The 2021–22 Louisville Cardinals women's basketball team represented the University of Louisville during the 2021–22 NCAA Division I women's basketball season. The Cardinals were led by 15th-year head coach Jeff Walz, and played their home games at the KFC Yum! Center in their eighth year in the Atlantic Coast Conference.
They finished the season 29–5 overall and 16–2 in ACC play to finish in second place. As the second seed in the ACC tournament, they were upset by seventh seed Miami in the quarterfinals. They received an at-large bid to the NCAA tournament and were the first seed in the Wichita Regional. They defeated sixteenth seed Albany in the first round, ninth seed Gonzaga in the second round, fourth seed Tennessee in the Sweet Sixteen, and third seed Michigan in the Elite Eight before falling to eventual champions, and first seed South Carolina in the Final Four. This was the Cardinals' fourth appearance in the Final Four in program history.
Previous season
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 to 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.
Off-season
Departures Departures Dana Evans 1 G 5'6" Senior Gary, Indiana Graduated; Drafted 13th overall in the 2021 WNBA draft by the Dallas Wings Malea Williams 3 F 6'4" Freshman Georgetown, Kentucky Transferred to Cincinnati Elizabeth Balogun 4 G 6'1" Junior Chattanooga, Tennessee Transferred to Duke
Incoming transfers Incoming transfers Emily Engstler 21 F 6'1" Senior New York, New York Syracuse Chelsie Hall 23 G 5'7" Graduate student Boca Raton, Florida Vanderbilt
Recruiting class
Source:
Roster
Schedule and results
Source
!colspan=6 style=| Exhibition
!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 pollsPoll Pre-season Week2 Week3 Week4 Week5 Week6 Week7 Week8 Week9 Week10 Week11 Week12 Week13 Week14 Week15 Week16 Week17 Week18 Final AP 6 10 10 10 7 6 3 3 3 (5) 3 (4) 3 (2) 5 4 3 3 4 4 5 4 Coaches 6 7 5 5 4 3 2 2 (14) 2 (7) 2 (6) 4 4 3 3 4 4 5 4 4 + Legend Increase in ranking Decrease in ranking Not ranked previous week (RV) Received votes
References