LOUISVILLE, Ky. — For a team that relies so much on its defensive intensity, the Kentucky women’s basketball team picked an awful game to ease up.After a 101-67 shellacking in Lexington, Ky., last year, a game that included 38 Louisville turnovers, U of L turned the tables on Kentucky this time around. It was the Cardinals, not the Cats, pressing and forcing turnovers. It was the Cards, not the Cats, winning 50-50 balls and hustling. It was the Cats, not the Cards, making bone-headed choices and uncharacteristically bad decisions.And it was the Cats, not the Cards, that suffered the consequences. For the third year in a row, the Kentucky-Louisville women’s basketball rivalry was a blowout as U of L easily defeated UK 78-52 in front of a record crowd of 22,152 fans in the brand-spanking new KFC Yum! Center. “We’ve said before that our style of play is based on hustle and being tenacious and really working hard. We picked a bad day not to play hard defensively,” Mitchell said. “There are a lot of things that you can control and defensive effort would be one of them. We just picked a bad day to do that in a game that meant a whole lot.”Though it was UK’s first loss of the season, the first-time defensive lapses and lack of hustle was the biggest concern as the Cats glumly left the Derby City. Louisville, length and all, scored easily inside and often beat the Cats’ vaunted press over the top for uncontested layups.Kentucky has made a living out of an up-tempo game, forcing turnovers and just plain frustrating opponents, and to not bring that attitude into a rivalry game was disconcerting for Mitchell and Co.”We are a team that is supposed to play defense, supposed to hustle, supposed to do the things and get 50-50 plays,” senior forward Victoria Dunlap said. “There might have been a couple minutes where we did it one time but it wasn’t the entire game. For us to not do that, which is our bread and butter for every game, we lost.”Dunlap was one of the few that brought the intensity and fire that has become a trademark of Mitchell’s last two teams. Last year’s Southeastern Conference Player of the Year finished with 17 points and career-high 23 rebounds.But she found few helpers in her teammates.”U of L looked like they were much more motivated to win, and that bothers me,” Mitchell said while taking responsibility for the lack of effort.Mitchell said he noticed something was missing in the practices leading up to the game. “I sensed it Friday and Saturday,” Mitchell said. “I was very concerned about our preparation. We are not good enough to be able to show up and beat anyone much less on the road, hostile environment, rivalry game, (one that) means so much.”And believe Mitchell when he says it, this game, despite the “it’s just another game” perception during the week, still means a ton to the Cats.”This was not any game we took lightly or another game on the schedule. I would be lying if I said that,” Mitchell said. “The coaches put their heart and soul into the game and tried to make certain the players knew (how important the game was).”Louisville, on the other hand, played with a decisive edge as it played on the emotions of a lively, sold-out crowd. The Cards roared out to 17-4 lead and hardly ever looked back. When Kentucky did make a few runs, such as the 10-2 streak to open second half, Louisville would answer with a timely 3-pointer, usually from guards Shoni Schimmel and Becky Burke.Schimmel, a freshman, and Burke, a junior, each nailed six 3-pointers in a game of can-you-match-that. The two challenged each other before and during the game to make more treys than the other, and it paid off as the two went 12-of-21 from behind the arc.Some were crazy-deep looks, others were heat checks. But the disturbing thing for the Cats as they head back to Lexington is that for all the emphasis they put into limiting Louisville’s 3-point shot, the Cardinals got them anyway.”The worst day we’ve had trapping and rotating since we’ve implemented this style, and I’ve said many times that if you don’t really hustle, you can look really silly doing it,” Mitchell said. “Today was a bad day to look silly.”Kentucky ended up turning the ball over 22 times, a season high. The Cardinals turned it right back 21 times but scored more points (25-18) off turnovers than the Cats did. “I’m not sure when the last game was that they turned the ball over more than their opponent did,” Louisville coach Jeff Walz said. “We handled it. We did a fantastic job.”Walz’s team also kept Kentucky off the free-throw line – UK went to the stripe a season-low 15 times – and rattled the Cats for the first time since the Oklahoma loss in last year’s NCAA Tournament. Only four of Kentucky’s 20 field goals were assisted, and the Cats finished 20-of-71 from the field (28.2 percent).Really, it was as bad as a UK team has looked in the last two years, some of which credit is due U of L’s way. “We are absolute rivals and we want to beat them really bad, but you have to admire how hard their kids played today, and my hat is off to them,” Mitchell said.Kentucky was fortunate it escaped the game without any further damage than just a loss and rude eye-opener. Sophomore guard A’dia Mathies and Dunlap both left the game with injuries, but both are expected to be OK.Though Walz tried to downplay the significance of beating of a top-10 rival, he couldn’t ignore the lessons Louisville learned about itself Sunday.”I know that we have fight in us,” Walz said.Now it’s time to find how much fight is in this year’s UK Hoops squad. Served with a healthy portion of humble pie for the first time this year, a young Kentucky squad must learn how to get off the mat.”We can’t take any days off,” Mathies said.That’s as good of a place to start as any.