It wasn't too terribly long ago that Kentucky was turning guards into forwards.
With no depth in the frontcourt, pretty much any player taller than 6-foot was getting some minutes in the post.
That's no longer the case.
No. 8 Kentucky showed bigger is considerably better in its 90-61 win over Samford on Wednesday night in Memorial Coliseum.
Three of UK's post players finished in double figures led by Samantha Drake's 18 points. In her first home game as a Wildcat, Samarie Walker had 10 points and team highs of seven rebounds and three blocked shots.
Their teammates were able to find them easily. They found each other, too.
"They did have some nice connections tonight, Samantha and Samarie in particular," UK Coach Matthew Mitchell said. "Those are two big, athletic players that if we can get that going it'll be nice.
"The improvement in the post game could definitely help us down the road."
Freshman forward Azia Bishop added 13 points, four rebounds and three steals. Keyla Snowden had 12 points. Bria Goss and Kastine Evans added 11 points apiece for UK, which shot a season-high 54.7 percent from the field.
Seeing the interior game start to evolve pleased Mitchell, whose team was still smarting from its first loss of the season at No. 3 Notre Dame on Sunday.
"Any time you can have post players that draw double teams, it opens up a lot," he said. "An effective post game helps you tremendously and it's exciting to have some options there."
In the small handful of practices UK (11-1) has had since falling to the Irish, Mitchell said the focus has been on getting the ball inside.
"As a coach the last couple days, I've tried to say, 'Hey, let's look there first and as we go to the ball reversal, let's try to look there again,'" said Mitchell, whose team outscored Samford in the paint 52-24 and outrebounded the Bulldogs 34-20.
The Cats had two more defensive rebounds (22) than Samford had total rebounds (20).
Drake, who was coming off a career-high 21 points at Notre Dame, scored nine straight points in the first half and was part of a big 24-6 run that ultimately put the game out of reach early.
Mitchell was impressed with the 6-foot-3 sophomore's play. After getting into double figures in just two games all of last season, Drake has scored in double digits in six of UK's past seven games.
"Through 12 games, it's been incredible to see her improvement," he said of Drake. "Those are good signs."
Samford (6-5) stayed with UK early, but after the game's first 3:30 the Bulldogs looked overmatched by the Cats' size, speed and depth.
"We weathered the storm the first three minutes pretty much and then they're subbing five in, five out," said Paige Anderson, who led Samford with a game-high 24 points. "That's really tough on us."
Walker, a transfer from Connecticut, said she was excited to play her first game at her new home court.
But she admitted that she was a little taken aback by the loud cheers from the 5,311 in Memorial Coliseum when she got off the bench for the first time to take the floor.
"It made me a little bit more nervous than I already was, but it was definitely exciting," Walker said. "When the crowd started cheering, I wasn't expecting that."
Maybe some didn't expect that Drake and Walker would develop such chemistry so early, that maybe Drake might be worried about her minutes dwindling with a former McDonald's All-American on the team.
That's not the case, Drake said.
"It's a big help not having all the pressure on me," she said. "Having another forward out there gives us another chance to score inside and work our post game."
