For much of the ACC, it has been a disappointing season. After starting the year with five teams in the preseason AP Top 25, (No. 7 Duke, No. 9 N.C. State, No. 11 North Carolina, No. 15 Notre Dame and No. 20i Louisville) only two remain after the Week 11 poll. The Blue Devils were absent from Week 3 until now, while the Wolfpack exited after Week 5, but the other squads failed to survive a chaotic start to conference play that included a wealth of upsets, injuries and mishaps that did not sit well with voters.
One group, though, is almost certainly satisfied with how its 2025-26 campaign is going.
No. 8 Louisville, sitting tied for the top slot in the ACC standings and on an 11-game winning streak, has exploded back onto the scene after a quiet few seasons in the middle of the pack. Now, as their conference colleagues flounder and the Cardinals hit their stride, it seems like head coach Jeff Walz’s group is primed to take a shot at the ACC crown and make a run in March.
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In a sense, it feels only right. Walz has consistently assembled strong teams, and it seemed inevitable that Louisville would return to the mountaintop. Notably, though, his teams are often led by stars. In recent years, those have included names like Hailey Van Lith, Dana Evans and Emily Engstler — all now or previously playing in the WNBA.
This year, that is still somewhat true. Laura Ziegler, a transfer from Saint Joseph’s, has come in for her final season of eligibility and has proven herself capable of taking the Cardinals to the promised land. She’s averaging 10.4 points per game with 7.4 rebounds and 2.4 assists, all while doing everything from running the point to getting dirty in the post. Ziegler, in many ways, is the coach’s ideal leader. She’s versatile, experienced, and willing to do whatever her team needs to do to get a win. Walz has said plenty of positive things about her, too.
“Laura is the type of kid, high character, high work ethic, always encouraging everybody on the team. It’s pretty amazing,” Walz said after a narrow loss to No. 2 South Carolina on Dec. 4. “I mean, she is a kid … that I would draft her somewhere in that [WNBA] Draft because that’s a kid you want in your locker room. And then, she’s going to prove that she’s going to be able to compete and do some good things for you.”
But there are cases to be made for other players on the Cardinal roster, too. Guard Tajianna Roberts averages 14.1 points and 2.6 assists per game, and her 19 points were a big part of Louisville’s win against then-No. 23 Notre Dame on Jan. 15. Even 6’3 forward Elif Istanbulluoglu has a clearly dominant presence on the floor, stretching out to the 3-point line, grabbing boards and guarding opposing bigs.
At the end of the day though, it was neither Ziegler nor Roberts who put on a show on Jan. 18 against N.C. State. In fact, the star of the night didn’t even start. Sophomore guard Imari Berry was the one who took the Cardinals over the hump, scoring 33 points and shooting 3-of-5 from three in 37 minutes as Louisville took down the Wolfpack in overtime on the road. Berry’s two threes at the end of the third quarter were crucial, shaving what looked like an insurmountable 11-point margin into a much more doable five.
Ziegler, for what it’s worth, had an off game against the Wolfpack. She played a little more than 22 minutes, scoring just five points on 2-of-9 shooting from the field. Roberts had just four at a 1-of-9 clip. Neither of them had an especially sizable impact on the scoresheet, and yet Louisville managed to close the game in a big way — rallying late to tie and then dominating the extra period.
When comparing this year’s Cardinal squad to those standout teams from years past, what jumps out is its flexibility. There are some great players on this season’s roster with high-end potential, but there is no true superstar.
“What’s unique about this group is our overall depth. Imari tonight scored 33, I think Elif may have scored 23 in our Miami game,” Walz said after the win over N.C. State. “And I don’t know how many other people we’ve had in the mid-20s. It’s just not who we are. We normally will have five or six that can get 15 to 17, but then you’ve got five on the floor that everybody kind of has to guard.”
For this team, this year, Ziegler and Roberts might be the perfect leaders. They don’t demand the ball constantly, and they know when to give up opportunities to other scorers. Maybe Walz is the perfect coach, too. He pulled Berry out of the starting lineup despite a resume probably deserving of that space. His mental flexibility, and her willingness to move into a different spot, gave the Cardinals a sizable boost off the bench.
“I just thought at the beginning of the year [Berry] was so passive. I was like, ‘Hey, let’s just give yourself a chance to watch the start of the game. Let’s just watch it and then see how that goes.’ And I think it took some pressure off of her as well, and she’s embraced it,” Walz said.
In that sense, the situation isn’t dissimilar to how Walz has coached in years past. Evans, one of his former stars, spent the 2018-19 season coming off the bench. That year, she won ACC Sixth Player of the Year honors. From there, she became the first player in conference history to win ACC Player of the Year in the following campaign.
“It’s like ‘Hey, we need each other to succeed,’” Walz said after a win against Virginia Tech where Ziegler was the only starter to score more than 11, but none scored less than eight. “… We’re shooting our free throws well, we’re rebounding well, we shot the three well tonight. It’s a fun group to coach.”
At least for the rest of this season, the Cardinals look like they’ll be the team to beat in the ACC. Walz has assembled a lineup of capable, but unselfish players. He said preparing for Louisville is “like trying to scout four different teams,” and he isn’t wrong. The Cardinals have won games in halfcourt offense, on the fast break, down low — N.C. State assistant Ashley Williams noted that Louisville is one of the rare groups willing to crash the offensive boards with all five players — and from beyond the arc.
The final question, then, is does a team need one big name to get it done in March? Do Ziegler or Roberts, or maybe even Berry, fill that requirement? It remains to be seen. But for right now, Louisville is on a roll, and it’s hard to see any team in the ACC slowing the Cardinals down.
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