Epps adds shooting star to repertoire in Kentucky’s 78-60 exhibition win

The name Makayla Epps will be featured prominently in the Kentucky record books for the next few decades.

The senior guard already is a top-20 scorer and she has a full season to go. She’s one of just two players to ever get a triple-double.

Her 42-point performance in 2015 was one point off the most ever in a single game.

Perhaps she’s gunning for another record or two this season. Like, say, the three-point mark.

In a 78-60 exhibition victory over Division II Union University on Thursday night, Epps hit six three-pointers as part of her 31-point performance.

She had five three-pointers in the first 10 minutes. In the past three seasons, Epps had never attempted more than six in a game.

“I want to be dangerous in every aspect of basketball, to the rim, mid-range, three-pointer,” said Epps, who also had five rebounds and four assists. “I don’t want people to leave me open and not respect my jump shot. I put a lot of work in the offseason.”

Coach Matthew Mitchell confirmed that Epps worked hard on her three-point shot in the offseason. It’s what UK needs from her this year.

“For this particular team, Makayla’s got to be very aggressive offensively,” he said. “That’s the exactly the mentality I wanted (from) her.”

The Cats, who outrebounded Union 50-25, including holding the Bulldogs to just four offensive rebounds, got a double-double from forward Evelyn Akhator with 17 points and 17 rebounds.

“(Epps) and Evelyn are our two horses that need to get the most touches, ” Mitchell said of his seniors. “Those two are going to have to really produce and have a scorer’s mentality.”

But the head coach was pleased with the Cats’ complementary players, too, including former Anderson County standout Makenzie Cann, who added 10 points off the bench.

Junior Alyssa Rice pulled down 10 rebounds and Taylor Murray led the Cats in assists with seven, all in the first half.

Epps didn’t miss from three-point range in the first half, collecting five from long distance to rack up 22 points in 16 minutes. She had nine of UK’s first 11 points to give the Cats a quick 11-0 advantage.

The Cats shot 48.6 in the first half and 57.1 percent from three-point range. Of their 18 field goals, 14 were assisted and seven of those were by Murray.

Kentucky, which is rebounding from a season that saw six players transfer and another get dismissed, suffered a scare near the end of the first half when Maci Morris went down with a knee injury. But the sophomore guard returned and started the second half.

Morris added eight points, but missed all four three-pointers she attempted. She led the Cats with three steals.

“It slowed her down a little bit in the second half, but she’s a tough kid; she’ll bounce back,” Mitchell said.

Kentucky’s hot shots cooled in the second half, shooting 26.5 percent from the field, including 18.2 percent from three-point range.

“Just couldn’t get them to go down and that started getting in our heads a little bit and we didn’t play with as much confidence,” said Mitchell, whose team made 38 percent of its shots and 40 percent from three-point range for the game.

Union, which was paced by 15 points apiece for Chelsea Bodiford and Tiffany Rechis, made 44.4 percent of its shots and nailed 41.7 percent of its three-pointers.

“We had to run so much against that offense that it showed us where we need to work some our defense,” Mitchell said. “It was a tough, tough game to play tonight because of how hard Union made us work.”

But Mitchell and his players believe the tape from this win will be an excellent primer for the Cats’ regular-season opener on Nov. 11 against No. 14 Miami (Fla.) at Memorial Coliseum. They also will play the next night against Albany.

“We could have scheduled a lot of teams that might have looked a little more traditional and we might have looked a little better defensively,” he said of Union. “I thought (we) did a good job of hanging in and hustling and figuring some things out.”

UK picked to finish fifth in SEC

The coaches of the Southeastern Conference are a little skeptical that Kentucky can bounce back from a difficult offseason that included a slew of player and assistant coach departures.

The Cats were picked to finish fifth overall behind South Carolina, Mississippi State, Tennessee and Florida. A couple of weeks before, a select group of media picked UK to finish fourth overall.

The league’s coaches did agree with the media on Epps, who was picked as one of the top players in the conference, according to a poll released by the SEC office on Thursday afternoon.

No other UK player was picked on the preseason All-SEC teams.

This story was originally published November 3, 2016 at 9:08 PM with the headline "Epps adds shooting star to repertoire in Kentucky’s 78-60 exhibition win."