Dishin & Swishin 12/04/14 Podcast: With five Sweet Sixteen visits in seven years, Louisville Jeff Walz will settle for nothing less than a championship

Louisville head coach Jeff Walz. Photo: University of Louisville Athletics.
Louisville head coach Jeff Walz. Photo: University of Louisville Athletics.
[display_podcast]

In this week’s podcast, Jeff Walz commented that at Louisville, he does not worry about winning conference championships, he worries about national championships.

Think about that for a second. This is a head coach in his first year in the prestigious, fierce and intense Atlantic Coast Conference, taking on established conference members Duke and North Carolina, to name two. Last year Notre Dame, a perennial national power joined the conference.

Yet Walz has his sights set not on winning the conference championship, but the big prize, the NCAA title. Heck, even Geno Auriemma said that defending champion Connecticut’s first goal is the conference championship. When you have one title as a top assistant, then make five trips to the Sweet Sixteen and two trips to the finals in your seven years as a head coach, it is easy to have lofty aspirations.

The success of Walz and his teams are helping turn Louisville into one of the hot programs in the country, with top facilities, a coach that wants to grow the game and promote and it is yielding bumper crops of recruits.

Walz joins Dishin & Swishin this week for the first time, talking about his success on the court and the recruiting trail, as he begins his eighth year as Cardinals coach. Make no mistake though, year eight of the Walz regime at Louisville is sure to be a multifaceted, challenging season.

It is impossible to go into a season after losing four of your top five scorers to graduation (60 percent of their points), including Shoni Schimmel, the heart and soul of the team for the last four years. Schimmel and Asia Taylor both played in the WNBA this past summer.

In their place, Walz is starting three seniors and two freshmen and the team has not missed a beat. While he admits in the podcast that they are not the seventh best team in the country right now, they enter tonight’s game against No. 22 Iowa in the ACC/Big Ten challenge an undefeated 7-0, ranked number seven in both polls.

It is the two freshmen, Myisha Hines-Allen and Mariya Moore, that are pacing the offense.

In just over 20 minutes per game, Hines-Allen, a 6-2 forward from New Jersey, is averaging 15.1 points per game, shooting 64 percent from the floor. Moore, from California, contributes 14.3 points per game, and an impressive 3.6 assists/turnover ratio.

The seniors, Sara Hammond, Bria Smith, and Jude Schimmel (Shoni’s sister), do all those “other things” as well as score. Smith picked up a triple-double already this season. Hammond, after winning a gold medal playing 3×3 ball for the United States this summer, is playing with more confidence, and averaging 10 points while leading the team in rebounding. Schimmel is a steadying presence on the court, contributing mightily on the defensive end, leading the team in steals along with Smith.

The future may be even brighter for Louisville, as next year they welcome the number one ranked recruiting class, anchored by highly touted guard Asia Durr. Those old school ACC teams better look out for the Cardinals.

Topics covered with Walz this week include:

  • Replacing last year’s talented senior class
  • The freshmen, their early success and his expectations not only for them but for the team
  • Shoni-mania
  • The growth in the overall game of Bria Smith
  • Sara Hammond and the influence of USA Basketball on her game
  • Entering the ACC, scheduling out of conference games, future opponents
  • Being in the same conference with UConn, playing them as often as they have
  • Recruiting success

After Iowa, Louisville faces No. 13 Kentucky, and later in December, they will head out to take on No. 10 California, so those freshmen will be put to the test prior to conference play begins. Conference matchups will be outstanding in the ACC this year!

Enjoy the podcast!

*Click here to subscribe to the podcast with your feed reader or podcast app: j.mp/dishinpodcast.

Vinkmag ad

Read Previous

Hoopfeed Daily Twitter Digest for 12-03-2014

Read Next

Hoopfeed Daily Twitter Digest for 12-04-2014

4 Comments

  • We, here at Louisville, feel blessed to have Jeff Walz. The players love him, the fans ( more than 8000 per game) adore him. he runs a tough but efficient practice and is a master with the X"s and the 0's. We are really looking forward to the next five years here.

  • […] From Dishin & Swishin, the 12/04/14 Podcast: With five Sweet Sixteen visits in seven years, Louisvill… […]

  • big fan of Coach Walz & Cardinals…feel Bria Smith is the most Physical Player in the Nation…also 1 of the best defenders in entire usa…her ability to assume point guard duties was a key factor in Louisville's success…Bria IS an All.-American.

  • The Cards are making some nice strides. Bria Smith has improved her defense and is a quality kid but hurts the team with her poor ball handling against the press and open court fast break decisions. She had 4 turnovers verse Cal and very poor game along with Jude vs Kentucky. Jude played her worst game of her career vs KY and her best game of her career vs Cal. Gurards are the weakest link. Any team who pressures us will be effective which is the single reason Kentucky destroyed us the last 10 minutes of the game. Cal forced 5 straight turnovers to open the second half then Jude broke it twice by dribbleing through it (which was awesome) and Cal called off the dogs due to lack of depth. The rest is history. Cards 70-57. Fabulous team effort.

Comments are closed.

Data powered by Oddspedia