Van Lith has double-double and TCU women going to 1st Sweet 16 after 85-70 win over Louisville

FORT WORTH, Texas (AP) — Hailey Van Lith felt a little bit more nostalgic than weird when facing her former team while trying to get to yet another Sweet 16 in the women's NCAA Tournament.

The winning feeling at the end was familiar, with the dynamic guard moving on in this March Madness with first-timer TCU.

Agnes Emma-Nnopu scored a season-high 23 points with four 3-pointers while Van Lith had a double-double with 16 points and 10 assists as the second-seeded Horned Frogs advanced past the second round for the first time, winning 85-70 over seventh-seeded Louisville on Sunday. Van Lith went with to a Final Four and two other Elite Eight games with the Cardinals from 2021-23, and reached another Elite Eight with LSU last season.

“To make it to the Sweet 16 is really, really hard to do,” second-year TCU coach Mark Campbell said. “Somehow Hailey just seems to do it every year, so it’s normal for her. But for everybody else, it’s not normal.”

Van Lith, whose 19 tourney games played are more than any other active player, initially shrugged her shoulders before breaking out in a smile.

Before winning twice at home when hosting for the first time, the Big 12 champion Horned Frogs hadn’t even made the NCAA field in 15 years — and last won a tourney game since 2006. They were 1-17 in conference games two years ago before Campbell became their coach and has since brought in 11 transfers, most with NCAA experience.

Donovyn Hunter added a career-best 18 points, including three 3-pointers in a 17-0 run that put the Horned Frogs (33-3) ahead to stay while there was so much defensive attention on Van Lith — who did score the go-ahead basket in that span.

“They actually switched up their coverage a lot. ... At the beginning of the game, there’s always a bunch of energy pent up, and I think once we rode that wave a little bit, I was able to just find my shooters,” Van Lith said. “The game wouldn't have been the same if they wouldn't have stepped up the way they did. So, you know, teams can keep doubling me and I’m going to keep giving it to my teammates."

Sedona Prince added 19 points for the Frogs.

Jayda Curry had a career-high 41 points for the Cardinals (22-11). She already had 15 of those when she made a jumper that put them up 17-13 with 2:57 left in the first quarter before TCU's game-turning run.

“She absolutely fought for 40 minutes and really just played some impressive basketball,” Louisville coach Jeff Walz said.

The Frogs are headed to Birmingham, Alabama, and a rematch with third-seeded Notre Dame (28-5). TCU beat the Fighting Irish 76-68 in the Cayman Islands on Nov. 29, an early indication of what could be a special season for the Frogs.

After first leaning over to Campbell to confirm that is who they will play next, Van Lith said that win nearly four months ago “was huge for us, and it was a way for us to prove ourselves to the basketball community. People weren’t necessarily doubting us. They were just waiting for us to go do something unexpected and we pulled that off earlier in the year.”

Curry opened the second-round game with a steal and a breakaway layup after a bad pass by Van Lith. After her fast start, the Cardinals missed 13 shots in a row before finally scoring again nearly six minutes into the second quarter.

Olivia Cochran finished a five-season career with Louisville by scoring 15 points.

Hunter, who was on Oregon State's team that beat Notre Dame in last year's Sweet 16, made her first 3 with 1:59 left in the first quarter to start that run. She made consecutive 3s to open the second quarter.

Emma-Nnopu was part of Stanford’s national championship as a freshman in 2021 and went to another Final Four with the Cardinal as a sophomore.

Takeaways

Louisville, now with five freshmen playing regular minutes, had made it to at least the Elite Eight in five consecutive seasons before losing a first-round game last year, its only time doing that in 16 tourney appearances for coach Jeff Walz. The Cardinals would have faced Van Lith and LSU in the second round last year had they not lost to 11th-seeded Middle Tennessee.

TCU finished 21-0 inside Schollmaier Arena this season, and have won 24 home games in a row overall. The Frogs led 47-26 at halftime, matching their largest lead. They shot 70% (19 of 27) in the first half while not missing consecutive shots and twice making six in a row.

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