Eleven months ago in New Orleans, the upstart Louisville Cardinals met the Connecticut Huskies for the NCAA National Championship. Although it was a rout for the UConn women, Louisville displayed in that game that they were no Cinderella.
Tonight, they meet again for another championship at the KFC Yum! Center in downtown Louisville, Ky. (7pm ESPN2). This time it is for the inaugural American Athletic Conference regular season title. If UConn wins, they will win the outright conference championship and will be the top seed in this weekend’s American tournament at Mohegan Sun in Uncasville, Conn. If Louisville wins, both teams will share the regular season title and a coin flip will determine the top seed in the tournament.
The No. 1 Huskies defeated No. 25 Rutgers, 72-35, to earn a share of the American Athletic Conference regular season championship last Saturday. In a game where they never trailed, top-ranked and unbeaten UConn (30-0 overall, 17-0 AAC) used a stifling defense to keep the Scarlet Knights at bay. Rutgers was held to a season-low 35 points scored. They played without their leading scorer Kahleah Cooper who missed most of the game Breanna Stewart and Bria Hartley led the Huskies in scoring. They both scored 20 points each. Stewart and Stefanie Dolson (six points) had 10 rebounds apiece. Kia Stokes pulled down a game-high 11 rebounds off the bench.
Last month, UConn defeated the No. 3 Cardinals 81-64 and ended a 16 game winning streak in front of soldout crowd at Gampel Pavilion. Since then, the Cards (28-2, 16-1) have won five in a row, most recently a 75-51 victory against Cincinnati.
Louisville coach Jeff Walz is known for his aggressive game plans. In the last meeting, his team was physical and they opted to leave Moriah Jefferson open. However, offensively they struggled against the UConn defense and Stewart just took over. Stewart had 24 points and 10 rebounds, while Jefferson scored a career-high 18 points. The Huskies forced 14 turnovers and held the Cardinals to 36% shooting.
Expect Walz and his team to learn from the previous meeting and come with another game plan to contain Stewart and Hartley. It is without question that Walz will use some type of full-court pressure defense to tire out the Huskies who only have eight scholarship players. They will also use a combination of a two-three or three-two zone. Expect Stewart to be double or triple teamed in the post.
The Cardinals are led by a pair of All-American candidates in guard Shoni Schimmel (17.2 point per game) and forward Sara Hammond (11.2 points, 6.6 rebounds). In the last meeting, the UConn defense was able to contain and limit both players on offense. Forward Asia Taylor (12.2 points) had 18 points in the last meeting and guard Antonia Slaughter is a three-point threat.
Both teams are pretty much at full strength. UConn saw the return of Kaleena Mosqueda-Lewis on Saturday afternoon. Although she scored only seven points, she did play 27 minutes. Geno Auriemma expects Lewis to have a better shooting performance than she did last Saturday. Lewis sat out the past two weeks with mononucleosis. Louisville will have guard Bria Smith, who missed the last meeting with the Huskies due to a knee injury.
The Cardinals are undefeated at home this season (17-0) and this is their senior night.
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