Mitchell: UK women will keep bad loss in perspective

Kentucky has two weeks to let its worst loss of the season marinate before NCAA Tournament pairings and destinations are announced.

And while he said the No. 13 Cats will no doubt have plenty of lessons to learn from their worst defeat of the season, a 93-63 thumping from No. 3 South Carolina, Coach Matthew Mitchell said his team wasn’t going to let one loss dismantle the confidence it has built from the eight straight wins before it.

“You have to keep everything in perspective right now,” Mitchell said. “It’s one loss in the SEC Tournament. …

“I know the character of our players, the character of our team. As disappointing as today is, we won’t run from it, we won’t hide from it. We will have patience and teach.”

Kentucky’s eight-game win streak before the loss to the Gamecocks most likely helped the Cats earn the right to host the opening two rounds of the NCAA Tournament at Memorial Coliseum March 18-20.

But the big win for South Carolina probably clinched a No. 2 overall seed in the tournament and put them in the Rupp Arena Regional, which means UK won’t be able to play there, per the NCAA’s bracketing principles.

Lexington is the closest site geographically for the Gamecocks, so they’ll be put there.

Based on the NCAA’s policies that govern the bracketing process, conference foe Kentucky would be shipped to a different region than South Carolina’s: Dallas, Bridgeport, Conn., or Sioux Falls, S.D.

“Each of the first four teams selected from a conference shall be placed in different regions if they are seeded on the first four lines,” the NCAA’s bracketing principles say, noting that teams from the same conference are not allowed to meet prior to the region final.

UK’s head coach said he can’t imagine a scenario where Kentucky doesn’t earn one of the top four seeds if not higher.

“I don’t know how we wouldn’t be with the résumé that we have,” he said of UK, which is 7-3 versus ranked opponents this season, with all three losses coming to South Carolina. “But I don’t really focus on those things. I have zero control.”

Its late-season surge also helped UK move up to a No. 3 seed in the tournament, according to ESPN bracketologist Charlie Creme’s latest bracket.

That bracket, released Saturday morning, has UK as the three seed in the Dallas Regional. The top seed in that region is Baylor, followed by No. 2 seed Oregon State.

Kentucky’s Makayla Epps predicted the team would bounce back from the bad loss in time for its next tournament run.

“Fortunately for us our season is not over,” she said. “We still get a shot in the NCAA Tournament, which I’m grateful for. I’m sure we’ll make a good push in that one.”

The Cats can’t dwell on the past, guard Maci Morris said.

“We’ll go home and practice and work hard, just keep preparing for our next game, whenever that is,” she said. “We’ll bounce back.”

Future rivalry fodder

Kentucky and South Carolina have a long history of dislike.

And the 93-63 whipping in the semifinals of the Southeastern Conference Tournament on Saturday no doubt added more bulletin-board material for future meetings between the rivals who hit each other twice a year in the regular season.

Gamecocks A’ja Wilson and Tiffany Mitchell said it was the dislike that fueled the big win, South Carolina’s third in a row over UK and their sixth in the past eight games.

“Something about the rivalry gets underneath our skin and we really want to play our best,” said Wilson, who had 18 points, six rebounds and four blocked shots. “I think that rivalry helped, knowing it was Kentucky, it really helped us out.”

Mitchell, who most likely played UK for the last time in her career, did a little dance move that Wilson called a “shimmy” after nailing her final shot of the game, a three-pointer from the right corner in the fourth quarter.

When asked to describe that moment, Mitchell said: “I mean, it just felt good. It felt right at the moment. I was feeling good. Our team was up. We were all just hyped.”

This story was originally published March 5, 2016 at 10:01 PM with the headline "Mitchell: UK women will keep bad loss in perspective."