Louisville women have already made history this year; now a chance for more in Final Four

The University of Louisville women’s basketball team made history this season by earning the program’s first No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament.

More history might be on the horizon.

The Cardinals pounded No. 6 seed Oregon State 76-43 in the NCAA Tournament’s Lexington Regional finals in Rupp Arena on Sunday to secure the program’s third trip to the Final Four.

All three of those Final Four appearances have come under current head coach Jeff Walz, who has overseen an era of unprecedented success in his 11 years at the helm. The Cardinals had never even reached a Sweet 16 before his arrival in 2007. Now, with Sunday’s Elite Eight win, Walz has a new selling point for future recruits.

“A program that had never been to a Sweet 16 until 11 years ago can now say every player that’s finished four years has had the opportunity to play in a Final Four. I think that’s pretty impressive,” Walz said.

The lone senior on the Cardinals’ roster, Myisha Hines-Allen, was instrumental in Sunday’s blowout. She scored 16 points on 7-for-12 shooting and had three of Louisville’s seven steals. She was one of several Cardinals that seemed to be everywhere on defense.

“We knew we were going to have to win the game on the defensive end. If we were able to get stops and go in transition, we were going to be confident,” she said. “They have a great post player, so it was going to come down to if you guys want to win, if you want to go to a Final Four, we have to get stops.”

And get stops they did. They held OSU to 34-percent shooting and forced 17 turnovers, which they converted into 24 points.

Louisville looked plenty comfortable all weekend in Rupp. After routing Stanford by 27 points in the Sweet 16, the Cardinals never trailed the Beavers in their Elite Eight matchup. They led 31-24 at halftime, but the advantage felt like it should have been well into double digits. Louisville missed several open shots in the first half, including eight threes.

“At halftime … I said, ‘I love the tempo. We (just) missed open shots,’” Walz said.

Louisville found its range early in the second half and wasted no time putting the Beavers away. The Cardinals outscored OSU 28-12 in the third quarter and at one point reeled off a 16-5 run. They led 59-36 heading into the fourth and finished the game 48.4 percent from the field.

Late in the third quarter, Louisville came up with three steals on three straight possessions and converted all of them into points. Point guard Arica Carter — who had 10 points and four assists — got the second steal. She said they were determined to break the Beavers during that stretch.

“That was huge. No team is ever gonna give up,” Carter said. “But we wanted to show them that we weren’t stopping no matter how they came back at us. We wanted to stop them and put our foot on their throats.”

Regional MVP Asia Durr led the Cardinals with 18 points. One of four finalists for the 2018 Naismith College Player of the Year award, Durr added five rebounds and four assists.

Sam Fuehring scored 14 points, but her biggest contribution might have been her ability to get Oregon State star Marie Gulich into foul trouble. Gulich, voted to ESPNW’s All-America third team, still finished with a team-high 14 points for OSU. But she picked up her third foul early in the second half and her minutes were limited the rest of the way. She fouled out with 9:25 left in the game and Louisville up 23.

“Sam was outstanding,” Walz said. “She’s not afraid of contact. She holds her own. She doesn’t keep backing down. ... Gulich is a fantastic post player. ... you’ve got to hold your ground or she’ll dominate you, and Sam did a great job of holding her ground.”

The Atlantic Coast Conference Tournament champion Cardinals have defeated their first four NCAA Tournament foes by an average of 28 points.

Now, they’re marching on to the Final Four with a chance to make more history.

This story was originally published March 25, 2018 at 2:14 PM with the headline "Louisville women have already made history this year; now a chance for more in Final Four."