Three takeaways from Kentucky’s women’s basketball loss against No. 1 South Carolina
The best women’s college basketball team in the country came to Lexington on Thursday night and left victorious, albeit with a late scare.
For the second time this season in front of a national television audience on ESPN, No. 1 South Carolina defeated Kentucky, this time by a score of 59-50.
In similar fashion to the teams’ first meeting this season on Jan. 9 — a 20-point South Carolina win — the Gamecocks enjoyed a significant advantage in points in the paint and in rebounding that UK had no answer for.
Kentucky has now lost eight of its last nine games as Kyra Elzy’s team continues its free fall in Southeastern Conference play.
UK never led in Thursday’s game, and only scored in double figures during the fourth quarter. Kentucky scored 24 points in the fourth quarter and 26 points in the other three quarters combined.
The Cats cut the lead to seven points with less than two minutes remaining as South Carolina played mainly reserve players, the closest the game had been since halftime.
The 50 points scored by UK were the fewest by the Cats this season and the fewest for the team since November 2019.
South Carolina’s 59 points were the fewest for the Gamecocks in league play this season.
South Carolina 59, Kentucky 50
The star: National Player of the Year candidate Aliyah Boston was as good as advertised Thursday night, logging 14 points and 15 rebounds as part of South Carolina’s controlling interior play.
The stats: Kentucky was led in scoring by Rhyne Howard’s 21 points, 16 of which came in the final period.
The status: South Carolina is now 22-1 overall and 10-1 in the SEC. Kentucky drops to 9-11 overall and 2-8 in the SEC.
Three takeaways
1. SOUTH CAROLINA AGAIN DOMINATES IN THE PAINT AND ON THE GLASS.
During her radio show on Wednesday night, Elzy said one thing that’s plaguing Kentucky is missing easy layups.
In a 20-point loss at South Carolina on Jan. 9, Kentucky converted just 11 of 32 layup attempts (34.4%).
Elzy also stressed the importance of defending the painted area and rebounding against the Gamecocks despite South Carolina’s significant size advantage.
In the first meeting between the teams this season, South Carolina outrebounded Kentucky, 55-37, and the Gamecocks had a 54-22 points in the paint advantage over the Wildcats.
On Thursday night, South Carolina had a 46-35 rebounding advantage over Kentucky and a 46-26 points in the paint edge.
“This is what we do. We miss a lot of shots, but we give ourselves a really good chance of getting an offensive rebound and we did that today,” South Carolina head coach Dawn Staley said.
“Our first-shot defense was pretty good majority of the game,” Elzy said. “It was when we were giving up the second and third shots, and then they were scoring in the paint. That’s what they do well.”
South Carolina’s first 28 points Thursday were scored in the painted area.
Kentucky went 10-for-20 on layups in Thursday’s game.
South Carolina was without its top two bench players Thursday as junior forward Laeticia Amihere and sophomore center Kamilla Cardoso were both away from the program playing for their national teams (Canada and Brazil).
Staley said the Gamecocks would use smaller and quicker lineups without Amihere and Cardoso available to play.
But the Gamecocks still brought plenty of physicality, as evidenced by the way they handled UK on the interior.
Junior center Olivia Owens was Kentucky’s best and most physical inside presence against the Gamecocks.
Kentucky had all nine scholarship players available to play as senior guard Robyn Benton returned from a long-term ankle injury. Benton left the game with an apparent ankle injury in the fourth quarter.
All nine players played within the first 10 minutes.
While UK was outmuscled on the inside, Kentucky found relative success with its pressure defense, something that was used often in non-conference play but much less frequently in conference play.
Elzy said UK turned to its pressure defense against South Carolina in part because it had more players available.
The Wildcats forced 17 Gamecocks turnovers.
“I thought we made bad decisions. I also thought we didn’t convert in transition,” Staley said. “We were too casual from them pressuring us.”
2. RHYNE HOWARD GOT HOT IN THE FOURTH AGAINST THE NATION’S BEST TEAM.
Last time out against South Carolina, Rhyne Howard was kept in check.
Kentucky’s star senior managed just nine points on 2-for-14 shooting in the early January blowout loss at South Carolina.
On Thursday night in what could be her final game against the Gamecocks, Howard caught fire in the fourth quarter, scoring 16 points in the period alone and 21 for the game.
“I thought she started playing downhill. Rhyne was aggressive off the dribble,” Elzy said of Howard in the fourth quarter. “She made her mind up that she was going to finish at the rim, so she made some big buckets down the stretch. I thought she played great off the ball screen.”
“She took advantage of the people we had in the basketball game,” Staley said of Howard’s fourth-quarter performance against bench players that Staley said weren’t South Carolina’s best defenders. “That’s what savvy veterans do.”
Howard strained her right thumb in the early stages of Thursday’s game, and played most of the game with tape on her right wrist and thumb.
Howard said the injury affected her in the game.
“It was throbbing the whole game, but I was hoping the adrenaline would kick in so I didn’t feel it as much,” Howard said. “But it was kind of hard to catch the ball, or even dribble, because you use your thumb for a lot.”
Howard’s showing on Thursday night came in front of two WNBA teams with representatives at the game — the Atlanta Dream and the Indiana Fever — as well as a national television audience on ESPN.
Earlier this week, Howard was named to the 2022 Naismith Trophy Midseason Team (one of 30 players to make the cut) and to the Cheryl Miller Award Top 10 watch list (the award honors the top small forward in Division I women’s college basketball).
There could be as few as seven games left in Howard’s college career at UK.
She will finish as the UK women’s basketball program’s second all-time scorer behind Valerie Still.
Now with 2,063 points scored in her college career, Howard is only behind Still (2,763 points) and former UK men’s basketball players Dan Issel (2,138 points) and Kenny Walker (2,080 points) in terms of the scoring chart for all basketball players at UK.
Entering Thursday’s games, Howard led the SEC in scoring with an average of 20.4 points per game, more than a full point ahead of LSU’s Khayla Pointer in second place.
3. KENTUCKY IS IN ITS WORST STRETCH OF PLAY SINCE 2018.
Solely based on results, this is the Kentucky women’s basketball team’s worst run of form in four years, and its worst period of play with Elzy as head coach.
UK has now lost eight of its last nine games, a stretch that started with the Jan. 9 loss at South Carolina. This stretch has included two separate four-game losing streaks for UK, with a win at lowly Auburn in between.
Kentucky has already lost eight games in SEC play this season, its most conference losses since the 2017-18 season.
That 2017-18 season saw the Wildcats go 15-17 overall and 6-10 in league play, and included a stretch where Kentucky lost eight straight games.
That was also the last time the Cats missed the NCAA Tournament, which is set to happen again this season barring a major late-season turnaround.
Kentucky was once again completely left out of the latest NCAA Tournament bracketology released by ESPN’s Charlie Creme this week.
Given that UK is now two games below .500 overall, six games below .500 in conference play and with a 1-9 record against teams projected to be in the NCAA Tournament, it’s almost a guarantee that Kentucky will need to at least reach the championship game in the end-of-season SEC Tournament in order to get an NCAA Tournament spot.
Up next
If Kentucky’s journey of a thousand miles to try and reach the NCAA Tournament is to begin with one step, it will come Sunday afternoon in Tuscaloosa, where UK will play Alabama. The Crimson Tide are 12-10 overall and 3-8 in SEC games this season, and will have been off for a week before they play the Cats. Sunday will begin a stretch for Kentucky of four games in eight days.
Next game
Kentucky at Alabama
When: 2 p.m. Sunday
TV: SEC Network
This story was originally published February 10, 2022 at 9:27 PM.
