LOUISVILLE, Ky. -- In reality, the thumping sound faintly audible to all nearby came from Asia Durr's hand repeatedly hitting the court as she lay prone not far from the free throw line. But for those who wore the same uniform as the University of Louisville guard, not to mention several thousand others in the stands who wore Louisville colors, the sound might as well have been the beat of their own hearts, temporarily relocated somewhere in the vicinity of their throats.
Durr had just crumpled to the court in obvious pain, and without any precipitating contact from an opposing player, during the second quarter of an ACC game against Duke. Watching the All-American who had already put on a shooting show in the first quarter, those in the arena likely experienced an inner monologue similar to that of Cardinals captain Myisha Hines-Allen.
"Please get up," Hines-Allen recalled of her thoughts. "We need you. Please?"
Hines-Allen was able to play the line's plaintiveness for laughs afterward because Durr returned to the game, the damage thankfully no worse than a sore ankle. There was truth there, too. Now part of the pool for Team USA and one of three players in the ACC averaging at least 20 points per game this season, Durr is the rare individual talent who puts a title within a team's grasp.
Yet as No. 3 Louisville attempts to remain unbeaten when it hosts No. 2 Notre Dame on Thursday (ESPN, 7 p.m. ET), it isn't what Durr does with the ball in her hands that will reveal the most about the host's credentials. We already know that on any given night, Durr can be brilliant -- and will need to be for Louisville to be its best in March or April. How Notre Dame defends her might well determine the course of the night, but how well Louisville defends Notre Dame -- the only team thus far able to make Connecticut's grip on this season's title look anything other than ironclad -- will reveal more about where the season goes from here.
Louisville has the pieces at its disposal to be among the nation's best defensive teams. And the Cardinals would have us believe they also have the chemistry to fit those pieces together.
As Oregon coach Kelly Graves alluded to after his team lost in Louisville earlier this season, the Cardinals no longer fit the role of David very well. The only three-star recruits in the KFC Yum! Center on Thursday will need tickets. Like Notre Dame and the rest of the sport's small-but-expanding upper class, Louisville's roster is full of high school All-Americans who look the part.
Instead of willing-but-undersized frontcourt players like Asia Taylor or Monique Reid, essential parts of previous Final Four teams, the Cardinals have a front line in Hines-Allen, 6-foot-2 Bionca Dunham, 6-2 Sam Fuehring and 6-4 Kylee Shook that would make a volleyball coach jealous. Instead of deceptively athletic guards like Desereé Byrd or Becky Burke, they have Durr, Arica Carter, Dana Evans and Jasmine Jones, a sprint relay team in need of a baton.
"We have some ability, like in Dana Evans, to put more ball pressure on the ball than we've had in the past," Louisville coach Jeff Walz said. "And then with Sam and Myisha and Kylee and Bionca, I've got four post players that are pretty interchangeable. So it's not like I can't switch post to post, or I can't get out there and double a ball screen. They're pretty mobile. And we haven't always had four of them that are as mobile as those four are."
What that means is evident on both the macro and micro level. Louisville enters the game against Notre Dame allowing opponents to shoot just 35.9 percent from the field. If maintained, it would be the stingiest such data point of the Walz era, which dates to 2007. The Cardinals are also forcing 18.9 turnovers per game, on par with the two teams that reached the Final Four as the best of the era. They rendered Oregon's Sabrina Ionescu and Duke's Lexie Brown largely ineffectual, pressing and doubling those two All-America candidates off of every ball screen without paying a price for it. They at least kept Ohio State's Kelsey Mitchell from taking over a game (thereby allowing Durr the space to do just that in an overtime win). The pressure, speed, size and agility forced opponents, at their strongest points, to react and adjust to Louisville's defense.
Walz and his coaching staff are among the best in the business at game-by-game adjustments, but executing those plans in the biggest of games is still a matter of personnel.
"Everyone on our team brings something different, that's what is unique about our team," Hines-Allen said of the defense. "Like Jaz is a phenomenal on-ball defender but she needs to work on off-ball defense. Just examples like that, some people may be good on the ball, so we'll put them on the best player, so they're not off the ball so much. That's why we've been clicking so well at the defensive end."
"Once you accept [that it is a communal effort], you'll go hard for your teammate ... If you look to your left and look to your right and see your sisters next to you, and they're going to always have your back and go hard for you, it's a lot easier to play." Myisha Hines-Allen, on Louisville's defense
So much about defense is measurable. A player's speed or wingspan. An opponent's field goal percentage or usage rate. Yet if asked to define "clicking," Hines-Allen wouldn't turn to the measurable. Just as when he was asked about his preferred metrics for measuring defense, Walz said simply "effort."
The best athletes armed with the best scouting report won't succeed on defense if they don't play together. With an 18-0 start to show for it, Louisville players and coaches insist that last part is also something that is part of the current group's identity, at least as much as the Final Four teams.
"Once you accept [that it is a communal effort], you'll go hard for your teammate, the one next to you," Hines-Allen said. "You're not always worrying about what Coach Walz has to say, or the other coaches. They just want the best for you. But if you look to your left and look to your right and see your sisters next to you, and they're going to always have your back and go hard for you, it's a lot easier to play."
Durr might yet be the best player to pass through Louisville, but she is not the first unique talent. There were moments before when Angel McCoughtry or Shoni Schimmel were as mesmerizing as Durr draining shot after shot with ease in the first quarter against Duke. Those performances make it easy to forget the other players on the court -- makes it easy for them to forget they're on the court when Louisville has the ball, for that matter.
"Same thing when we had Angel here and Shoni," Walz said. "When you have players of that caliber, sometimes you get caught watching. Especially with the way that game started. I mean, I was watching. It was pretty impressive what Asia was getting done offensively."
It is what puts Louisville in the game. It is just that the key to its championship aspirations, not to mention the ACC supremacy at stake Thursday night, begins at the other end of the court.