Three takeaways from No. 21 Kentucky’s women’s basketball loss at No. 1 South Carolina
The Kentucky women’s basketball team faced its third top-10 opponent in a true road game this season on Sunday afternoon when it visited South Carolina.
After a 21-point loss at Indiana and a six-point loss at Louisville, Kentucky once again tasted defeat against the No. 1-ranked South Carolina Gamecocks.
South Carolina pulled away with a 23-9 scoring advantage in the second quarter on its way to defeating UK 74-54.
The 20-point Gamecocks win was powered by junior forward Aliyah Boston, who led the hosts with 18 points and 15 rebounds. Kentucky star guard Rhyne Howard struggled again to score against an elite team, totaling just nine points on 2-for-14 shooting from the field.
South Carolina 74, Kentucky 54
The star: Junior forward Aliyah Boston continued her National Player of the Year campaign for South Carolina with 18 points and 15 rebounds.
The stats: Kentucky was led in scoring by Robyn Benton, who came off the bench again to score 11 points. Also scoring in double figures was Jazmine Massengill, Treasure Hunt and Dre’una Edwards, who all had 10 points.
The status: South Carolina improved to 15-1 overall and 3-1 in SEC play. Kentucky fell to 8-4 overall and 1-1 in SEC play.
Three takeaways
1. SOUTH CAROLINA USES SIZE TO OUTMUSCLE UK AT THE RIM AND ON THE GLASS.
The rebounding matchup on Sunday figured to be a significant advantage for South Carolina, and despite a slow start in the first quarter the Gamecocks took full advantage of their size disparity over the Wildcats.
South Carolina outrebounded Kentucky 55-37 for the game, and 43-24 over the final three quarters of the game.
The Gamecocks had a 54-22 points in the paint advantage.
“Just us having to bang so hard early, I thought our bigs started to get fatigued a little bit,” UK Coach Kyra Elzy said. “We are undersized. We knew that coming into the season. We’re not going to grow.”
Elzy added that UK can use its lack of size to its advantage by being versatile, such as through pick and pop offense and having all five players on the floor being threats from three-point range.
South Carolina’s length and rim presence was also a problem for UK on offense.
The Wildcats went 11-for-32 on layups in the game and South Carolina recorded nine blocks.
“I thought we missed some easy layups in that second quarter, which really affected us defensively,” Elzy said. “We left way too many points on the board with layups and free throws.”
2. UK’s THREE-POINT SHOOTING SHINES ON DISMAL OFFENSIVE DAY.
Offense was a struggle and a slog for large portions of Sunday’s game for UK.
The Wildcats went 21-for-71 from the field overall and 14-for-53 on two-point shots.
Distance shooting was a different story though, as UK made seven of its 18 three-point shots. The majority of these makes came in the first half as well, before UK began settling for low-percentage attempts as the game wore on.
The scoring struggle for UK was epitomized by star senior guard Rhyne Howard, who went more than two quarters without making a field goal during the game and finished 2-for-14 shooting from the field. Howard scored just nine points for the Wildcats to go along with eight rebounds and six assists.
“She is the one person that can change the complexion of a game on both sides of the basketball,” South Carolina Coach Dawn Staley said of Howard. “What we wanted to do is make her work hard for catches. If she caught it, just give her a little cushion, just make her think a little bit. No one really speeds her up or slows her down, it’s just you want to take options away from her and for us it was just clean looks.”
“If we could contest all of her shots, if we could just be there when she went downhill on us in the paint and make her shoot over us, that’s what we wanted to do.”
In contrast, South Carolina’s National Player of the Year candidate had a standout day. Junior forward Aliyah Boston tallied her ninth straight double-double with 18 points and 15 rebounds.
Elzy said she was “sleepless” on Saturday night trying to think of ways to slow down Boston.
“She’s very skilled around the basket, but she can step out. You have to bring so much attention to her,” Elzy said. “We tried to bring the double (team) to her. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn’t. Her ability to score through contact and (she’s) relentless on the boards.”
Freshman guard Jada Walker, who started for Kentucky with senior guard Robyn Benton coming off the bench, also had a tough offensive day. Walker missed all seven of her shot attempts and didn’t score.
“She played like a rookie today, but that’s okay,” Elzy said of Walker. “We’re still counting on her. She is fearless.”
3. KENTUCKY’S STILL WITHOUT A ROAD WIN.
The competition has been stiff, but Kentucky is still without a win away from Lexington this season.
The Wildcats have dropped all three of their road contests to Indiana, Louisville and South Carolina, teams which have a combined record of 40-4 this season.
UK is now 1-4 this season against teams projected by ESPN’s Charlie Creme to make the NCAA Tournament. The lone win came earlier this week at home against No. 15 Georgia.
Kentucky’s next chance to get a road win will come next Sunday afternoon at No. 7 Tennessee.
Up next
The conference contests continue to come thick and fast for UK. Next the Wildcats return to Lexington for a home game against Mississippi State. Kentucky was supposed to play the Bulldogs earlier in January, but COVID-19 problems in the UK program caused the game to be postponed. Mississippi State is 11-4 overall and 2-1 in SEC play after defeating Vanderbilt at home on Sunday afternoon.
Next game
No. 21 Kentucky vs. Mississippi State
When: 7 p.m. Thursday
Online: SEC Network Plus
This story was originally published January 9, 2022 at 2:55 PM.
