Since joining the Atlantic Coast Conference in 2014, the Louisville women’s basketball team has been the league’s most consistent program. From 2018 through 2023, the Cardinals went to five consecutive Elite Eights, won four straight ACC regular season titles and appeared in the Final Four twice.
Under coach Jeff Walz, the expectation for the Cardinals is competing for ACC crown and a Final Four bid every season. When Louisville didn’t do that in the past two years — losing during the opening weekend of the NCAA Tournament in 2024 and 2025 — folks started to wonder if Louisville’s reign was over.
“There’s been good basketball played at Louisville for about 19 years now,” Walz said a few weeks ago after an overtime win at North Carolina, pointing to the start of his tenure as coach in 2007. “You know, our standards are a little higher than most. When we get beat in the second round, it’s a bad year. When we lost in the first round, I had a for sale sign in my yard. I mean, people were like, ‘Get rid of this guy.’”
There’s a little bit of tongue-in-cheek hyperbole from Walz, but it’s true fans started counting them out in the race for the ACC title, much less contending for a national championship. Those who had pessimistic beliefs about Louisville were validated in November, where the Cardinals lost to UConn and rival Kentucky by double figures.
But then December came. Louisville nearly beat South Carolina, losing to the mighty Gamecocks by two points, and then won a ranked road game at North Carolina, followed by outclassing Tennessee on a neutral court.
Since losing to the Gamecocks, Louisville has won nine straight games. Walz’s Cardinals not only look like the best in the ACC, but also the conference’s best hope at a top-16 seed in the NCAA Tournament and Final Four bid.
Statistically, the Cardinals are playing great defense and taking care of the ball. They rank 12th nationally in opponent 3-point shooting (25.1%), 21st in opponent offensive rebound rate (24.7%), 13th in total rebounds per game (44.1), and 18th in assist-turnover ratio.
“When we pass the ball and we’re unselfish, we’ve got six or seven kids that can make open shots that you have to guard, and when we do that, then we can spread the floor,” Walz said last week. “We can put pressure on you, and that’s why I think we’re having success now.”
This team is also growing and maturing as the season goes along. It’s a young squad with a combined 10 freshmen and sophomores. Imari Berry and Elif Istanbulluoglu have made the biggest improvements, Tajianna Roberts is still playing at an All-ACC level after earning a nod there as a freshman, and Laura Ziegler has lived up to the hype since transferring in from Saint Joseph’s.
Louisville is 4-3 in Quad 1 games, has a NET of 11 and is seventh in WAB (wins above bubble). The losses to UConn and Kentucky feel like a lifetime ago.
“We competed and played well (in non-conference). We had a really nice win over Tennessee. I think part of it is, our league, our teams played,” Walz said. “Like Duke, you know, we’re playing good teams. We’re playing ranked opponents.”
Ahead are two big tests. The Cardinals play at Notre Dame on Thursday and at N.C. State on Sunday, both places that aren’t kind to road teams. If Louisville comes out on top on both, they should be taken seriously as a contender again.
Top prospect shelved for Duke
Since the preseason, Duke head coach Kara Lawson has been complimentary of freshman, Emilee Skinner. Ranked as the fourth-best prospect in the 2025 class by ESPN, the 6-foot point guard came into this season with a lot of hype.
“She’s the best passer we’ve had here since I’ve been at Duke, and it’s not really close,” Lawson said after Duke’s Nov. 12 win over Norfolk State. “She sees the floor in an advanced way. She’s able to deliver catchable passes, passes that are easy for people to shoot or easy for people to lay up. And she has a great intelligence about her. She understands the playbook, understands the strengths of her teammates, and that’s again, more advanced than the typical freshman.”
But Skinner hasn’t played all that much, with a total of 47 minutes across three games for the Blue Devils, seemingly due to a nagging lower body injury on which Lawson has been mostly mum. Skinner hasn’t taken the floor for Duke since Dec. 7, when the Blue Devils beat Virginia Tech.
A source close to Skinner familiar with her situation told USA Today Sports that she’ll be redshirting this season. Since Skinner played in three games, she should retain this year of eligibility.
Meanwhile, Duke has adjusted, as they’ve now won eight consecutive games.
Coaching carousel warming up
Joe McKeown announced last March this season would be his last as coach at Northwestern. The 69-year-old has been a head coach in Division I women’s basketball for 40 years with previous stops at New Mexico State and George Washington.
He’s 783-442 and 19 of his teams have been to the NCAA Tournament. But since taking the reins at Northwestern in 2008, the Wildcats have gone dancing just twice and seem to be on track to miss March Madness again with a 6-10 overall record this season.
Knowing McKeown’s retirement is looming, Northwestern is already vetting candidates, multiple sources told USA Today Sports. Second round interviews with candidates will begin this week. Some of the best mid-major coaches in the country — from the Ivy League, Atlantic 10 and CAA — will be in the mix for this opening. Michigan native Carrie Moore, who won the Ivy with Harvard last season, is among the frontrunners.
Elsewhere, schools who have yet to announce coaching changes are quietly putting feelers out to agents and potential candidates about who might be interested in their job if it were to open. Two of those that bubbled up last week, multiple sources told USA Today Sports, were Texas A&M and VCU.
At Texas A&M, Joni Taylor is 14-39 in SEC play in four seasons with one NCAA Tournament appearance. Beth O’Boyle has been the head coach at VCU since 2014, but has gone dancing just once — in the COVID-impacted 2020-21 season — and is on-pace for her third losing season in four years.
UCLA’s dual-sport star has to scale back time on the court
One of the feel-good moments of this women’s college basketball season was when Megan Grant notched an And-1 for UCLA in a win over Long Beach State. It didn’t impact the game, as the Bruins led by 60, but the bench erupted when they saw the softball star connect on the basket.
This is Grant’s first season playing college basketball. Softball fans are familiar with Grant, an All-American utility player, who has featured in the outfield and infield corners for the Bruins across three seasons, mashing 49 home runs in 180 games.
But with softball season approaching, basketball coach Cori Close has to share Grant with softball skipper Kelly Inouye-Perez. And so, Close said, Grant won’t travel with the basketball team for the rest of the regular season, but will play in home games when it doesn’t conflict with softball.
“She’s pretty much all of softball’s until we get to the postseason,” Close said after UCLA’s win at Nebraska on Sunday. “And then we’re going to sort of reevaluate at that point. But she’s been a great addition to our team and even though she’s not here in the day-to-day right now, she’s here in spirit.”
Grant has played in 12 basketball games this season and scored in three of them, including a win over North Carolina.