When Grace Mbugua walked off the Rupp Arena court in March, she didn’t know her life had changed.

The Danville Christian standout didn’t know that every college coach who saw her impressive performance at the Girls Sweet 16 wanted to talk to her. And she didn’t know Jeff Walz was first in line.

Mbugua found out the next day when Walz called her coach, and that was the beginning of a relentless recruiting process that ultimately led the 6-5 senior to commit this week to Walz and his Louisville program.

Mbugua said Walz’s efforts over the long term and the rapport she built with Louisville players during a short visit were the biggest reasons why she picked the Cardinals to bring an end to an accelerated recruiting process.

That process started seven months earlier on that March evening in Lexington, continued without interruption after she suffered a torn ACL in June and had surgery to repair it and concluded very shortly after her official visit to Louisville two weekends ago.

“Sometimes when you know, you know, and there’s no need to waste time and second-guess yourself,” Mbugua said. “For me, it was just after the visit. I took a few days to just pray about everything, and I just had a peace about Louisville and I wanted to go ahead and (commit) and just have that past me and focus on my high school senior season.”

By the time Mbugua left the court after having given one of the best individual performances in years at the state tournament, every coach in the building wanted to talk to her – and Walz was already a step ahead of them.

DCA coach Billy Inmon said Walz had seen enough in warmups to pique his interest, and he saw plenty more as Mbugua had 34 points and 14 rebounds – and played the entire second half with four fouls – in the Lady Warriors’ 65-63 loss to Cooper.

“He said he was interested before the game started,” Inmon said. “He watched her in warmups and saw her with that left hand.

“He was telling us (later) somebody dropped a ball (during warmups) and ended up cutting right in front of her, and he said every big you’ll see would just run into that person and lose the ball, and they were right next to each other and she just did a Eurostep around them and still scored with her opposite hand. And he said he went from the stands to walk down to the floor at that point. He said he knew there was something special about her when she did that.”

Of course, Mbugua wasn’t thinking about her collegiate future before, during and certainly not after that game.

“I was just very nervous for the game. Never, never was I thinking about, ‘Hey, this is my big shot, too,’” she said. “I just wanted to win, and I just think God had great plans for me that night.

“All I can say is I could feel his presence while playing. It was the craziest thing ever, and I think God was working in his ways. It was a big stage where he chose for me to show my talents, and it just worked out perfectly for his good.”

Mbugua had had other games with similar or better numbers, but they were played in relative anonymity. She hasn’t played travel ball and as a result wasn’t as well known by coaches as major college recruits typically are.

Walz called Inmon early the next morning and was talking to Mbugua within two or three weeks. And while every coach who was recruiting her assured her that her knee injury wouldn’t affect their interest, Walz went the extra mile, visiting her as often as the rules allowed.

“With Louisville, it was just Coach Walz and his passion for recruiting me,” she said. “He’d come to my practices every week and he’d come down here and check on me and just see how I’m doing, not just basketball-wise but recovery-wise.”

She made an unofficial visit to Louisville earlier this year that left a favorable impression, but she said the official visit – the last one she took after trips to Baylor, Kentucky, LSU, North Carolina State and West Virginia – sealed the deal.

“It was an amazing experience,” Mbugua said. “And I think the difference on the official visit was meeting the girls for the first time. .. “I think I made a bunch of personal connections with the players just on the two days I was down there at Louisville.”

Mbugua, who came to Danville from Kenya at age 12, has led the state in rebounds for the past three seasons. She was a top-five scorer as a junior last season, when she averaged 25.7 points, 15.4 rebounds and 6.6 blocked shots and shot 62 percent to lead DCA to its first 12th Region championship.

She committed to Liberty prior to her freshman season and was already considering reopening her recruitment before her breakout game.

“I talked to Liberty’s coach and we ended things in a good way, which I’m thankful for,” Mbugua said. “Liberty is a great place, it’s a great school, but I just wanted to be able to compete against the best teams in the country.”

Mbugua will get that chance at Louisville. In his 17 seasons there, Walz has led the Cardinals on 12 trips to the NCAA Sweet 16, eight trips to the Elite Eight, four trips to the Final Four and two trips to the national finals. He has a string of 14 consecutive 20-win seasons, and he has seen 15 players drafted in the WNBA.

“He reminds me of Coach Billy, just his principles and the core values of the teams and the way he coaches,” Mbugua said. “I like his passion for his players and how he uses freshmen to win games, too.”

Inmon said the coaches of the schools Mbugua visited, from LSU’s Kim Mulkey to first-year Kentucky coach Kenny Brooks, were all incredible, but he said the way Mbugua connected with Louisville’s players may have been just as important.

“She had a comfort about her that she didn’t have in any other place,” Inmon said.

Mbugua, who is continuing her recovery from knee surgery in hopes of being ready to play in January, said she marvels at how a single game changed the course of her future.

“I mean, it’s all God,” she said.