Three takeaways from Kentucky’s SEC Tournament quarterfinal upset of sixth-ranked LSU
The Kentucky women’s basketball team is peaking in March.
The Cats recorded their eighth straight victory on Friday night at Bridgestone Arena in Nashville, securing a significant upset win over LSU, 78-63, in the Southeastern Conference Tournament quarterfinals.
Kentucky is the No. 7 seed in the tournament, while LSU was the No. 2 seed.
And now Kyra Elzy’s Wildcats have their biggest win of the year.
Kentucky will play in Saturday’s second semifinal against either Alabama or Tennessee.
Kentucky 78, LSU 63
The star: Rhyne Howard was at her All-America best when it mattered most for the Cats. Howard scored 13 first-quarter points on her way to a 32-point outing. The 32 points tied a season-high for Howard, who also scored 32 on Senior Day against Auburn.
The stats: Treasure Hunt had her best offensive game in three months, scoring 13 points and making two three-pointers. After a slow start, Dre’una Edwards had her usual second-half surge and finished with another double-double: 13 points and 10 rebounds.
Robyn Benton also finished with 11 points.
The status: Kentucky is 17-11 overall and 10-8 against SEC schools. UK has won eight straight games, all against SEC opponents. LSU is 25-5 overall and 13-4 against SEC schools.
Three takeaways
1. UK GETS ITS BEST WIN OF THE SEASON.
It’s not even close.
Kentucky’s triumph over LSU — ranked No. 6 in the nation in the latest Associated Press poll — stands alone as Kentucky’s best win of the season, and potentially Elzy’s best win as Kentucky’s head coach.
The Wildcats stormed out of the gate, opening a lead as large as 22 points on two occasions in the second quarter.
Kentucky made eight of its 13 three-pointers attempted in the first half, with Howard going 5-of-6 from deep herself in the opening half.
“Usually I don’t have that much space to get my shot off so when I see it, I’m taking it,” Howard said. “It was just going in tonight.”
LSU responded in the second half, trimming the UK lead to as few as nine points late in the third quarter.
But Elzy then called a 30-second timeout to stabilize things.
Out of that timeout, Edwards scored on a layup and UK switched to a zone defense, with Jazmine Massengill blocking a shot and the Cats forcing a shot-clock violation.
“I thought we had lost our focus . . . we were giving up defensive assignments, offensive rebounds, they were driving the ball,” Elzy said. “When I called the timeout I said, ‘There’s a lot of time left in this game. We have to refocus.’ What got us the lead was our defensive intensity and then I thought we started playing too slow offensively. So go downhill, make them defend the dribble-drive.”
LSU never got the game to within single digits again, as UK began the fourth quarter on a 9-2 scoring run.
“We basically said, ‘The game’s not over yet, you never know what could happen with that much time left in the game... we knew we were losing focus,’” Howard said. “We just had to regroup.”
UK has been in its fair share of close games this season. While Friday’s game wasn’t a close game in the numerical sense, that past experience helped Kentucky make sure it didn’t become one.
2. RHYNE HOWARD CONTINUES TO BE ON A HEATER.
The correlation isn’t clear, but ever since ESPN slid Rhyne Howard down in its WNBA mock draft projection from the No. 1 overall pick to the No. 2 pick, Howard has been on a scoring tear.
Howard’s point totals in the games since that projection came out Feb. 17 are as follows:
▪ 17 points on Feb. 17 against Vanderbilt.
▪ 29 points on Feb. 20 at Arkansas.
▪ 19 points on Feb. 24 at Missouri.
▪ 32 points on her Senior Day on Feb. 27 against Auburn.
▪ 14 points in the SEC Tournament second-round win over Mississippi State.
▪ 32 points, again, in the SEC Tournament quarterfinal win over LSU.
The Cats have won all of those games and are now on an eight-game winning streak. Kentucky has also won each of its last five games against SEC opponents by 15 or more points for the first time in program history.
Howard scored 19 of her 32 points on Friday night against LSU in the first half, including 13 in the first quarter.
She appeared to injure her right ankle in the opening minutes of the game, limping back to the UK bench during a stoppage in play to have the ankle significantly taped by athletic trainer Courtney Jones.
“She gave me the heads up that she was going to be OK,” Elzy said of Howard. “At this juncture of her career, she’s going back in the game if she’s capable.”
Howard was 7-for-9 shooting from the field in the first half and 5-of-6 from three-point range, as she broke out a couple sniper celebrations after draining her shots from deep.
