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<\/p>\nFORT WORTH, Texas \u2014 There will be a lot of sophomores who can shine when Michigan plays Louisville in the women\u2019s Sweet 16. That is exactly how both of these teams got this far into March.<\/p>\n
What You Need To Know<\/p>\n
Louisville is in its 13th Sweet 16 under Jeff Walz, riding a balanced offense with six different players posting 20-point games this season
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The Cardinals\u2019 sophomore core \u2014 led by top scorer Tajianna Roberts alongside Mackenly Randolph and Anaya Hardy \u2014 is paired with experienced international upperclassmen for a deep, versatile lineup
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Kentucky has reached its first Sweet 16 in 10 seasons after a major roster overhaul under coach Kenny Brooks, going 7-3 down the stretch to turn its season around
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With both Louisville and Kentucky still dancing, the Bluegrass State is guaranteed a major spotlight in Fort Worth as two very different rebuilds converge on the Sweet 16 stage<\/p>\n
Second-seeded Michigan\u2019s top three scorers are sophomores who have started every game since getting to Ann Arbor. Third-seeded Louisville (29-7) has three sophomore starters, leading scorer Tajianna Roberts with forwards Mackenly Randolph and Anaya Hardy, in the lineup with two international upperclassmen.<\/p>\n
\u201cYouth is wonderful because they don\u2019t sometimes realize what they\u2019re really doing, what they\u2019re playing and what this means to be one of 16 teams left,\u201d said coach Jeff Walz, who has Louisville in its 13th Sweet 16 after early exits the past two NCAA Tournaments.<\/p>\n
The game with a bunch of second-year players in the Fort Worth Regional 3 semifinals on Saturday will be followed by a Southeastern Conference rematch between top seed Texas (33-3) and Kentucky (25-10). The Longhorns won 64-53 on Feb. 9.<\/p>\n
Michigan sophomore guards Olivia Olson, Mila Holloway and Syla Swords all made their college debuts in the 2024-25 season opener against then-defending national champion South Carolina in a 68-62 loss. They won a first-round NCAA game last season, were the Big Ten regular-season runner-up behind No. 1 seed UCLA this year and are now trying to get the Wolverines (27-6) to their second Elite Eight.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re just really using our experience as fuel to keep going and accomplish our goals. We accomplished our goal of being able to host, and I think we\u2019re taking great strides,\u201d said Olson, the leading scorer at 19.2 points a game, ahead of Swords (14.8) and Holloway (12.6). \u201cIt\u2019s been really cool to just be sophomores, but we don\u2019t want to just be known as sophomores. We want to make it as far as we can.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Wolverines are 12-3 since a 72-69 loss to Sweet 16 team Vanderbilt on Jan. 19, with the only losses in that span being 69-66 to UCLA and two by double digits to Iowa.<\/p>\n
Texas and Kentucky meet again
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This is the second year in a row that Texas is facing an SEC team in the Sweet 16, after beating Tennessee last March on its way to the Final Four.<\/p>\n
Aside from back-to-back road losses at Sweet 16 teams LSU and South Carolina in mid-January, the Longhorns\u2019 other loss was 86-70 at Vanderbilt three days after beating Kentucky. Their 10-game winning streak since includes the SEC Tournament championship.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo replace three starters from our Final Four team a year ago and for them to play the way they\u2019ve played, responded this year during just a little bit of tough times, they\u2019ve played really well most of the year. … They have just played really, really well here the last month,\u201d Texas coach Vic Schaefer said. \u201cThey are tough. They have played the game the right way.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kenny Brooks has completely turned over Kentucky\u2019s roster in two seasons since taking the job.<\/p>\n
The Wildcats\u2019 loss in Austin was their fifth in six games, but they are in their first Sweet 16 in 10 seasons after going 7-3 since. They lost 81-79 at Vandy and twice to South Carolina.<\/p>\n
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Kentucky junior center Clara Strack shoots the ball past Vanderbilt junior forward Aiyana Mitchell during the first half Feb. 22, 2026, in Nashville, Tennessee. (AP Photo\/George Walker IV)<\/p>\n
\u201cObviously, I think he\u2019s a great coach,\u201d said 6-foot-5 junior center Clara Strack, who came with Brooks from Virginia Tech. \u201cHe does a good job at getting a lot out of his players and then being able to, like, get us all to play together. We haven\u2019t all played together for a long time, so I think (he\u2019s been) able to build that chemistry with the team and then able to get a lot out of us.\u201d<\/p>\n
Cards spread their scoring<\/p>\n
Six different Louisville players have had 20-point games this season. Their top seven scorers average between 8.2 and 11.6 points per game, and all are capable 3-pointer shooters.<\/p>\n
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<\/p>\n
UofL senior forward Laura Ziegler celebrates during No. 9 Louisville’s 88-65 defeat of Florida State Feb. 15, 2025, at the KFC Yum! Center. (Louisville Athletics)<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s our foundation. Like, we always are dangerous,\u201d said forward Laura Ziegler, the grad transfer from Saint Joseph\u2019s who averages 11.2 points.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a relief in a sense. If I don\u2019t have it going that night, my shot is not falling, my job is to get into the paint and get it to somebody who is scoring,\u201d Roberts said. \u201cThere\u2019s not been a day where all of us, all five of us, have been clicking, but there also hasn\u2019t been a day where none of us are clicking.\u201d<\/p>\n
Back in Fort Worth (and near Dallas)<\/p>\n
Texas played a regular-season game at Dickies Arena on Dec. 14, when All-America forward Madison Booker had 27 points in an 89-54 win over Baylor in a top-15 matchup just under 200 miles from their campus.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe knew that was a possibility to be here toward the end of the year,\u201d sophomore guard Jordan Lee said. \u201cThere\u2019s a good advantage of having familiarity in being on the court. … We\u2019re excited to be here, and especially in the state of Texas.\u201d<\/p>\n
Louisville\u2019s NCAA Tournament run last season ended in Fort Worth, on TCU\u2019s campus only about 3 miles away, in a second-round game against the Horned Frogs.<\/p>\n
Schaeffer and Kenny Brooks took their previous teams to Final Fours played about 35 miles away at the home of the NBA\u2019s Dallas Mavericks.<\/p>\n
Schaeffer was Mississippi State\u2019s coach in 2017 when the Bulldogs ended UConn\u2019s 111-game winning streak in the national semifinals in Dallas, then lost to South Carolina. Brooks\u2019 team at Virginia Tech lost in the 2023 semifinals to eventual national champion LSU.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"FORT WORTH, Texas \u2014 There will be a lot of sophomores who can shine when Michigan plays Louisville…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":224024,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[2901,555,2160,557,10215,116,118,117,2917,9804,3143,223,10213,154,2053,10214],"class_list":["post-224023","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-fort-worth","tag-app-college-sports","tag-app-sports","tag-app-top-stories","tag-associated-press","tag-bowling-green","tag-fort-worth","tag-fort-worth-headlines","tag-fort-worth-news","tag-kentucky","tag-lexington","tag-louisville","tag-news","tag-northern-kentucky","tag-sports","tag-top-stories","tag-topic-latest-local-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/224023","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=224023"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/224023\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/224024"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=224023"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=224023"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=224023"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}