UK women top LSU at SEC Tournament

Kentucky got a rude reminder at an important time.

In its first game at the Southeastern Conference Tournament on Thursday, No. 13 UK appeared to be cruising to the quarterfinals, blowing Louisiana State out by as many as 20 points in the third quarter.

But the Tigers weren’t ready to see their season end, and UK got a late wake-up call.

“If we play with tremendous focus and effort, and play for each other, don’t let off the gas pedal, we’re a good team,” Coach Matthew Mitchell said after UK’s 79-71 win over LSU in the second-round game. “When we don’t, you saw what could happen to us.”

As the Cats put it on cruise control, they nearly wrecked the game, with the Tigers using a late run to pull within eight points late in the fourth quarter.

“Today was a great reminder that if we don’t play hard then we can get beat,” said senior Janee Thompson, who led the Cats with 17 points, six assists and four rebounds

It was an important message for UK as it heads to Friday’s quarterfinals to face No. 25 Florida, which upset the Cats in Gainesville at the end of January.

Kentucky (22-6) went into the LSU game on a six-game win streak, beating opponents by an average of 15 points and outrebounding by double digits.

It looked as if this game against an outmanned LSU (10-21) was heading in that direction again. Then, just as they did in Lexington last month, the Tigers made a game of it late.

But the Cats made enough plays down the stretch to win, including getting key baskets in the final minutes off the bench from Taylor Murray and Alyssa Rice, who had a season-best nine points.

Kentucky played its final five minutes without star guard Makayla Epps, who had a flare-up of a knee injury she suffered Sunday at Texas A&M. She sat most of the final quarter with a large ice bag on her right knee.

Epps went up for a layup late in the game and was pushed from behind, sending her surging forward and into lots of pain.

“It gave out,” she said of her knee. “A bunch of pain shot through the front. It’s just real sore right now.”

The knee pain didn’t slow the junior in the first half, when she scored 14 of her 17 points.

Behind Epps, UK was able to get on a roll, scoring 14 unanswered points in the first quarter, the most consecutive points the Cats have managed against an SEC opponent this season.

“We’re a good team when we can play tough defense, disrupt the opponent,” Mitchell said. “I thought we did a nice job of that in the first quarter.”

For LSU, that quarter “is where we really lost the game,” said Coach Nikki Fargas, whose team trailed 25-14 after one quarter and 41-29 at the break. “Offensively our execution wasn’t there. They did a nice job of capitalizing off of our turnovers, which led to layups and three-point plays.”

Evelyn Akhator, who had her fourth double-double in the past five games for Kentucky, got the second half started well. The junior forward scored six straight points out of the locker room and finished with 15 points and 13 rebounds.

A Thompson layup with four minutes left in the third quarter extended the Kentucky lead to 20 points before the Tigers started their rally.

“Basically down the stretch I didn’t want the season to end,” said LSU’s Akilah Bethel, who had 17 points and 10 rebounds in the loss. “I wanted to play hard for my team and do whatever I had to do to try to continue the journey.”

Alexis Hyder led all scorers with 23 points and 10 boards for the Tigers, who lost 11 of their final 12 games of the season.

Kentucky got nine points apiece from Rice and Alexis Jennings, who also had five boards for Kentucky, which outrebounded the Tigers 36-32.

UK walked away from Veterans Memorial Arena with a win and a valuable lesson.

“It’s a great wake-up call for our team that we have to hustle for 40 minutes,” Mitchell said. “We had some really, really great moments in the game today. They were all born from hustle. When we didn’t, you saw how we looked.”

This story was originally published March 3, 2016 at 4:50 PM with the headline "UK women top LSU at SEC Tournament."