Bulls Fall to No. 7 Louisville

The USF Bulls suffered a road loss to No. 7 ranked Louisville on Wednesday night. Brandie Radde gave Louisville a big lift off the bench. Radde scored 19 points and Angel McCoughtry added 17 points and 12 rebounds to lead No. 7 Louisville to a 76-60 victory over South Florida.

"We started getting stops on defense and we started knocking down shots,'' said Radde, who entered averaging 3.4 points per game. Louisville (17-1, 4-0 Big East) also got 16 points and 10 rebounds from Candyce Bingham. The Cardinals were able to outscore South Florida 15-8 after McCoughtry, the Big East player of the week, fouled out with five minutes remaining. "That's really when we needed to buckle down and make a stop,'' South Florida coach Jose Fernandez said. Shantia Grace scored 15 points, and Jessica Lawson had 14 points and 16 rebounds for South Florida (14-4, 1-3). The Bulls had 24 turnovers and hit just 14 of 28 free throw attempts. "Definitely turnovers,'' Lawson said. "They got us out of our element.''

Bingham scored 13 points and Radde had 11 as Louisville took a 38-24 halftime lead. The Cardinals had a 23-6 run over the final seven minutes of the first half. "I thought we did a very good job of breaking the press and scoring off of it,'' Louisville coach Jeff Walz said. "I thought they stopped pressing us because we scored in transition. We only turned the ball over 14 times, and for us, that doesn't happen very often. I was pleased with that.''

McCoughtry had eight points, eight rebounds and four assists during the opening half. Three of her assists set up baskets by Bingham late in the half. South Florida pulled to 56-50 with 6:26 left. The Bulls were held to just 10 points the rest of the game. The Bulls were without their leading scorer Danielle Starzynski who was serving the first of her 6 game suspension.

"We knew they were going to make a run,'' Bingham said. "Coach talks about that. We just had to keep our composure and I think that's what we did.'' Louisville was outrebounded 53-46, something that Walz said was a concern. "They rebound the ball as well as any team in the country,'' Walz said. "They absolutely owned us in the paint. If we don't get stronger there, it's going to be tough.''