Bluegrass hue to Kentucky women’s roster has its positives, negatives

There’s a decidedly Kentucky flavor to the UK women’s basketball roster this season.

“One day you might turn around and there might be five Kentucky girls out there” on the court, said senior Makayla Epps, one of the six in-state players on this season’s roster.

There’s Epps from Marion County along with Maci Morris from Bell County returning and the addition of Cincinnati transfer Makenzie Cann from Anderson County.

Then UK added walk-on guard Jessica Hardin from Wayne County, who later earned a scholarship that Coach Matthew Mitchell lamented he he should’ve given her out of high school.

Then there are other walk-ons like Rachel Potter from Pikeville and LaShae Halsel from Bowling Green.

“It’s really good having a lot of Kentucky girls because we like to represent our state,” Morris said.

But that does create some colorful history among some of the players like Morris and Hardin, former rivals.

“Me and Jess, we went at it when we played each other,” Morris said. “We had an incident in a game one time and I ended up having to go to the hospital because my tooth went through my lip.”

Hardin apologized long ago and continued doing so at the team’s annual Media Day on Friday afternoon.

“It was an accident,” she laughed. “I swear it was an accident.”

With all of the talk of departures from last season, including nearly half the team and all three assistant coaches, Cann noted that it’s no accident that many of the players who stayed are from this state.

“It’s a great opportunity being a Kentucky kid who stayed,” she said. “And I don’t think we’ve ever really had a drop-off. We’re all really excited and we’re all really close. It does create a special bond. We all stayed and we never really second-guessed each other. So that’s really great.”

There is one drawback to all of the Bluegrass kids wearing blue, though, Epps said.

“I was joking around with them that those are my comp tickets,” she smiled. “I can’t have all my buddies and my family here because we have (so many) Kentucky girls. There’s not enough tickets to spread around.”

A look at season ticket sales

Despite the turnover and turmoil last season, Kentucky’s season ticket sales numbers don’t seem to have taken much of a dive. As of Tuesday, UK has sold 3,713 season tickets, just 92 tickets fewer than were sold at this time last year.

Kentucky also has focused more this offseason on trying to thank its annual season ticket holders through special events, said Guy Ramsey, UK’s director of strategic communications.

There are expected to be some events geared toward getting people to buy tickets in the next week or two as the season gets closer, he added. The Cats tip off the season on Nov. 11 versus Miami (Fla.).

Kentucky’s highest season ticket sales figure was in the 2015-16 season when they sold 4,150. In the last four years, UK has sold roughly 4,000 per season.

Last season, UK drew 116,164 fans for its home games, the second-highest total attendance in school history. The Cats averaged 6,454 fans, eighth-best nationally.

This story was originally published October 21, 2016 at 8:12 PM with the headline "Bluegrass hue to Kentucky women’s roster has its positives, negatives."