Sherrone Vails, a freshman forward for the University of Louisville women’s basketball team, goes high for one of her nine rebounds in UofL’s 78-52 win Sunday over Kentucky at the KFC Yum! Center. Vails also added 10 points, as well as two assists, two blocks and four steals. (Card Game photo)
Matthew Mitchell, the Kentucky women’s basketball coach, seemed puzzled at the post-game press conference about why the University of Louisville would be more motivated than his team.
Hello, Matthew. Maybe it was that 101-67 bashing your team put on a crippled UofL team last season. That was on the minds of players from both teams, UK expecting another easy win, the Lady Cards determined that it wasn’t going to happen again.
Not at home, not before a crowd of 22,152, and certainly not to Kentucky.
Shoni Schimmel and Becky Burke had a little contest going between themselves, each wanting to collect the most three-point shots against the visitors. Each connected on six three-point shots, Schimmel winding up with 26 points and Burke with 21.
The Lady Cards would race to a 28-12 lead before the visitors from Lexington knew what hit them, Jeff Walz’ team jaunting for the locker room at half time with a 43-25 lead. The closest the Cats would get was 45-35 at the 16:35 mark in the second half.
UK’s highly regarded Victoria Dunlap managed a total of 23 rebounds and 17 points but she didn’t get much help from her teammates. She would be forced out of the game, nursing her knee in the closing minutes.
The telling stat was that UK managed only four assists in the game, compared to 19 for the the highly-motivated Lady Cards.
As Pat Travers put it, “Boom, boom — OUT GO THE LIGHTS!!”
I’m thinking if Walz doesn’t schedule Tennessee, Xavier, Old Dominion we probably don’t progress enough to win this game.
Wondering even more about Pitino scheduling Betty Crocker and cupcake city.