Louisville Falls to TCU in Second Round of NCAA Tournament

FORT WORTH, Tex. - The Louisville women's basketball program's 2024-25 season has come to an end.

Squaring off against former UofL guard Hailey Van Lith and TCU in the second round of the NCAA Tournament, the Cardinals fell behind big in the second quarter and could not take advantage of a career night from Jayda Curry, with the hosting Horned Frogs claiming a 85-70 decision on Sunday at Schollmaier Arena.

The seventh-seeded Cardinals end year 18 under head coach Jeff Walz with a 22-11 overall record, including a 13-5 mark in regular season ACC play. Following a five-year run where they made it to at least the Elite Eight, Louisville has not made it to the second weekend of the Big Dance in back-to-back seasons for the first time under Walz.

No matter what side of the court the ball was on, the seventh-seeded Cardinals were completely and thoroughly out-matched by the second-seeded and No. 6 AP-ranked Horned Frogs (33-3, 16-2 Big XII). Louisville was ice cold from the field, shooting just 33.8 percent as a team, and had only 14 second chance points despite grabbing 15 offensive rebounds.

The only player who had any sort of offensive rhythm was Curry, who scored a career-high 41 points. It not only broke the program record for most points in an NCAA Tournament game, surpassing Angel McCoughtry's 35 points vs. North Carolina on Mar. 29, 2008, it tied for the fourth-most points in any game by a Cardinal.

The issue was that every other person in a UofL uniform just could not get going. While Curry shot 13-of-28 from the field, the rest of the Cardinals shot a combined 11-of-43. Olivia Cochran was the only other Louisville player to crack double figures scoring with 15 points.

Defensively, UofL was just as bad. They allowed TCU to shoot a blazing 63.0 percent for the game, and 11-of-18 on three-point tries. Four different Frogs cracked double figures scoring, including 16 from Van Lith and a team-high 23 from Agnes Emma-Nnopu.

Curry got off to a blazing hot start in the matchup, scoring 15 points in the first quarter alone, and helping Louisville lead by as much as six in the first few minutes. But the rest of the team had trouble getting going, as she was 5-of-7 in the first, but the rest of the team was 1-for-9. TCU took advantage, ending the opening period on a 13-4 run to lead 20-17 after the first quarter.

This momentum for the Horned Frogs bled into the second quarter and then some. They scored the first 10 points of the period, going on a combined 17-0 run over the first and second quarters. In fact, the Cardinals didn't score in the quarter until the 4:10 mark, and shot a paltry 3-for-19 during the period. Meanwhile, TCU shot 11-for-14 and out-scored Louisville 27-9 in the quarter, taking a 47-26 lead into halftime.

However, Louisville was able to pick up their combined efforts in the second half, and they very nearly pulled off a miraculous comeback. They shot 15-of-36 after the break compared to 9-of-35 beforehand, and held TCU to 10-of-19 shooting in the second half after they went 19-of-27 in the first.

That being said, the closest they could get was within nine points, thanks mainly to the free throw discrepancy. The Horned Frogs went 16-of-19 at the charity stride in the second half, compared to 8-of-10 by the Cardinals.

(Photo of Jeff Walz, Louisville Players: Matt Stone - Courier Journal/USA Today Network / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images)

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