons/Getty Images)
COLUMBUS, OH - MARCH 30: Jazmine Jones #23 and Asia Durr #25 of the Louisville Cardinals celebrate the play against the Mississippi State Lady Bulldogs during the second half in the semifinals of the 2018 NCAA Women's Final Four at Nationwide Arena on March 30, 2018 in Columbus, Ohio. (Photo by Andy Lyons/Getty Images) /
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The Louisville women’s basketball team went on the road for the 3rd straight game and take care of business against Boise State.

Coach Jeff Walz loves to play quality opponents early in the season. So far this year, Walz and the Louisville women’s basketball team have gone on the road against two teams who were dancing last year in the NCAA tournament.

Monday’s match up against Boise State was a rematch of the first round of the 2018 NCAA Tournament when the Cards easily handled the Broncos 74-42.

This time around, the Broncos were a little more ready for the Cards. At the end of the 1st Quarter, Boise held an early, 12-11 lead. Louisville started slow and this was the Super Bowl for Boise State. They hadn’t hosted a top five team with the late 90’s when #5 Georgia visited. I believe my tweet summed the 1st quarter up well.

The second quarter began with 5 quick points from Asia Durr who had been held scoreless in the 1st quarter. Durr, a preseason All American, also started slowly, but finished with a game high, 20 points, and also added 7 rebounds, 4 assists, and 2 steals. At the midway point, the Cards were up 31-28.

Walz must give the team Michael’s Secret Stuff at halftime, because we saw the Cards that we have come to know and love in the 3rd. Cards outscored the Broncos 22-13 in the 3rd quarter to extend the lead to 12. Including Monday’s game, Louisville has outscored opponents 83-31 in the 3rd quarter in three games this season. The Cards continued their dominance in the final quarter and ended the game with a 19 point victory.

Here are a few take aways from the game.

1. Louisville has to be better in the post

In the first two or three minutes of the game, the Cards missed three easy lay ups. I felt like we missed a lot of easy buckets throughout the game. While Boise State is a decent opponent, the team can’t be missing easy buckets against teams like Notre Dame or UConn.

2. As Asia goes, Louisville goes

Louisville’s other 4 starters combined for 18 points. Asia had 20. We have got to have better production from the starters.

3. We need better production from the bigs

As I mentioned earlier, Louisville missed a lot of what seemed to be wide open shots down low. Senior Sam Fuehring made up for 3 misses with 5 of 6 free throws going in, but going forward, we’ve got to hit the easy buckets. I expect Coach Walz will be throwing in some extra Mikan drills in practice this week.

4. The announcers…smh

While I was stoked to see that the game was available of the Boise State website, these announcers were something else. Did you know Boise is the City of Trees? After watching the game for about 3 minutes, there’s no way you couldn’t have known. It would be like Paul Rogers saying “Welcome back to the River City” every time we came back from a break.

Next. Louisville Basketball: Keys to knocking off the Tennessee Volunteers. dark

At the end of the day, the Cards came away with a win. But going forward, they’ll need to show major improvement before they reach ACC play.

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