Five-star point guard Mikel Brown Jr. pledges to the Louisville Cardinals; here’s why he chose Louisville…

Five-star point guard Mikel Brown Jr. pledges to the Louisville Cardinals; here’s why he chose Louisville…

This game followed a similar pattern as Thursday’s loss to Georgia Tech.

The Cavaliers got off to an extremely slow start and built themselves a big hole, then surged in the fourth quarter to get back within striking distance, but ultimately came up short of completing the comeback.

Let’s stay with the slow start for now, though, as this has been a common factor in many of UVA’s losses this season, and particularly in the last two games.

Powered by 14 quick points from Jayda Curry, Louisville outscored Virginia 25-12 in the first quarter and the Cavaliers had nearly as many turnovers (5) as they did made field goals (6) in the opening period.

UVA competed well with Louisville over the rest of the game and essentially dominated the fourth quarter, but the resulting hole from another poor first quarter was too much to overcome.

Things were pretty even between these two teams in the second and third quarters, but the Cardinals held a commanding 62-45 lead entering the fourth quarter, their largest lead of the game.

Virginia implemented a full-court press and succeeded in getting Louisville out of rhythm offensively.

The Cardinals shot well above 40% from the floor in each of the first three quarters, then went just 2/15 in the final period and turned the ball over five times.

Latasha Lattimore got hot, scoring eight points, and the entire UVA offense came to life early in the fourth.

A mid-range jumper from Kymora Johnson made it just a three-point game with three minutes to go in regulation, but…