Brown: 2023-24 Louisville women’s basketball roster proof few adapt better than Jeff Walz

There’s a risk in what Louisville women’s basketball coach Jeff Walz is doing with his roster for the coming season. Then again, with Walz at the helm, it doesn’t seem like much of a gamble at all.

Few coaches are better at adapting than Walz.

U of L lost Hailey Van Lith, its leading scorer from an Elite Eight team last season, to national champion LSU and another four players joined her in the transfer portal.

Instead of conceding the upcoming season as a rebuilding year and constructing his roster “the old way” with a class filled with freshmen recruits, he focused on the experience he could bring in through the portal.

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Walz signed five players from the transfer portal for the 2023-24 Cardinals before signing the lone freshman, 6-foot-5 Nigerian center Eseosa Imafidon, to the class. And they could be a starting lineup to themselves if it weren't for returnees Olivia Cochran and Nyla Harris.

Guard Jayda Curry (California) was first team All Pac-12 and led the Golden Bears with 15.5 points per game. Guard Sydney Taylor (Massachusetts) was first team Atlantic-10 and led her team with 16.1 points per game. Sun Belt Player of the Year KiKi Jefferson (James Madison) led the Dukes with 18.9 points and 7.9 rebounds per game. Forward Hennie van Schaik (California State-Bakersfield) led her team with 11.6 points and 7.2 rebounds last season. Guard Nina Rickards (Florida) started 103 of 120 games for the Gators and averaged 12.1 points last season.

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The new-look Cards will be on display early when they represent USA Basketball at the GLOBL JAM tournament in Toronto July 12-16. They’ll take on Under-23 teams from Canada, Puerto Rico and Team Africa and play a medal game based on their round-robin results.

The challenge is getting so many new faces to mesh into a contender. It’s something Walz has had plenty of practice doing. The Cards’ four Final Four appearances under Walz have all come with four different recruiting classes driving them there.

For every Angel McCoughtry and Shoni Schimmel the program has had, Walz has found a new leader for a new group that could reach the NCAA tournament’s final weekend.

“It just shows that we've been able to put pieces of a puzzle together, it doesn't have to be the same piece every time,” Walz told The Courier Journal.

The worst thing coaches can do, especially in this ever-changing college basketball landscape, is to stubbornly stick to what they have always done. There’s no proven formula for navigating name, image and likeness, immediate eligibility from the transfer portal and graduate transfers and players still eligible for a fifth year due to the COVID-19 waiver from 2020.

Walz still values high school recruits and will continue to look for talent that way. The pivot for this year’s class came fast after Cincinnati native Sole Williams, who was the Cards’ first 2023 recruit to verbally commit in April 2022, only to later back out and instead signed with Texas A&M. Signing a class almost exclusively from the transfer portal will not become his only means of assembling a roster.

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The one thing he won’t alter is his expectations of his players or the program.

“A lot of coaches feel like, ‘Oh, well, I’ve got to change, you can’t be tough on kids anymore, you can’t challenge them,’” Walz said. “I’m not going to change from that side. We’re going to continue to push them. I’m going to be a pain in the butt at times, but that's because I know they’ve got more in them.”

So, yes, there will be another Van Lith.

Just don’t expect the Cards to look like the team she powered to the 2022 Final Four and the Elite Eight this past season. The offense was a bit one-dimensional last season with Van Lith accounting for 27% of the Cards field goal attempts.

U of L should be much more balanced offensively this season with the likes Curry, Taylor and Jefferson expected to play big roles offensively.

“We go look for the best basketball players and the best people that we can find, and then we adapt our style of play to our players,” Walz said. “And I think that’s why we’ve been able to be successful throughout the years.”

The only sign of Walz holding on to the past came from a recent press conference when he discussed his schedule. Speaking on an in-season tournament, he mentioned other “BCS teams” that will participate. The Bowl Championship Series ran from 1998-2013 before being replaced by the College Football Playoff.

See, the old way of doing things has a shelf life in sports. Good thing for U of L Walz is not confined by it.

Reach sports columnist C.L. Brown at clbrown1@gannett.com and follow him on Twitter at @CLBrownHoops.

This article originally appeared on Louisville Courier Journal: Louisville WBB coach Jeff Walz adapting with college sports landscape