BOSTON — Louisville’s signature is defense. That’s all the third-ranked Cardinals needed to get them going on a tough day against Boston College.
Kianna Smith scored 18 points, Hailey Van Lith added 16 and No. 3 Louisville grinded out a 63-53 victory over BC on Sunday.
The Cardinals (15-1, 5-0 Atlantic Coast Conference) haven’t lost since dropping their season-opener to then-No. 22 Arizona in overtime.
Louisville’s 15-game winning streak is the longest in the country.
Cardinals coach Jeff Walz earned his 400th career victory in his 15th season with the school.
“I’m not going to downplay it,” he said. “But at the same time, we’ve got a great staff and we were able to go out and sell our basketball program. ... Reality is reality, I haven’t scored a point or made a stop.”
Taylor Soule led Boston College (12-5, 3-3) with 17 points and Cameron Swartz had 12. The Eagles had their four-game winning streak snapped.
Both teams played tough man-to-man defense and made running half-court offense very difficult. Louisville held Boston College to 37.5% shooting.
“It was hard for any team to get into a flow,” said Walz, who improved to 400-109 with the only school he’s been a head coach for in his career.
The Cardinals pushed a seven-point halftime lead to 37-25 on Smith’s 3-pointer early in the third quarter before the Eagles went on an 8-0 run.
BC’s bench was whistled for a technical with 1.3 seconds left in the third quarter and Van Lith hit both free throws, giving Louisville a 48-39 lead at the break.
The Eagles never got the deficit below nine points in the final quarter.
Louisville, which trailed by 10 points after the first quarter, relied on its defense which came in ranked second in the nation allowing just 69.6 pointer per game.
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