LEXINGTON, Ky. – University of Louisville women’s basketball players proudly strutted around the court in T-shirts and hats celebrating their Lexington Regional championship Sunday afternoon, with some of their hats adorned with a little piece of the net.
Cardinals coach Jeff Walz brushed off confetti dumped on him during an interview to climb the ladder and clip the rest of the nylon, happily twirling it to celebrate his top-seeded team’s dominant run through its first four games of the NCAA tournament.
“It’s a great feeling,” Walz said. “I’m going to go home, and my 4 1/2-year-old and my 2 1/2-year-old (daughters), all they’re going to talk about is the confetti on the floor. That’s all they care about. To them, if we win, there’s confetti on the floor that I get to play on.”
Louisville’s next quest is collecting another net and more confetti in next weekend’s women’s Final Four in Columbus, Ohio.
Asia Durr scored 18 points and Myisha Hines-Allen added 16 as Louisville earned its first Final Four berth since 2013 with a 76-43 rout of No. 6 seed Oregon State.
Playing its first regional final in four years and for the first time in school history as a No. 1 seed, the Cardinals (36-2) thoroughly ran the table while playing close to home. And on Sunday, they never trailed while rolling to their 11th consecutive victory.
They outscored the Beavers 28-12 in the third quarter to break the game open and complete their four-game run through the regional by an average margin of victory of 27.5 points. Louisville controlled the paint 32-18 and scored 24 points off 17 turnovers against Oregon State, which had succeeded with precise passing on the way to the Elite Eight.
“If we were able to get stops and go in transition, we were going to be confident,” Hines-Allen said. “Our shots were falling in the second half, and it all came down to defense. If we wanted to win, we had to stop them.”
Even more impressive for Louisville: the Cardinals committed just three turnovers to tie an NCAA tournament single-game record – despite playing a frenetic pace for much of the game that helped them good shots that fell for the final three quarters.
“That was huge,” said Durr, who shot 7-for-14 from the field, including 4-for-9 from 3-point range. “We love to sprint the ball up the floor, pass the ball up the floor, so that’s pretty much what we try to do.”
Sam Fuehring had 14 points and Arica Carter 10 for Louisville, which shot 48 percent. Players celebrated on the court in front of their red-clad following that traveled just less than 80 miles east and hung around to watch them cut down the nets.
Durr, who totaled 42 points during the weekend, was named the regional’s most outstanding player. Joining her on the all-regional team were teammates Hines-Allen, Carter and Fuehring, as well as Oregon State’s Gulich.
The Beavers (26-8) struggled in their bid of adding Louisville to their remarkable run of NCAA upsets after previously ousting No. 3 seed Tennessee and No. 2 Baylor. Oregon State outrebounded Louisville 32-28 behind 6-foot-5 Marie Gulich (14 points, eight rebounds), but the Beavers shot 35 percent while losing for just the second time in 12 games to end the season.
They initially succeeded in limiting Louisville’s scoring, but they couldn’t make baskets against a rotation of coverages on Gulich and tight defense on others, especially on the perimeter. Keeping pace with the Cardinals’ quickness was another struggle, especially during the pivotal third quarter in which Louisville took control.
“Hats off to Louisville, they played an outstanding game,” Oregon State coach Scott Rueck said. “They were on point defensively, kept us off our spots early. Never let us get comfortable, forced us into turnovers.”
Walz, the Cardinals’ coach, briefly became emotional as he let the victory sink in. Among those he thanked was former Louisville athletic director Tom Jurich, who was fired last fall in the wake of the school’s acknowledgement of its involvement in a federal corruption investigation of men’s college basketball.
» Mississippi State 89, UCLA 73
KANSAS CITY, Mo. – Teaira McCowan had 23 points and 21 rebounds, and Victoria Vivans added 24 points as top-seeded Mississippi State beat relentless UCLA to reach the Final Four for the second straight year.
Morgan William added 17 points and Roshunda Johnson had 12 for the Bulldogs (36-1), who blew a good chunk of an 18-point second-half lead before hanging on to extend their school record for wins in a season – and lock up a trip to the national semifinals. They’ll meet another No. 1 seed, Louisville, on Friday night.
Jordin Canada led the third-seeded Bruins (27-8) with 23 points, eight rebounds and five assists. Japreece Dean finished with 16 points, and Monique Billings and Kennedy Burke had 12 apiece, most of it coming when the Bruins were trying to rally from a 50-32 hole.
They closed within 74-68 on Dean’s 3-pointer with 2:53 left, but they couldn’t get a stop on the defensive end. Instead, they traded basket for basket down the stretch, and Mississippi State managed to clinch the win from the foul line in the final minute.
Early on, the Bulldogs followed the same formula they used while routing North Carolina State, dumping it into the much larger McCowan for easy baskets inside. The 6-foot-7 center, who had 24 points in that regional semifinal, scored six during an 11-0 run that gave her team the lead.
Vivians gave the Bulldogs control. The senior forward from Carthage, Miss., converted a three-point play to begin the second period, then added eight more later in the quarter. She finished with 16 points in the first half, and her spinning, driving layup helped the Bulldogs take a 42-26 lead into the locker room.
The only offense UCLA could muster came from Canada, and most of that was at the foul line.
The Bulldogs’ lead eventually reached 18 points midway through the third quarter before the Bruins, fueled by defense, began to nip away at it. UCLA finally got it to fewer than 10 at 53-44 before Blair Schaefer hit a couple of deep 3-pointers to give Mississippi State another boost.
UCLA made one final run, trimming a 67-52 deficit to 67-61 with 6:52 to go. But after the teams traded baskets, Schaefer knocked down her third 3 from the top of the key to silence the Bruins’ bench. Mississippi State kept finding answers until pulling away in the final minute.