Louisville women's basketball returns to Freedom Hall, smothers Bellarmine: 3 takeaways

Louisville women’s basketball’s return to historic Freedom Hall was nostalgic.

The place where the team played its first games holds plenty of positive memories, and the Cardinals added another one Wednesday night. The squad beat Bellarmine 73-43 in its first game in Freedom Hall since it lost to Bradley 69-59 on March 17, 2010.

In front of Muhammad Ali's widow, Lonnie Ali, Hailey Van Lith was one point away from a third straight 20-point game with 19 points, six rebounds and three assists. The Cardinals held the Knights' Gracie Merkle, who came into the game with six straight double-doubles, to just five points and eight rebounds, including no shot attempts in the first half.

"I thought we were dialed in defensively and really contested a lot of shots and played a very good first half," Cardinals coach Jeff Walz said. "The thing that we're young in, in some areas in the second half, we lost a little focus at the defensive end of the floor and just wasn't as sharp. But, those are the things that we've got film now to be able to go back and look at and talk to them about so we can keep continuing to improve."

Louisville (8-4) has now won three of its last four games and will hit the road to Pittsburgh for its Atlantic Coast Conference opener at 2 p.m. Sunday. Bellarmine (4-7) stays home to host Wofford at 1 p.m. Saturday.

"We're getting longer stretches of better play where at the beginning of the year, we may have had two or three minutes where we looked good," Walz said. "We reverse the ball, we attack, we make the extra pass, got people the basketball in areas to score and now we're getting to where it's been five or six minutes."

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Here are three takeaways from the game:

Louisville shakes off a slow start

It took Louisville a few minutes to get going in its return to Freedom Hall. The Cardinals made only one of their first six shot attempts to open the game. Van Lith knocked down two free throws at the 6:56 mark of the opening quarter to put U of L up 5-2.

A media timeout two minutes later, however, seemed to be just what the Cardinals needed. The squad made five of its next eight shots and used a 10-3 run in the final 4:39 to create a 15-6 lead after the first quarter.

Louisville, which never trailed in the game, turned up the intensity and controlled the tempo for the rest of the game. The Cardinals opened the second quarter with a 3-pointer from Josie Williams and held Bellarmine to only two points in the frame to hold a 34-8 lead at the intermission.

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Defense sets to for Cardinals to run the floor

The Cardinals’ conditioning was on full display Wednesday night. Their pressuring defense forced 16 turnovers in the first half, 19 total. In addition to 24 points off turnovers, U of L scored 18 points in transition.

"I told the girls before the game, I said that the thing that worries me the most about Louisville is their fastbreak," Knights coach Chancellor Dugan said. "They're there quicker than we are at pretty much all positions and that was our worry. In the first half, they they really got some fastbreak points and I thought the second half that we kind of shut them down a little bit. They weren't able to to get out and running, like they did in the first half."

Three consecutive Louisville possessions during the first quarter consisted of Chrislyn Carr, Van Lith and Morgan Jones beating almost everyone to the other end of the court for smooth layups. The opportunities for Carr and Lith came via steals with Carr totaling four, in addition to seven assists and 13 points, on the night.

When the Knights started building momentum near the end of the game, Jones maintained the pace and added a transition layup for the 65-38 score in the fourth quarter.

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Bellarmine struggles to score

Nothing seemed to be working for Bellarmine.

The Knights missed four straight free throws and struggled to score in the paint. Louisville wasn’t giving up much, thanks in part to two blocks from Jones.

As a result, Bellarmine opted to try for outside shots. That, too, was unsuccessful as the Knights went 0 for 7 from 3-point range.

The Knights also struggled at the free-throw line, going 0 for 4 at the charity stripe. Hayley Harrison made the team’s first foul shot on a 3-point play after being fouled while driving to the basket with 5:46 remaining in the third quarter, though Bellarmine was still down 43-15. She was able to provide some life for the squad’s offense, scoring 21 points on the night.

"You've got some kids that are shooters, whatever like that. She's just a scorer, and she can score from all three levels," Dugan said of Harrison. "She's a very unselfish player. I think that when she starts scoring and taking shots like that, it opens up inside effect."

Reach Louisville football, women's basketball and baseball beat writer Alexis Cubit at acubit@gannett.com and follow her on Twitter at @Alexis_Cubit.

This article originally appeared on Louisville Courier Journal: Louisville women's basketball returns to Freedom Hall beats Bellarmine