Henderson scores 19, No. 4 Louisville tops Memphis

MEMPHIS, Tenn. (AP) A quick burst to open the second half was all No. 4 Louisville needed to pull away from Memphis.

Emmonnie Henderson scored a career-best 19 points, Shoni Schimmel added 18, and the Cardinals beat Memphis 82-66 on Sunday.

The Cardinals (25-2, 13-1 American Athletic Conference) broke the game open with a 14-2 run at the start of the second half. Schimmel had scored the last basket of the first half to take a double-digit lead into the break.

''I'm pleased with the way we ended the first half,'' Louisville coach Jeff Walz said. ''We executed the play perfect. Shoni makes a shot, and it's a big shot. They had cut the lead to nine. She knocks it down, and it goes back to 11.

''In the second half, we get a stop and then we go down and score. That's what we have to do, but we have to be more consistent.''

Louisville connected on its first five shots of the second half, including a pair of 3-pointers from Schimmel, to extend the lead to 53-32 with 16:13 left, enough for the Cardinals to coast home.

Henderson was 9 of 14 from the field, and Louisville shot 54 percent overall. Schimmel, who ranks second in the nation in 3-pointers per game, was 4 of 10 from outside the arc. Louisville went 8 of 18 after starting 7 of 11.

Asia Taylor added 13 for Louisville, which won its second straight and for the 18th time in 19 games.

But Louisville also committed 20 turnovers compared to 12 for Memphis. And while Walz was pleased with Henderson's scoring, he bristled at the fact that she had five, and, along with fellow frontline players Taylor and Sara Hammond, committed 12 of Louisville's 20 miscues. ''They don't touch the ball enough to turn it over that much,'' he said.

''Offensively, she's talented,'' Walz said of Henderson, ''but she's got to be able to learn to do more than just shoot. You can't turn it over five times.

Mooriah Rowser led Memphis (11-15, 4-10) with 20 points, and Pa'Sonna Hope added 18 and eight rebounds. Ariel Hearn scored 15 and had 10 assists, but the Tigers dropped their fifth straight.

The Cardinals defeated Memphis 88-61 in Louisville on Jan. 26 when Schimmel connected on nine 3-pointers. Memphis defenders concentrated on Schimmel early.

''They were guarding me pretty close in the first half because they knew the last game I shot the ball well,'' Schimmel said. ''I got my teammates going, and once that happened, it got me going. Then (Memphis) had to kind of guard them.''

The Tigers were limited to 41 percent shooting in this one, despite Rowser going 8 for 15. Their biggest struggles came from outside the arc, where they were 1 of 7, and the free throw line, from where they made 9 of 19 attempts.

Memphis had some early success getting the ball inside to Hope in the low post for layups for Hope. But it was Henderson who was getting the biggest advantage in the post.

''I thought she got the position she wanted,'' McFerrin said. ''Let's face it, we don't carry as much mass as some other teams do when we go to the low block. I thought we let her get a quick step in there. I thought they very definitely were trying to take advantage of that mass difference on the block.

''We didn't recognize it soon enough to get into a front position, so we got buried.

Schimmel said once the Cardinals put together the rally spanning the halves, they were able to impose their offense.

''We didn't necessarily put them away like we should have,'' Schimmel said, ''but we got the W.''