The 2020–21 Louisville Cardinals women's basketball team represented the University of Louisville during the 2020–21 NCAA Division I women's basketball season. The Cardinals, were led by 14th-year head coach Jeff Walz, and played their home games at the KFC Yum! Center in their seventh year in the Atlantic Coast Conference. On January 18, 2021, following a 12–0 start, the Cardinals were ranked number 1 in the AP Poll for the first time in program history, garnering 20 of 29 first place votes.
The Cardinals finished the season 26–4 and 14–2 in ACC play to finish in first place. In the ACC tournament, they defeated Wake Forest in the Quarterfinals and Syracuse before losing in the Final NC State. They received an at-large bid to the NCAA tournament where they were the two seed in the Alamo Regional. In the tournament they defeated fifteen seed in the First Round, seven seed Northwestern in the Second Round, and six seed Oregon in the Sweet Sixteen before losing to one seed and eventual champions Stanford in the Elite Eight to end their season.
Previous season The Cardinals finished the 2019–20 season at 28–4 and 16–2 in ACC play. They finished as the regular season ACC champions and earned the first seed in the ACC tournament. They defeated Syracuse in the Quarterfinals before losing to eventual champions NC State in the Semifinals. The NCAA tournament was cancelled due to the COVID-19 outbreak.
Off-season
Departures Name Number Pos. Height Year Hometown Reason for departure Yacine Diop 2 G 5'10" Senior Dakar, Senegal Graduated Seygan Robins 3 G 5'10" Sophomore Harrodsburg, KY Transferred to UT Martin Lindsey Duvall 12 G 5'9" Sophomore Mount Washington, KY Transferred to Northern Kentucky Kylee Shook 21 F 6'4" Senior Colorado Springs, CO Graduated; drafted 13th overall in the 2020 WNBA draft by the New York Liberty Jazmine Jones 23 G 6'0" Senior Tallahassee, FL Graduated; drafted 12th overall in the 2020 WNBA draft by the New York Liberty Jessica Laemmle 24 G 5'2" Senior Louisville, KY Graduated Molly Lockhart 30 F 6'3" Freshman Louisville, KY — Bionca Dunham 33 F 6'2" Senior Philadelphia, PA Graduated
Incoming transfers Name Number Pos. Height Year Hometown Previous school Ahlana Smith 2 G 5'9" Junior Charlotte, NC Gulf Coast State
Recruiting class
Source:
Roster
Schedule and results
Source
!colspan=6 style=| Non-conference regular season
!colspan=6 style=| ACC regular season
!colspan=6 style=| ACC Women's Tournament
!colspan=6 style=| NCAA tournament
Rankings
+ Regular season ranking movementLegend: ██ Increase in ranking. ██ Decrease in ranking. ██ Not ranked the previous week. RV=Received votes. т=Tied with team above or below also with this symbolPoll Pre-Season Week2 Week3 Week4 Week5 Week6 Week7 Week8 Week9 Week10 Week11 Week12 Week13 Week14 Week15 Week16 Final AP 5 5 2 (2) 2 (1) 2 (1) 2 (1) 2 2 1 (20) 1 (20) 1 (26) 3 3 6 5 7т 8 Coaches 5 2 (6) 2 (6) 2 (1) 2 (1) 2 (1) 2 (1) 1 (30) 1 (30) 3 (5) 2 (11) 2 (8) 5 5 7 7 6
Coaches did not release a Week 2 poll and AP does not release a final poll.
This is the first time Louisville has been ranked number 1 in the AP Women's Basketball Poll in program history.
References