Cards Fall to Kentucky 71-61 in OT

They say all good things must come to an end and today that proved to be true as we saw the end of Louisville’s seven game winning streak over rival Kentucky. Still the Cardinals didn’t make it easy on the Wildcats. In fact if they’d just been able to knock a few more clutch free throws the game would not have gone into overtime. But alas it was not to be.

Coach Walz said, “We’re 4 games into the season. Of course this sucks. I hate losing to Kentucky. We’ve won 7 in a row and it should’ve been 8. We had that damn thing. We sure did. But unfortunately you can’t let them slip through your fingers.”

Freshmen Imari Berry gave the Cards a big boost in the 3rd quarter when she went 4 for 4 from the 3 point line for 12 of her 14 points. Tajianna Roberts had 12 points. Ja’Leah Williams had 9 points and also the unenviable task of guarding Georgia Amoore who she helped forced into 8 turnovers.

Coach Walz gave out a few compliment stickers to his players. “I was really pleased with Elif. I thought she played extremely well for us and really did some good things.” On Ja’Leah he said, “She did some really good things but she just got tired. We’re asking her to do a lot on the ball.... she competed she played really damn hard no question about it.”

On missed opportunities: “We didn’t make some free throws and it’s not just at the end it’s also the ones at the beginning. Also we missed a layup in the first half on an out of bounds play that was wide open. Those two points were just as critical.”

When asked if the crowd had any effect on the scoring Coach Walz said that it did not. “It’s a great environment. You want to play in front of crowds. We play in front of close to 8,000 every night at home. It’s what we average. So the crowd was fantastic.”

Coach Walz said, “You’ve got to practice at a tempo higher than the game because then when you do that the game becomes easy” but said he’s had to challenge his team with “the urgency we go with every day you’re on the court, every day you’re working on your shooting... we unfortunately will go half speed sometimes thinking that we’re getting work done and they’re not getting any work done.”

Next up the Cards return back to the Yum to take on Morehead State. The game is Thursday night at 7PM and can be seen on ACCNX.