Three takeaways from Kentucky’s women’s basketball win at Arkansas
The Kentucky women’s basketball team might be in its best form of the season.
For the second time this season, and for the first time against Southeastern Conference opponents, the Wildcats have won four straight games.
This distinction came after UK’s 78-55 road win Sunday afternoon at Arkansas, a result that was led by Rhyne Howard’s 29 points.
Howard started out hot from the field, scoring 11 points in the first quarter and five more in the second. UK as a team made shots at a scintillating clip from both the floor and from behind the three-point line, and the Cats trailed for less than one minute in the win.
Kyra Elzy’s team is playing its best basketball of the season as March approaches, but it remains to be seen if it will be enough for the Wildcats to claw their way back into the NCAA Tournament picture.
“I thought we had one of the best practices of the year (Saturday). So I thought we came (to Arkansas) very confident,” Elzy said.
Kentucky 78, Arkansas 55
The star: Rhyne Howard scored 16 first-half points on efficient shooting and finished Sunday’s game with 29 points and 10 rebounds. Howard now has 2,134 points for her UK career, which could have as few as three games left in it.
The stats: Joining Howard as a double-digit scorer for UK was Dre’una Edwards with 17 points and 13 rebounds. Robyn Benton added 11 points.
It marked the first time Kentucky had two players record a double-double in an SEC road game since January 2017 at LSU (Evelyn Akhator and Taylor Murray).
The status: Kentucky is 13-11 overall and 6-8 in the SEC. Arkansas is 16-10 overall and 6-7 in the SEC.
Three takeaways
1. RHYNE HOWARD TAKES OVER AS A SCORER.
Several times this season we’ve seen Howard take over games as a scoring presence, but it wasn’t until late in the second half.
Wins against Georgia and Auburn were the most notable examples of Howard using her fourth-quarter scoring skills to lift UK to wins, but on Sunday it was the scoring done by Howard in the first 20 minutes that set the Wildcats on a winning course at Arkansas.
“They weren’t playing any defense, everyone had so many open looks and we were just capitalizing on that,” Howard said while praising the offensive confidence of her UK teammates. “We were making them pay for leaving us open, leaving myself open. Offensively, we were moving the ball well to get those shots.”
“It takes some pressure off of our offense,” Elzy said of Howard’s hot shooting start. “I thought she started aggressive and we needed every bucket that she hit.”
In the latest mock draft of April’s WNBA Draft released by ESPN earlier this week, Howard was projected as the No. 2 overall pick to the Indiana Fever, behind NaLyssa Smith of Baylor.
Lin Dunn, who was recently named the interim general manager of the Fever, previously served as an assistant coach and as a “special assistant to the head coach” at Kentucky.
Howard has spent most of this season as the projected top pick in this spring’s WNBA Draft.
Was Sunday’s showing a response by Howard to this?
“I did look at it, but at this point it’s always something when it comes to me,” Howard said. “Yeah, it’s motivation, and somebody always has something to say. … I’m focusing on myself and my team right now and whatever happens in the future happens in the future. Either way I’m still going to be playing in the (WNBA).”
“She’s a competitor, she wants to be the best. And she is the best,” Elzy said. “If they tuned in today they’ll see why she is.
With as few as three games potentially left in her college career at Kentucky, how has Howard approached public perception of her possible WNBA Draft placement?
“It is louder I would say, but I still don’t like really get on any social media. I kind of just stay to myself,” Howard said. “I try not to look at it because it’s going to be more pressure added onto me that I don’t need.”
Kentucky trailed for just 52 seconds in Sunday’s win, and that came within the first four minutes of the game.
Sunday was the seventh game with junior forward Edwards back and playing for Kentucky after serving her second team-imposed suspension of the season.
Edwards has come off the bench in each of those seven games, and she has averaged more than 15 points and eight rebounds per game in her new role.
“If I tell Dre to go get a bucket, she’s going to go get a bucket,” Howard said. “We just have to make sure she locks in and actually puts somebody underneath the basket … We trust her to make plays like she has been lately.”
2. THREE-POINT SHOOTING PROVES SIGNIFICANT.
Entering Sunday’s games, Kentucky was one of the worst teams in the SEC at making three-point shots.
The Wildcats ranked 11th in the conference with a 31% success rate on three-pointers while Arkansas entered as one of the SEC’s best three-point shooting teams with a 33.4% success rate from deep, the fourth-best mark in the conference.
But on Sunday those roles were reversed.
The Wildcats went 10-for-22 shooting three-pointers (45.5%) while the Razorbacks went 4-for-18 (22.2%) from distance.
“They’re rhythm threes, so that’s good for us,” Elzy said of UK’s distance shooting. “Anytime we can play inside out, push in transition. Rhythm threes have always been great for this team.”
Elzy said one of UK’s goals for the game was to hold Arkansas to six or fewer three-pointers made.
That disparity in made three-pointers equates to an extra 18 points scored by UK compared to Arkansas.
This, coupled with a 32-9 bench points advantage for UK along with a 30-30 tie in points in the paint, means it was always going to be hard for UK to not come away with a big road win.
3. KENTUCKY IS MAKING A MAD DASH BACK TOWARD THE BUBBLE.
It felt like Kentucky’s hopes of reaching the NCAA Tournament expired when the Cats lost at home to a potential bubble team in Texas A&M in overtime on Feb. 6.
Since that loss, UK has had a fourth-quarter comeback in a losing effort to No. 1 South Carolina and then four consecutive wins against Alabama, another bubble team in Mississippi State, Vanderbilt and now Arkansas.
While the quality of these wins can be questioned, they’ve helped rectify one of the biggest issues with Kentucky’s NCAA Tournament résumé: UK’s record.
Kentucky is now back above .500 on the season and has the chance to finish the regular season .500 in conference play with wins this week at Missouri and at home against Auburn.
The Cats will still need to win several games in the SEC Tournament, specifically against opponents projected to reach the NCAA Tournament, to get back in the good graces of the selection committee, but Elzy’s team is now in a groove and has a legit chance to end the regular season on a six-game winning streak.
The Cats entered Sunday’s games 10th in the SEC standings, meaning they would avoid an opening round SEC Tournament game.
Up next
Kentucky only has two games left in its regular season, one on the road and one at Memorial Coliseum in Lexington. First comes the road matchup at Missouri on Thursday night. The Tigers are 16-10 overall this season and 5-8 in SEC play, although one of those wins was a massive home upset against No. 1 South Carolina in late December. Missouri plays at home against Mississippi State on Sunday afternoon.
Thursday
Kentucky at Missouri
When: 8 p.m.
Online: SEC Network Plus
This story was originally published February 20, 2022 at 4:08 PM.
