Three takeaways from Kentucky women’s basketball’s win at Alabama
The Kentucky women’s basketball team snapped one streak and prolonged another on Sunday afternoon.
UK brought a four-game losing streak to a halt and recorded its 11th straight win over Alabama with a 67-63 victory in Tuscaloosa.
It was a cohesive team win for the Wildcats in a season deprived of them.
Redshirt junior forward Dre’una Edwards had her best game since returning in late January from the second team-imposed suspension against her this season.
Edwards led all scorers with 24 points off the bench for UK, which is the most points she’s ever scored against a Southeastern Conference opponent with the Cats.
UK had a 39-9 advantage in bench points and a 17-8 advantage in second-chance points, despite only nine points from star senior guard Rhyne Howard.
Kyra Elzy’s team will hope to use this result as a springboard to finish the season strong before the SEC Tournament in early March.
Kentucky had all nine scholarship players available for Sunday’s game, but now UK will also have only nine players available to play for the rest of the season.
Freshman walk-on guard Kristen Crenshaw-Gill, who joined the Wildcats in October after the program held open tryouts, is no longer part of the program.
Crenshaw-Gill had been sidelined with an ankle injury in recent weeks, and she served primarily as an extra practice player for the Wildcats. Crenshaw-Gill appeared in six games this season, but none since Dec. 19.
Kentucky 67, Alabama 63
The star: Dre’una Edwards had 24 points on 10-for-23 shooting to go along with seven rebounds for UK. She was the only UK player to score in double figures.
The stats: A UK team deprived of consistent bench scoring got that in spades Sunday, with four players combining for 39 bench points. Sophomore forward Nyah Leveretter had a career-high eight points off the bench.
The status: Kentucky is now 10-11 overall and 3-8 in the SEC. Alabama is now 12-11 overall and 3-9 in the SEC.
Three takeaways
1. UK GETS SCORING HELP FOR RHYNE HOWARD.
In recent days, Elzy has often spoken about the need to get scoring help for Howard, who strained her right thumb in Thursday’s home loss to No. 1 South Carolina and again played Sunday while wearing a wrap on her right hand.
UK’s standout player and scorer obviously attracts significant attention from opponents in the form of traps, double-teams and other defensive systems designed to get the ball out of her hands and force other UK players to make shots.
Up to this point in the season, Kentucky has done an inconsistent job of having players other than Howard score on a regular basis and punish opponents for the way they guard Howard.
That wasn’t the case against Alabama, though.
UK held a 29-28 halftime lead on Sunday despite Howard only scoring four first-half points.
Kentucky got 17 first-half points from its four bench players and finished Sunday’s game with 39 bench points, compared to just nine from Alabama.
“I thought we had an understanding of what we were looking for offensively today, so that is a step forward for us,” Elzy said.
In total, UK’s four bench players (senior guard Robyn Benton, Edwards, junior guard Emma King and Leveretter) combined for 39 points, 17 rebounds, eight steals, seven assists and just four turnovers.
Edwards’ efficient 24 points came both inside and outside of the post, and her strong play allowed the Wildcats to switch one through four defensively.
Half of Edwards’ points came in the third quarter, a period during which Howard picked up three fouls.
“I just knew ‘Okay, Rhyne’s not in the game,’ so somebody else has got to step up, somebody else has to bring that mentality,” Edwards said.
In addition to Edwards’ play, Leveretter’s career-high eight points came with seven rebounds. Elzy said this was one of the biggest games of Leveretter’s career.
As for why the UK bench decidedly to explode in production against Alabama, Leveretter credited opportunities in past games when UK was short-handed as the reason why bench players like herself were ready to seize the moment.
“We’ve had to step up, so a lot of us our confidence has just gone up tremendously,” Leveretter said. “Stepping out there tonight we had nothing to lose, just wear our hearts on the floor and that’s what we did as a team. That was our role, our duty tonight.”
“I feel like being thrown into the fire is the best way to learn. You’ll either sink or swim,” Leveretter added. “In this case I just built my confidence and my skills enough to swim instead of sink.”
Something that UK’s scoring production from the bench couldn’t help with, though, was Kentucky’s continued struggles with the three-point shot.
UK went 3-for-17 (17.6%) on three-point shots, and the Cats entered Sunday ranked 10th in the SEC in three-point shooting percentage (31%).
2. KENTUCKY’S PRESSURE DEFENSE CAUSES CHAOS FOR ALABAMA.
With Kentucky back to full strength health-wise, the Wildcats have license again to utilize their high-intensity, pressure defense.
Elzy has said that having less players available to play affects UK’s ability to play its pressure defense because of the energy required to play that style, not to mention concerns about foul trouble.
But the Wildcats took full advantage of their trademark defensive style Sunday.
In the first half alone UK forced 12 Alabama turnovers and turned those into 12 points.
For the game, UK forced 18 Alabama turnovers and the Wildcats had 18 points off turnovers.
“We can be dogs, we can go after (other teams),” Edwards said of playing a pressure defense with more available players. “It just brings a lot of fight and a lot of energy.”
“We knew we needed to generate some scoring opportunities off of our defense,” Elzy said. “Never let (Alabama) get settled offensively.”
The forced turnovers came in a variety of ways: Five-second calls on inbound passes, backcourt time violations, stolen passes and charges taken by junior guard Emma King, just to name a few.
One of the most critical turnovers came in the game’s closing seconds, as UK recorded a steal after an Alabama inbound pass while up only two points, leading to a pair of free throws from Howard that sealed the win.
3. UK STOPS SKID WHILE CONTINUING TO DOMINATE ALABAMA
Kentucky has now won 11 straight games over Alabama. The Crimson Tide hasn’t defeated the Wildcats since Feb. 2014.
UK’s second road win of the season — albeit against another bottom half team in the SEC — might also represent a reset for this Kentucky women’s basketball season.
The Cats have five regular-season games remaining before the end-of-season SEC Tournament in Nashville, which UK will likely at least need to reach the championship game of to get a bid into the NCAA Tournament.
Snapping a four-game losing streak, continuing a long-term winning streak over a conference rival and getting production from players who aren’t Howard are a good way to try and carry momentum into a crucial closing stretch.
“We’re making progress, and that’s going toward the bigger goal of the season,” Leveretter said.
“I think this win was big for us. I think it boosted a lot of people’s confidence today,” Edwards said. “Everybody did great today and I think that just brings a lot of confidence to the team.”
How does UK plan to use Sunday’s win as the start of a strong end to the regular season?
“The biggest thing is staying confident, believing in ourselves, knowing that we have enough to get the job done,” Elzy said.
Up next
Kentucky continues a stretch of four games in eight days with a pair of home contests this week, starting with a game against Mississippi State on Tuesday night. This is a game that was twice rescheduled following COVID-19 issues in each program. The Bulldogs have sputtered under interim head coach Doug Novak this season, and have a 15-8 overall record and a 6-5 mark in SEC play. Rickea Jackson, who challenged Rhyne Howard for the SEC scoring title for most of the season, left the Mississippi State program and entered the transfer portal in late January. Mississippi State beat Ole Miss 70-59 on Sunday.
Next game
Mississippi State at Kentucky
When: 6 p.m. Tuesday
Online: SEC Network Plus
Radio: WLAP-AM 630
Records: Mississippi State 15-8 (6-5 SEC), UK 10-11 (3-8)
Series: UK leads 29-22
Last meeting: UK won 92-86 on Jan. 3, 2021, at Starkville, Miss.
This story was originally published February 13, 2022 at 4:22 PM.
