The Louisville women’s basketball team opens the 2017-2018 campaign on Friday at 7PM. The Cardinals will face off against Southeast Missouri at the KFC Yum! Center.It makes the opening game of the Women’s National Invitational Tournament. The fully loaded field includes top 25 teams Michigan, Texas A&M and Oregon.
The Cardinals are guaranteed three games in the tournament. A fourth will be played if Louisville advances to the Championship game on Sunday, November 19th.
Veteran Leadership
Louisville returns nine letter winners from a team that went 29-8 last season. The Cardinals bring back 51.7 points per game and 69.3% of their production.
Highlighting the returnees are senior forward Myisha Hines-Allen and junior guard Asia Durr.
Durr and Hines-Allen combined for 33.1 points last season, while the rest of the team combined for 18.6 points. ??Louisville also reruns junior Sam Fuehring, red shirt junior Arica Carter (who missed last season with an injury), sophomores Jazmine Jones, Bianca Dunham, Sydney Zambrotta, Jessica Laemmle and Kylee Shook.
New Year, New Faces
The Cardinals’ incoming freshman class ranked fourth nationally. Highlighting the class are McDonald All-Americans Dana Evans and Loretta Kakala. Louisville also picked up local star Lindsey Duvall. However, Duvall will redshirt this season due to injury.
Dynamic Duo
Durr and Hines-Allen have racked up the preseason accolades.
Durr was named ACC Preseason Player of the Year at ACC Media Day in October. She was also ranked the 7th best collegiate women’s hoops player by espnW and added to the 2018 Ann Meyers Drysdale Award watch list.
Hines-Allen was ranked 24 in espnW’s top 25 collegiate women’s basketball players. She has also been tabbed to the Katrina McClain Award watch list.
Scouting the Redhawks
The Redhawks finished last season 13-17 overall and 7-9 in the Ohio Valley Conference. Southeast Missouri is led by second year head coach Rekha Patterson.
The Redhawks return two starters from last season, led by senior forward Deja Jones. Jones played in 29-of-30 matches, gaining nine starts.
How to Watch
Catch the game on the ACC Network Extra (online) or listen to play-by-play on WKRD 790AM.
