HOT STREAK: UofL Women Poised for Final Four Run

By RUSS BROWN • Photos Provided By Louisville Athletics 

Back in late November when the 2025-26 college basketball season was still in its infancy, any suggestion that Louisville had another potential Final Four team would have been met with skepticism. After all, the Cardinals had lost decisively to the two Top 20 teams they had played at that point -- No. 1 UConn (79-66) and No. 16 Kentucky (72-62). 

But things have changed. The turnaround began with a hard-fought 79-77 loss to No. 3 South Carolina on Dec. 4 in the KFC Yum! Center that U of L had a chance to win with a last-second shot. Since then the 8th-ranked Cards (26-4) have won 20 of 21 games and are one of the hottest teams in the nation going into postseason play. The lone setback was a 59-58 squeaker against No. 9 Duke on Feb. 5. 

With a final 16-1 Atlantic Coast Conference record good for second place behind the Blue Devils (17-0), Louisville secured a double bye into the league tournament March 4-8 in Gas South Arena in Duluth, Ga. Near the end of the regular season U of L was 9th in the NCAA NET rankings, a metric evaluation tool that is an important factor the selection committee uses to select the 68-team NCAA Tournament field and assign seeding. 

The Cards are projected as a No. 2 seed in the tourney (March 18-April 5). That would earn them the right to host the first two rounds of the tournament in the Yum! for the first time in four years as they try to reach the Final Four for the fifth time in coach Jeff Walz’s 19-year tenure at the school. They also have a chance to win 30 games for the first time since the 2018-19 season. They have already bumped their streak of winning 20 or more to 16 straight, and their ACC mark is their best since 15-1 in 2017-18. 

What’s to credit for all that success? 

“We all just want each other to be better,” senior guard Reyna Scott said. “It’s just happiness, seeing everybody put the work in and they get in the game, have the confidence to score. That’s huge, just everybody pouring into each other with that happiness. So it’s a blessing.” 

That unselfishness is reflected in the Cards’ scoring balance. Seven players average between 8.0 and 11.8 points per game. During one 10-game stretch, seven different players were the leading scorer, and on the season, nine have led the team in scoring. U of L leads the ACC in scoring at 82 points per game, but has no player among the top 25, and also tops the conference with 27 games featuring three or more players scoring in double figures. 

The Cards have created a competition for who can hand out the most assists from game to game. Right now it’s a close race between sophomore Tajianna Roberts and senior Laura Ziegler, with 94 and 86, respectively, while Scott has 78 and sophomore guard Imari Berry 72. Roberts is 7th in the ACC in assist to turnover ratio at 1.96 and Ziegler is 8th (1.95). 

“I think with the transfer portal it takes some time for your kids to get adjusted to playing with a new team,” Walz said on a Courier-Journal podcast. “You can practice all you want, but I really think now they have a good understanding of who does what well. They’ve bought into it. They understand we don’t necessarily have a leading scorer. We’ve got about seven of them and they’re okay with that. 

“I’ve got a group of players that want to win and winning is more important to them than their individual stats. As I explained to them, individual success will find you when team success is there. Whoever has the hot hand we’re getting the ball to them and that’s what we have to continue to have happen. 

“As the season has evolved it’s shown itself that we have seven or eight who can get 12-15 any night. One night it might be my turn to get 15-20 and the next night it might be yours, and they’re okay with that. When we share the basketball we’re a good team. I challenge our players, you can go score a bunch of points, or do you want to be on a really good team and have an important role? They’ve all bought into that and I appreciate it.” 

While, as Walz noted, Louisville doesn’t have a star, it has a close facsimile in Denmark native Ziegler, a versatile 6-foot-2 forward and post player who does everything but wash the team’s uniforms. In ACC play, the St. Joseph’s transfer leads the team in both scoring (12.3 ppg) and rebounding (11.3 rpg), and her 13 blocks are second only to Berry’s 14. She’s shooting 50% overall and .346 from 3-point range and she can also bring the ball upcourt when needed and trigger the offense. 

“She makes it look easy, but it’s not,” Walz said. “She’s always around the basketball. She’s able to watch when a shot is taken, and she can tell if it’s short or long. And that’s really a gift. Whatever we need, she’s doing it. And it’s not just on the court, it’s off the court, it’s every day in practice. She brings positivity. She’s a happy kid. We’ve been fortunate to have her here. I’ll put my name on the line for her, whether it’s professional basketball or if it’s in the business world. I mean this kid is going to be successful. You want her in your locker room. You want her in your office.” 

Ziegler said she transferred to U of L because she wants to play pro basketball and Walz has a reputation for developing players to move on to that level. 

“I want to be the best at everything I do, (with) no regrets,” she said. “My role is doing a little bit of everything, whatever is needed. I knew coming in here what I had to bring was obviously my basketball skills, but also my leadership too.” 

Walz earned his 500th career win earlier this year, all at U of L, becoming the third-fastest active head coach to accomplish that milestone. He has been named to the Naismith Women’s College Coach of the Year Watch List awarded by the Atlanta Tipoff Club. This is the sixth time Walz has been named on the list, and he has been a semifinalist each of the previous times. 

“Expectations for the women’s basketball team here are extremely high, and I think that’s great,” Walz said. “But I think sometimes people forget what we’ve been able to do here.” 

“They’ll likely be reminded in March when the Cards make another deep NCAA Tournament run.”