“Everybody tries to guard Rhyne so she can’t score, but obviously that doesn’t work,” Hunt said. “When Rhy’s hitting her shots we try and give (the ball) to her and let her keep shooting.”
Since 2000, Howard now has the most games scoring 25 points or more in SEC Tournament history. Howard has five such games.
Overall, it was the 10th time in Howard’s career that she scored at least 30 points in a game.
Howard’s latest scoring masterpiece came as she was once again wearing her typical No. 10 jersey with “HOWARD” emblazoned across the back.
For both UK’s final game of the regular season — in which Howard also scored 32 points — and in UK’s first game in the SEC Tournament, Howard wore a No. 5 jersey with “GREEN” across the back.
Howard has said that switch to No. 5 was to honor both UK senior guard Blair Green, her roommate and injured teammate who hasn’t played for UK this season, and former UK men’s basketball player Terrence Clarke, a close friend of Howard who died last year.
After Friday’s game, Howard said she wore the No. 5 jersey for UK’s SEC Tournament opener against Mississippi State because Clarke’s final game at Kentucky was against the same school in the SEC Tournament in March 2021.
“I had to put it on one more time for him,” Howard said.
Howard added that she’s not sure if she will wear the No. 5 jersey again in her UK career, and that it’s something she would discuss with Green before doing again.
It’s too simplistic — and frankly unfair to Howard’s teammates — to give Howard the entirety of the credit for Kentucky’s late-season surge that has vaulted the Wildcats into the NCAA Tournament.
But it remains true that Howard is playing her best basketball of the season at the same time as the Cats, and at the most important time of the year.
3. WHAT TO MAKE OF KENTUCKY’S NCAA TOURNAMENT PROFILE?
Kentucky is now 17-11 overall and with a 10-8 record against SEC schools.
Thursday night’s victory over Mississippi State probably locked UK into the NCAA Tournament.
Friday night’s victory over LSU significantly boosted the Cats’ tournament résumé.
According to the latest NCAA Tournament bracketology released by ESPN’s Charlie Creme on Friday morning, Kentucky is projected to make the 68-team NCAA Tournament field while avoiding the First Four play-in game. Creme projected UK to be a No. 9 seed prior to Friday night’s win over LSU, which should boost UK at least one seed line.
Creme’s projections had Kentucky as the eighth-to-last team in the NCAA Tournament field, another figure that will change.
Prior to Friday’s games, the Wildcats were 39th in the NET (NCAA Evaluation Tool), a metric that ranks college basketball teams and is used significantly by the NCAA Tournament selection committee.
The NET is used to organize each team’s wins and losses into four different quadrants based on where each game is played and the opponent’s NET ranking. Quad 1 games are the most difficult to win, followed by Quad 2, Quad 3 and then Quad 4, which are the easiest to win. This means a good Quad 1 record is impressive, while a bad Quad 4 record is disastrous.
UK’s wins and losses this season, as of Friday, fall into the current categories.
▪ Quad 1: 5-7
▪ Quad 2: 4-4
▪ Quad 3: 3-0
▪ Quad 4: 5-0
Using Creme’s latest projection from Friday, Kentucky now has a 4-8 record this season against teams he currently projects to be in the NCAA Tournament.
All will be revealed on March 13, when the 68-team NCAA Tournament bracket will be announced at 8 p.m. on ESPN.
Unless the Cats just go ahead and win the SEC Tournament and claim the league’s automatic bid.
SEC Tournament scores, schedule
At Bridgestone Arena in Nashville
All times Eastern
Wednesday
No. 13 Vanderbilt 85, No. 12 Texas A&M 69
No. 11 Alabama 75, No. 14 Auburn 68
Thursday
No. 8 Arkansas 61, No. 9 Missouri 52
No. 5 Florida 53, No. 13 Vanderbilt 52
No. 7 Kentucky 83, No. 10 Mississippi State 67
No. 11 Alabama 74, No. 6 Georgia 62
Friday
No. 1 South Carolina 76, No. 8 Arkansas 54
No. 4 Ole Miss 70, No. 5 Florida 60
No. 7 Kentucky 78, No. 2 LSU 63
No. 3 Tennessee 74, No. 11 Alabama 59
Saturday
5 p.m.: No. 1 South Carolina (28-1) vs. No. 4 Ole Miss (23-7)
7:30 p.m.: No. 7 Kentucky (17-11) vs. No. 3 Tennessee (23-7)
Sunday
2 p.m.: Championship game
TV
▪ Semifinals (ESPNU)
▪ Championship game (ESPN2)
This story was originally published March 4, 2022 at 9:16 PM.
