Jeff Walz Marching Towards A Title

Mark BlankenbakerMarch 17, 2016

Jeff Walz arrived in Louisville in 2007 fresh off a National Championship as an assistant coach at Maryland. Walz was on Brenda Oldfield’s (Frese) staff with the Terrapins where they built UM from the group up. At Louisville Walz would do the same thing, this time as a head coach. The Louisville Women’s Basketball program was competitive, and Tom Collen was an improvement over Martin Clapp, but UofL could never have been described as a national power.

This will be Jeff Walz’s 8th NCAA Tournament in 9 seasons at UofL. This is just the 19th NCAA Tournament appearances in its history. It’s also the 6th appearance in a row for the program breaking the previous record of 5.

This season started off slow with the Cards dropping 4 of its first 5 contests. But the young Cardinals (a team with no seniors) rallied and reeled of a 24-3 record after its rough start and lost just a single game during the ACC Regular Season.

Walz has also assembled the #1 recruiting class for the 2015 season and consistently brought in Top 10 classes since his arrival from Maryland.

Despite all of that success Jeff Walz is still building towards his eventual goal: THE NCAA NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP. His 2008-09 team finished 34-5 as the NCAA Runner-Up to Connecticut with one of the program’s best ever players in Angel McCoughtry. In 2012-13 Walz & the Cardinals were once again the NCAA Runner-Up to Connecticut this time with another one of the program’s best ever Cardinals in Shoni Schimmel.

The 2015-16 Cardinals will start its journey in the NCAA Tournament Friday at the KFC Yum! Center a place where the Cards & Walz have created one of the best environments for Women’s Basketball. The #3 seeded Cardinals will face off against #14 Central Arkansas at 2:30 p.m. with the winner facing the victor of the #6 DePaul/#11 James Madison game that takes place at 12:15 p.m.

Cardinal fans may in fact get a “DePaul Day” after all this season, but no matter the final result of this season it is another building block towards the success of Jeff Walz in his march to a National Title at the University of Louisville. It’s just a matter of time before Walz cashes in for some confetti and Louisville fans should enjoy the ride this team is about to take them on.