Three takeaways from No. 13 Kentucky’s season-opening win over Presbyterian
Despite trailing by as many as 12 points and struggling with its halfcourt offense in the first half, No. 13 Kentucky began Kyra Elzy’s second season as head coach with a victory Tuesday night in Memorial Coliseum.
Kentucky trailed by 10 after the first quarter, led by one at halftime and eventually registered an 81-53 victory over Presbyterian.
The game’s turning point came in the third quarter, as UK opened the second half on a 19-0 run after senior guard Rhyne Howard gave the Wildcats a halftime lead with a buzzer-beating three-pointer that was banked in from nearly halfcourt.
Here are three takeaways from Kentucky’s season-opening win.
1. UK OVERCOMES SLOW START.
Tuesday’s season opener got off to a rough start for the Wildcats, who shot just 5-of-17 from the field and 1-of-8 from three-point range in the opening quarter and trailed by as many as 12 points in the first half.
Kentucky didn’t take its first lead in the game until the 1:27 mark of the second quarter.
“We fell in love with the three-point line early instead of attacking the gaps,” Elzy said, as the Wildcats went 4-of-15 from three-point range in the first half.
The lead then briefly shifted back in Presbyterian’s favor before Howard banked in a three-pointer from nearly halfcourt as the halftime buzzer sounded to give UK a 38-37 advantage at the break.
Presbyterian’s first-half offense was efficient against what Elzy wants to be a frenetic and fast-paced defense: The Blue Hose made 12 of their 22 first-half shots, including three of six three-point attempts.
“I just told them, ‘I don’t know what Kentucky team this is, but let’s leave them wherever they are and bring out the real Kentucky team,’” Elzy said of her halftime message. “We have to bring the defensive energy. We had more in the tank than we showed and when we got after it defensively it led to easy scoring opportunities to ignite a run. I definitely think we let our offense affect our defense (in the first half).”
“We pretty much had to fix everything really,” Howard said. “They were getting too many easy buckets and we just weren’t playing like Kentucky.”
But out of the halftime break, Kentucky stepped on the accelerator: The Wildcats opened the second half on a 19-0 run, making their first nine shots from the field, and it took the Blue Hose nearly six minutes to score their first points of the half.
UK also flipped the rebounding battle during the decisive third quarter. Presbyterian had a 17-14 rebounding advantage over Kentucky at halftime, but by the end of the third quarter it was UK out-rebounding Presbyterian, 24-22.
In the third quarter alone Kentucky outscored Presbyterian, 29-6, to put the game far out of reach.
UK used a new lineup to start the second half as well. The group that started both halves of the exhibition win over NCAA Division II Lee University, as well as started the Presbyterian game, was comprised of guards Jazmine Massengill, Emma King and Howard, along with forwards Dre’una Edwards and center Olivia Owens.
But to start the second half it was guards Robyn Benton and Treasure Hunt who joined Massengill, Howard and Edwards in the lineup.
Elzy said the decision was a result of game flow.
Over the entire 40 minutes it was Edwards who led UK in scoring with 20 points.
Treasure Hunt, a sophomore guard, also had a career night for Kentucky, setting personal bests in scoring with 18 points, rebounding with nine and assists with five while operating out of the post.
“I thought she was willing to put her feet in the paint and score which really opened us up from the outside,” Elzy said of Hunt. “She has stuck with the process, she continues to work, but she’s just gifted offensively. Has a great feel for the game, she can score at all three levels, has great size, so she makes us different offensively.”
“We just had to get to the open spaces of the court. They were playing a zone most of the game so the middle was open,” Hunt said. “That’s all we had to do, get to the middle.”
2. RHYNE HOWARD BEGINS SENIOR SEASON.
Rhyne Howard’s highly anticipated senior season began with a 15-point outing Tuesday night.
But three of Howard’s points served as a major momentum swing in the game.
As the halftime buzzer sounded, Howard pulled up from the left side of the court, nearly at the UK logo emblazoned on the Memorial Coliseum hardwood, and banked in a three-pointer to give UK a one-point halftime lead.
It was just Howard’s third made basket of the night, and her second made three-pointer, but as she raised an imaginary bow and arrow toward the sky to cheers from the Memorial Coliseum crowd, it felt as if the course of the game had shifted.
“I think that was a momentum changer,” Elzy said.
“When she hit that three I was turnt up,” Benton added.
“Hitting that to take us into halftime, giving us the lead, it was big and everybody was hyped,” Howard said of her shot. “Then you saw what happened when we came out ... it got us going.”
The shot was the kind of signature moment Howard hopes to build her senior campaign around.
Earlier Tuesday, Howard added two more prestigious preseason honors to her list of accolades. Howard was named to the watch lists for both the Wooden Award and the Women’s Basketball Coaches Association Wade Trophy.
3. UK BALANCES REPS AND REST WITH EIGHT SCHOLARSHIP PLAYERS AVAILABLE.
Before Tuesday’s season opener, the depth of this year’s UK team was dealt another blow with the announcement that sophomore forward Nyah Leveretter would be out for an “unspecified amount of time” due to a non-COVID illness.
This comes on top of having sophomore guard Erin Toller dismissed from the program in early October, and losing senior guard Blair Green for the season due to a ruptured right Achilles late last month.
With Leveretter’s absence, the Wildcats are down to just eight scholarship players, all of whom played at least 12 minutes in Tuesday’s win over Presbyterian.
Balancing repetitions and rest will be something Elzy needs to manage in the coming days. UK plays again Thursday night against North Alabama before a marquee non-conference matchup at No. 8 Indiana on Sunday evening.
“It is a balance, even if we had more players on the roster three games in six days is a lot, especially with the style of play we play,” Elzy said. “Even with eight we have enough, and we’ve talked about it. We’re tough, we’re resilient and we are fit.”
Fan reaction of the game
After each Kentucky women’s basketball game this season, Herald-Leader reporter Cameron Drummond will ask Wildcats fans on Twitter to share their reactions to the game in GIF form.
One response will be selected from the replies and included in his three takeaways from the game.
Here’s tonight’s selection:
Up next
UK continues a stretch of three games in six days with a home non-conference matchup against North Alabama of the ASUN Conference on Thursday (7 p.m., SEC Network Plus). The Lions are 1-0, having defeated NCAA Division III Blackburn College, 114-52, on Tuesday afternoon.
This story was originally published November 9, 2021 at 9:08 PM.
