Louisville Cardinals women's basketball team fell Sunday afternoon to the No. 3 ranked Notre Dame Fighting Irish in the KFC Yum! Center, 89-71.
Cardinals were led by Tajianna Roberts with 17 points and shooting 4-6 from three. Olivia Cochran pitched in 14 herself and Jayda Curry added 12, where she went 8-10 from the charity stripe.
The Cardinals had a spectacular second quarter, as Roberts caught fire and hit 3/3 from beyond the arc and had had a total of 11 points in the quarter. Cardinals went on a 16-3 run and 11 of those points came from Roberts. Louisville finished the half on a 25-14 run and entered the half down one after Hannah Hidalgo hit a jumper to take the lead back for the Irish with 20 seconds remaining.
However, in the second half the Fighting Irish dominated the paint and shot 55% from the field. Cardinals put up a great fight against the elite Irish for 2 quarters according to head coach Jeff Walz, but it is hard to win games when the opponent is shooting the ball at a dominant split.
Jeff Walz revealed what Cardinals must do if they want to reach their full potential for this year and moving forward.
Louisville basketball must fix glaring weakness to reach unlimited potential
Hannah Hidalgo averages 26 points per game on 50% from the field and demonstrated that Sunday against the Cardinals. She put up a career high 34 points and was nearly unstoppable, and caused major issued for the Cardinals defense all game long.
Irish shot an impressive 55% from the field and put up 89 points total. Olivia Miles added 17 points shooting 5-8, and Liatu King had 16 shooting an impressive 8-9 from the floor. The Cardinals inability to guard has been a glaring factor all season long and was shown on tape against the Irish.
"We scored 71 points again, and if you look at game notes, when we score 70 or more we are 341-34." Walz stated after their 18 point loss. "It is not the offense, we have to guard somebody. You score 70, you should win basketball games."
Walz has all the confident and trust in his Cardinals team, and he even shed some of the blame on himself and the coaching staff. He noted that clearly the practice and work hasn't been working and they will have to keep showing tape, but also make adjustments so this UofL squad can get better on the defensive side.
"Our field-goal percentage defense is the worst in the ACC." Walz stated. "You can't allow teams to shoot 50%, and we are allowing teams to shoot 47% from the field on the season in league play. That is terrible"
"Right now we are not defending like we have and we got to. It puts a lot of pressure on the offense to shoot it at a high clip." Walz stated
Cardinals are averaging 73 points a game and shooting at an impressive 45% from the field, but at the same time, they are giving up 67 points on 45% from the field. When asked what has to happen to fix this squad moving forward, Walz didn't hesitate and used one glaring word.
"Toughness. It is toughness." Walz stated. "We are the ones on defense doing the chasing 90% of the time."
Coach Walz emphasized that the team is reacting on defense and not anticipating. They are struggling to get around screens, rebounding, and seeing the cuts. The Cardinals are having a hard time playing bully basketball, and finding a body and grabbing the rebounds.
UofL didn't have a rebound for the first five minutes of the game. It was a stat that Jeff Walz said he may have never seen before. Cardinals however, did turn Notre Dame over 23 times, and Walz sees that as a win, and thinks if Louisville can start guarding, then this team has a bright future.
"We turn them over 23 times and we do a really good job of turning people over, but the problem is when they do get a shot, they are making 50%. If we could ever figure out how to guard and turn them over, and get people low 40%, high 30%, now all of a sudden you have a chance to make an impact on games.
Louisville is now 15-7 and has their second home game against No. 19 California on Feb. 6 at 8 p.m. local time. Cardinals look to bounce back and play with that toughness Coach Walz was talking about and make a final push at the end of the season.