Kentucky Today
Kentucky was no match for fourth-ranked Louisville.
Asia Durr scored 32 points to lead the fourth-ranked Cardinals to an 87-63 win over the Wildcats Sunday at Memorial Coliseum. Durr set a school record with 47 points in a 95-90 overtime win over Ohio State last month and tallied 36 points in a win over Syracuse last season.
“Asia (Durr) shoots the heck out of the ball,” Louisville coach Jeff Waltz said. “When she scores, her teammates do a great job of finding her in open space. We execute, I mean, I was really impressed with us. If you watch that ball game, I mean Asia scored a lot in the half court. You know, because we took the time, we set good screens and found her.”
Louisville (13-0) forced 16 turnovers and scored 22 points off those miscues, a major difference in the contest between the two instate rivals, giving the Cardinals their first win over the Wildcats at Memorial Coliseum since the 1978-79 campaign.
“It was a tough game today, tough loss for us,” Kentucky coach Matthew Mitchell said. “You have to give Louisville a tremendous amount of credit. It’s a really good basketball team, they play hard, play well and they’re well-coached and play together and they really have a great team.”
Kentucky (8-4) lost its third straight game and suffered its first home setback of the year. Louisville never trailed and led by 28 points at one point in the fourth quarter.
“We let it get away the first 12-15 minutes of the first half,” Mitchell said. “I thought the end of the first quarter was bad and obviously the second quarter, we didn’t do what we needed to do to hang in there.”
Louisville put the game away with a 20-5 run and led 47-25 at the break.
“We stayed hungry, we stayed aggressive as well,” Durr said. “Coach Walz kept saying they weren’t going to back down, even during halftime, that’s what he said. We just had to stay hungry and get comfortable. We knew that we were up by 15 to 20, but we had to keep on going. He didn’t take his best two players out for the whole game, so he was trying to make a statement.”
The much-taller Cardinals controlled the glass and outrebounded the Wildcats 36-25 and also sank 10 3-pointers with Durr knocking down six of those shots from long range.
Louisville placed four players in double figures. Myisha Hines-Allen followed Durr with 18 points, Arica Carter and Dana Evans added 11 each and Sam Fuehring chipped in with 10.
Maci Morris led Kentucky with 16 points and Tatyana Wyatt followed with 10 off the bench.
Although Kentucky hasn’t won since a 100-62 rout of Evansville on Dec. 5, Mitchell isn’t concerned about the losses having a snowball effect.
“Everything is not terrible or horrible,” Mitchell said. “You can’t overreact or panic.”
Keith Taylor is sports editor for Kentucky Today. Reach him at keith.taylor@kentuckytoday.com or twitter @keithtaylor21.