No. 15/19 Cards Dog Walk Bellarmine In 111-33 Victory

Chrissy BantaNovember 16, 2023

The No. 15/19 Louisville Cardinals hosted the Bellarmine Knights for a weeknight matchup and dog walked them for a 111-33 victory. The 78-point win is the largest margin of victory in the Jeff Walz era.

All cylinders were firing with this team from start to finish. The lack of Bellarmine defense combined with Louisville’s explosive offense led to the Cards having 8 players in double-digit scoring and 23 team assists by the final buzzer. Sydney Taylor led the team in points with 15, and she was closely followed by Nyla Harris who tallied 14. Kiki Jefferson, Jayda Curry, and Merissah Russell all scored 11 points each, while Alexia Mobley had 12 of her own, and Olivia Cochran and Elif Istanbulluoglu had 10 a piece. Elif also recorded her first double-double of the season by adding 12 rebounds to her stat line. Bellarmine was unable to find any sort of luck defending the paint tonight and allowed the Cards to score 62 points there. The three-point shooting from Louisville is still spotty, but I think we can all let that go when they’re putting up 62 of 111 points in the paint.

Defensively Louisville brought the heat. Not only did they outrebound Bellarmine 49-22, but of those 49 rebounds 37 came on the defensive end. The Cards also recorded 12 team steals and 3 blocks. Louisville held the Knights to just 9 points in the first half and capitalized off 29 team turnovers from Bellarmine throughout all four quarters.

After the game, Nyla Harris said “We knew we were going to beat Bellarmine. The question was, how do we want to win? What do we do to show people that we’re better than 19 or 15 or whatever we’re ranked? How do we get better for teams like Alabama and Gonzaga?”

I truly believe the improved chemistry of this team is going to carry them through the more difficult opponents. Regardless of who they’ve played this year, one thing is evident. This team really enjoys each other’s company and that allows them to communicate better and have fun while they’re on the court. Give me more of that.

Louisville will host Bucknell this Sunday, November 19^th, at 4pm before heading to Texas for the Van Chancellor Classic. You’ll be able to watch the Cards take on the Bisons on the ACCN or you can listen live on 93.9 The Ville.