Cold-shooting Wildcats find their fire against Morehead State
Memorial Coliseum turned into a microwave for the cold-shooting Kentucky Wildcats on Thursday.
UK clobbered Morehead State, 79-54, for its biggest win of the 2019-20 season. It never trailed the Eagles, who missed their first four shots and fell behind by double digits by the end of the opening quarter.
Before Thursday the Cats hadn’t hit the 70-point mark in a game this season; they scored 67 in each of their first three contests and 50 in their last outing.
Kentucky, which entered 4-0 despite ranking among the NCAA’s poorest shot-makers, connected on nearly 50 percent of their first-half shots to build a 48-24 lead.
A sloppy fourth quarter knocked its final percentage down to 39.7, still its best through five games. The Cats also shot a season-high 34.4 percent from three-point range.
“So many times tonight we could point to much-improved execution, and that’s a real credit to our players’ practice, giving great effort and then taking it to the court,” UK Coach Matthew Mitchell said. “There’s still plenty of room for growth but I was glad to take a good step forward tonight.”
Rhyne Howard missed her first three shots but finished 9-for-20 to lead Kentucky with 24 points, matching her season high, in only 22 minutes. She also had six rebounds, four steals and three assists.
It was only the second time this season Howard shot at least 40 percent from the floor; she was 34.4 percent overall through four games.
“We knew it was a matter of time,” Morehead State Coach Greg Todd said. “We were hoping she’d wait one more game before she went off. She’s just a very smart player, does a lot of things very well.”
Sabrina Haines, UK’s second-leading scorer after sitting out last year due to NCAA transfer rules, had 14 points and five rebounds.
Haines and Howard so far have been a potent one-two punch. They’re the only Wildcats averaging double-digit scoring. Combined they were 8-for-18 from behind the three-point line on Thursday.
“That’s a good development for us,” Mitchell said. “(I) was proud of those two tonight. I thought they came out really aggressive and were efficient.”
Kentucky failed to better Morehead in the paint (both teams scored 26) but generated 35 points off 24 turnovers.
The Wildcats by halftime had made more shots — 18 — than the Eagles attempted (17). They finished 29 of 73 overall to Morehead’s 16-for-47 clip.
Breuna Jackson made a pair of free throws to bring the Eagles (2-3) within 12-8 with 3:48 left in the first quarter but that’s as close as they’d get the rest of the night. Kentucky in less than two minutes used a 10-0 run — capped by a Blair Green putback jumper — to push its advantage to 22-8 before Alyssa Nieves stopped the drought for the visitors with a triple.
Morehead played UK within a point out of the break — 31-30 — but by then the margin was too wide.
“We were a little rattled, no question, early on,” Todd said. “ ... I thought we got better as the game on.”
Quick hits
▪ Amanda Paschal scored only three points on 1-for-6 shooting but finished with a career-high eight assists, topping her previous mark of five against South Florida last season, and seven rebounds and only one turnover. She’s 9-for-4 from the field this year.
“Amanda’s shooting numbers have not been very good,” Mitchell said. “But if you look over it, 8 assists, that’s a ton of assists. That’s a ton of baskets that she helped us earn tonight.”
▪ KeKe McKinney, who suffered an ankle injury in the second half of UK’s 50-47 win at Virginia on Saturday, started for the Wildcats and played 21 minutes. She finished with six points, four blocks, two rebounds and a steal.
▪Tatyana Wyatt finished just shy of a double-double with 10 points and eight rebounds.
▪ Tomiyah Alford and Jazzmyn Elston paced Morehead with 11 points each. Campbell County graduate MacKenzie Schwarber, the only in-state player on the Eagles’ roster, played 20 minutes. She finished with 3 rebounds.
Mitchell and Morehead
About a decade before taking the reins at Morehead State, Todd was a prominent girls’ high school coach in Kentucky. He’s still the all-time leader among KHSAA 11th Region coaches with 391 wins.
Mitchell was the head coach at Morehead from 2005-2007, a span in which Todd’s teams at Lexington Catholic were among the state’s elite. The Knights won back-to-back championships in 2005 and 2006.
“I’ve known Greg Todd just about as long as anybody in the state,” Mitchell said prior to Thursday’s game. “ … I’ve just been able to watch him for 17 years and admire him as a coach.”
Next game
Grambling State at No. 13 Kentucky
When: 7 p.m. Tuesday
Live video broadcast: SEC Network Plus (online only)
This story was originally published November 21, 2019 at 9:24 PM.
