Mark Story: UK Hoops hopes new emphasis on offense yields March Madness breakthrough

The past six seasons have been fairly stellar for Kentucky women’s basketball. Six straight NCAA Tournament rounds of 32, four sweet 16 trips, three Elite Eights is nothing to sneeze at.

But, in college basketball, the ultimate judgment is rendered on whether or not you make the Final Four.

That is one thing UK is yet to do.

So, last offseason, Matthew Mitchell took a long, hard look at what separated UK Hoops from the programs – Connecticut, Notre Dame, Baylor – that make frequent trips to the season’s final weekend.

What he identified was shooting percentage.

Last season’s four Final Four teams all shot better than 47.9. En route to the 2015 NCAA championship, Connecticut shot 54 percent, meanwhile Notre Dame shot 49.2, South Carolina 48.4, Baylor 47.9.

UK shot 39.9 last season. Before this year, Mitchell’s best shooting team at Kentucky (2013-14) shot 43.4 percent.

So, over the past offseason, Mitchell ordered his team to work strenuously on making shots.

Now, with one game left in the regular season, the 2015-16 Cats (20-6, 9-6 SEC) are shooting 45.4 percent from the field.

“I think (improved shooting) is why this team is where we are,” Mitchell said. “We’re not out there ‘out-talenting’ people; we’re not blowing people’s doors off because we’re super talented.”

Kentucky point guard Janee Thompson wrote a storybook Senior Night for herself, scoring 12 of her game-high 24 points in the fourth quarter to rally No. 15 UK from a 51-50 deficit to a 69-59 victory over No. 24 Missouri (21-7, 8-7) before 6,496 in Memorial Coliseum Thursday night.

It was UK’s seventh straight victory on Senior Night and was Kentucky’s 100th win with Thompson on its roster.

“We could talk about her all night,” Mitchell said of the Chicago product.

Now, with only the regular-season finale at Texas A&M between UK Hoops and the postseason, we are about to see if Mitchell’s attempt to change the personality of his program will pay off in the postseason.

Partly due to player defections, and that left Kentucky with only nine eligible scholarship players this year, but also due to design, UK is no longer dependent on what was once its signature, full-court pressure and forcing turnovers.

In 2015-16, the Cats have tried to become more efficient offensively by putting the ball in the basket with greater frequency.

Making such a big change within a successful program is a gamble.

“Very challenging, but it’s necessary,” Mitchell said. “We’re always asking players to get out of their comfort zones and make themselves better.

“Well, we’ve done a lot at Kentucky. We’ve gone a good piece up the mountain. But we really believe we can win a national championship here. We really believe we can be a Final Four team at Kentucky. I believe that, so you work hard and try to make what changes you have to make.”

UK shot only 40 percent in vanquishing plucky Mizzou and its impressive freshman star Sophie Cunningham (29 points, 10 rebounds).

After shooting 48.9 percent in non-conference games, UK entered Thursday night’s contest shooting 43.7 in SEC contests.

So the transformation in playing styles is still a work in progress.

Though a different kind of Kentucky team, Missouri Coach Robin Pingeton said UK is still one of the SEC’s best bets in March Madness.

“Obviously, they don’t have quite as much depth as they’ve had in the past,” Pingeton said. “… But I think Kentucky is certainly one of the top three teams in our league.”

The real test for UK and its new approach to success will come in the postseason. It is entirely possible that it will take more than one season for Kentucky to fully make the transition in the way it plays.

Of course, Thompson hopes her final trip to bracket-ville in UK blue will be where the Final Four breakthrough comes. After a mid-season lull that saw Kentucky lose four of five games, UK goes to College Station to face an A&M team Sunday on a five-game winning streak.

“We’re starting to figure it out,” Thompson said. “And I definitely think our freshman and our newcomers are starting to figure it out. I think we have a completely different mentality than we did when we were losing a lot of games. I think we have a different urgency and it is great to see.”

Whatever happens in March Madness, Mitchell says Kentucky’s new-found emphasis on offensive efficiency is the right step to take the program higher up the tournament mountain.

“No matter what happens from this point forward, we’re making progress,” he said.

This story was originally published February 25, 2016 at 11:08 PM with the headline "Mark Story: UK Hoops hopes new emphasis on offense yields March Madness breakthrough."