Bad start fails to deter Louisville
LOUISVILLE 62, NORTHWESTERN 53
SAN ANTONIO — Down big early, Kianna Smith and Louisville stayed calm. Then they put together one of the biggest comebacks in women’s NCAA Tournament history.
Smith scored 16 points and the No. 2 seed Cardinals advanced to the Sweet 16 by rallying from 18 down to beat seventh-seeded Northwestern 62-53 on Wednesday night.
“We’re tough. We got down early but we didn’t give up,” said Dana Evans, who added 14 points. “We didn’t get rattled. We stayed together. We trusted the process.”
The comeback was tied for the third-largest ever in the women’s tournament, according to ESPN.
The Cardinals (25-3) got off to a rough start, trailing 25-7 late in the first quarter. It was the second consecutive game Louisville had a terrible start. Louisville trailed Marist 15-12 after one quarter in Monday’s first-round contest before winning 74-43.
“Back-to-back ballgames now, going to change my pregame speech,” Louisville Coach Jeff Walz said. “Those two can’t get much worse.”
Louisville slowly started to chip away on offense thanks to stellar defense. After the opening 10 minutes, the Cardinals held Northwestern to 28 points the rest of the game.
“Great mental effort by everyone on this ballclub,” Walz said.
The deficit was 40-28 midway through the third quarter before the Cardinals scored 17 consecutive points. The game was tied at 40-40 heading into the fourth, and Louisville increased its first lead to 45-40 before Lindsay Pulliam — Northwestern’s third-ever 2,000-point scorer — got her only basket of the game.
The Wildcats (16-9) closed to 53-50 on Jordan Hamilton’s three-pointer with 3:26 left. They had a chance to cut into the deficit, but Veronica Burton missed two free throws 30 seconds later.
Louisville converted nine of 10 free throws down the stretch, including four by freshman Olivia Cochran, who had 13 points and 15 rebounds.
Northwestern blitzed Louisville right from the start, scoring the game’s first seven points and opening a 13-2 lead. It didn’t get much better, with the Wildcats going 4 for 4 from three-point range on their way to a 25-10 lead after one quarter.
“We didn’t expect to get down that much. They punched us in the face and we responded well,” Evans said. “We started to settle down and make shots.”
The Wildcats cooled off in the second quarter and didn’t score a point for the first 5:22 of the period. A fast-break layup by Courtney Shaw ended the drought and sparked a 7-0 run for Northwestern — the only points the team would score in the period. Louisville closed to 32-20 at the half.
“I feel like they started hitting shots and ours weren’t dropping in the same way,” Burton said. “We had the same fight, we wanted it still, it’s just things started going their way, calls started going their way. It’s just tough. We ran out of gas it seemed like.”
Hamilton scored 17 points for Northwestern.
“Last year we had a great team, maybe a Final Four team, that never got a chance to prove it,” Northwestern Coach Joe McKeown said. “So tonight I think they proved how much fight we have and how tough we are and what a great team to be part of.”
MISSOURI STATE 64, WRIGHT STATE 39
Elle Ruffridge had a career-high 20 points with five three-pointers, Jasmine Franklin (Fayetteville) had 11 points and 11 rebounds and fifth-seeded Missouri State is going to its second consecutive Sweet 16 after knocking off Wright State in a matchup of mid-major teams Wednesday.
The Lady Bears (23-2) pulled away in the second half when Ruffridge had 17 of her points.
Ruffridge and Franklin are among nine current Lady Bears who were also part of the Sweet 16 team two years ago that lost to Stanford, the same team they will play in the Alamo Region semifinal Sunday.
Missouri State went ahead on two tiebreaking free throws by Brice Calip with two minutes left in the second quarter before Mya Bhinhar made a three-pointer for a 24-19 halftime lead. Sydney Manning’s three-pointer capped a 12-3 run to start the second half.
Angel Baker and Shamarre Hale each had 10 points for the 13th-seeded Raiders (19-8), who got outscored 40-20 after halftime. They had gotten their first-ever NCAA Tournament victory in the opening round against Arkansas on Monday.
OREGON 57, GEORGIA 50
Sedona Prince scored 22 points, Nyara Sabally took over late and sixth-seeded Oregon beat No. 3 Georgia to advance to its fourth consecutive Sweet 16.
Sabally scored six consecutive points — including a putback of her own missed shot — to give the Ducks a 5448 lead with less than a minute to go. She finished with 15 points, including 10 in the second half, and 9 rebounds.
Oregon (15-8) is in the tournament for the 16th time overall, but this Ducks team came in less heralded than those led by Sabrina Ionescu, who missed out on her final chance at a national title last year because of the pandemic.
Jenna Staiti had 18 points and nine rebounds for Georgia (21-7), which was looking to reach its first Sweet 16 since 2013.
Poor long-range shooting hurt Georgia, which went 1 of 13 from three-point range.