U of L Lady Cards win 10 straight

There wasn’t much to like about the first half of the University of Louisville women’s basketball game last night if you were U of L coach Jeff Walz.

So he let his team know about it.

Sophomore point guard Deseree’ Byrd said there would have been a few “bleeps” if she relayed the halftime talk Walz gave the Cardinals. Senior All-American Angel McCoughtry said he harped on “a lot of things we did wrong — and I won’t elaborate because it’s too much to elaborate on.”

But the spirited speech worked. After sloppy and at times uninspired play in the first half, the 10th-ranked Cards looked sharp and energized in the final 20 minutes in decking Seton Hall 76-47 in Freedom Hall for their 10th straight victory.

“It was educational,” Walz said. “There wasn’t much we needed to do basketball-wise, making adjustments or anything like that. I just tried to get their attention a little.

“(The first half) was the most embarrassing half of basketball we have played since I have been coaching here. We’re not going to win every game, but we want to play hard and that was an embarrassment. I tried to explain that to them very nicely, and I think they got what I was saying.”

U of L (15-1, 2-0 Big East Conference) scored the first 13 points of the second half, held Seton Hall (11-3, 0-2) to 14 points in the final 20 minutes and ended up pleasing its coach with the effort going into Sunday’s showdown with No. 17 Rutgers.

The Cardinals hit 17 of 29 shots in the second half to finish at 51.7 percent (30 of 58). They forced 21 turnovers while committing 16 themselves.