‘Those two are powerful for us,’ Mitchell says of UK seniors

English is not Evelyn Akhator’s first language.

Kentucky’s senior worries that she might say the wrong thing every time she has to get in front of a crowd to speak.

So the Lagos, Nigeria native was a little bit shocked and definitely scared when UK Coach Matthew Mitchell told the forward that she would be accompanying him and guard Makayla Epps to Southeastern Conference Media Days on Thursday.

“I was nervous,” she said in her quiet voice at a table inside Bridgestone Arena. “I was really nervous, but Coach Mitchell and Epps were telling me it was going to be fine and just to have fun.”

Akhator is quite the polar opposite of Epps, the funny, boisterous senior guard whose name is on nearly every preseason All-Everything list this year.

“I think it’s fun,” Epps said of being at Media Day. “I’m a small town kid that’s the face of a big-time program. … I love the cameras, the mics.”

So the seniors couldn’t be more different, at least on the surface, but they have a key component in common that will help UK as it attempts to regroup after a turbulent season that included a mass exodus of players, assistant coaches and recruits.

“There’s no one I’d rather represent us here than these two,” Mitchell said of Epps and Akhator. “On very different journeys, they both have come to the conclusion that it matters who they are as people.”

For Akhator, it was moving halfway across the globe to play basketball after the unexpected death of her mother. For Epps, it was a series of challenges during her time at UK that helped her grow up and turn into a leader.

“They both went through that process where they decided I’m going to be a positive person, a person that has some core strength to me from a principled standpoint,” Mitchell said. “That’s everything we want in a Kentucky player.”

There are still a lot of question marks about what kind of team Kentucky — picked to finish fourth in the SEC by a select group of media — can be.

With just six players back from last season’s 25-8 team that went to the NCAA Tournament Sweet 16 (and eight scholarship players in all), it’s still yet to be determined if the Cats can repeat their past success.

Will depth concerns keep them from implementing UK’s oft-discussed “40 minutes of dread” defense? Will the Cats be able to repeat their offensive success with so few post options?

There are so many more questions about this season and what lies ahead, but Mitchell said Epps and Akhator are perfect guides as the team sails through uncharted waters.

“Those two girls love people,” the head coach said of Epps, who led UK in scoring at 17.1 points and 4.8 rebounds a game, and Akhator, who led UK in rebounding with 9.3 boards to go with her 11.5 points.

“They love to help people. That’s awesome to have as seniors.”

Mitchell points a drill in practice the day before that the coach called “very intense and very tough.”

He saw Epps talking to her teammates the entire time, encouraging them even though she was probably tired, too.

“That wouldn’t have happened two years ago,” he said. “That’s leadership.”

He saw Akhator stop the drill to show several players where they needed to be.

“Those two are powerful for us,” he said. “I’m really happy that we have this kind of senior leadership going into this year.”

It’s not hard to lead a team that is so connected and so in tune with one another after living through the difficulties of last season.

“It’s not because we’re seniors, but our commitment,” Akhator explained. “The chemistry and also as a team, we really understand each other. … It’s made it easy for us to lead because it’s such a committed group of girls.”

Akhator went home to Nigeria in May to visit with her family, which she hadn’t done in more than a year. While it was nice to reconnect with them, the forward found herself longing for Lexington.

“After a short time, I started missing my team,” she said. “I was FaceTiming with Epps.”

The two seniors have known each other for a short amount of time, but they have a connection.

The entire team does, they said.

It will make them a force to be reckoned with when the season starts in a few weeks.

“We’re all on the same page,” Epps said in a quiet voice usually used by her fellow senior Akhator. “We all have the same mindset. We want to make statements. We want to win games.”

This story was originally published October 20, 2016 at 6:29 PM with the headline "‘Those two are powerful for us,’ Mitchell says of UK seniors."