Searching for answers, Louisville women's basketball goes 'back to the drawing board'

For the first time in five years, Louisville fell out of the top 10 of the Associated Press women’s basketball poll. Prior to falling to fourth-ranked Ohio State 96-77 on Wednesday, the No. 18 Cardinals hadn't lost a home game since losing to NC State 74-60 on Feb. 1, 2021.

Their 5-3 start after eight games is the worst since a 3-5 open to the 2015-16 season. That year, the team went 26-8 with a second-round exit in the NCAA Tournament. While the Cardinals aren’t panicking, they know change is needed, and that starts with head coach Jeff Walz.

“I look myself in the mirror, too, of look like, 'OK, what can I do differently to put these kids in better spots to be successful?' Because that's our job as a coach,” he said. “We've figured it out here pretty darn well for about 15 years, so it's not like we've forgotten what we're doing. I've just got to go back to the drawing board in some areas to try to figure out: OK, where can I put players to be successful?”

U of L has had some success so far and has shown flashes of top-tier potential. Against Ohio State, the team jumped out to a 12-3 lead and forced the visitors into five turnovers. Where they average 14 per game, Louisville forced the Buckeyes into 20 turnovers. The problem was the Cardinals couldn’t keep it up.

Ohio State forced Louisville to commit 24 turnovers, a season high, and used them to score 33 points.

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“We were up, what, eight at the half or whatever it may have been? It could have been 14 or 16, but we don't communicate and we give up some open looks,” Walz said. “You can't have breakdowns. When you have breakdowns, they (Ohio State) take advantage of it, and that's exactly what they did. I thought we did a really good job that first half. You have to bring your defense for 40 minutes; it does not matter you have to do, bring it. Unfortunately, we did not.”

Defense and toughness, typically staples of the program, have been points of emphasis with this year’s group. Walz has made a concerted effort to challenge the Cardinals to play with more grit. In the meantime, U of L must find ways to highlight their strengths to give the perceived weakness time to develop.

“I always like to say your No. 1 goal as a coach is to help your players hide what they're not good at,” Walz said, “because once somebody realizes what you're not good at, then they attack you there. So, we're trying to; we got to get back to showing, OK, here's what we are good at and not showing what we're not.”

Coming into the year, Louisville was believed to have a team full of scorers that possessed the ability to put up tons of points. For the most part, that’s been the case. The Cardinals are averaging 77.0 points per game with Hailey Van Lith (21.0 points per game), Chrislyn Carr (10.9) and Morgan Jones (10.6) all averaging double digits. The Cardinals are 52nd in the country in field goal percentage (45%).

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Ball movement has been key in the Cardinals’ overall offensive success. The team is assisting on 50.7% of their made shots, with Mykasa Robinson totaling a team-high 23 assists on the year.

The best example of this was early in the third quarter against the Buckeyes when Jones started to drive to the basket but then passed the ball off to Olivia Cochran, who then kicked it out to Robinson. Another swing pass around the perimeter from Robinson to Van Lith then Carr allowed Carr to hit a 3-pointer, sending U of L up 50-37 at the 9:01 mark of the frame.

“(The possession) was about as good of basketball as we've had all year where we swung that ball around, it never touched the floor,” Walz said. "I mean, it was impressive basketball. Never saw that again.”

The Cardinals have another chance to make these sought-after improvements against Middle Tennessee at 5 p.m. Sunday in Murfreesboro, Tenn.

“It's obviously our eighth game into the season,” Walz said after the Ohio State loss. “It's not where we anticipated to be, but I promise you I'm not going to go to the bridge and jump off. I like this team. I like these kids. We’ve just got to get tougher. We've got to understand it takes all of us in order to be successful and to win. We’ve just got to get that ingrained in everyone.”

Reach Louisville football, women's basketball and baseball beat writer Alexis Cubit at acubit@gannett.com and follow her on Twitter at @Alexis_Cubit.

This article originally appeared on Louisville Courier Journal: Ohio State loss prompts Louisville women to go back to drawing board