Once ‘down and out,’ UK women’s basketball exacts revenge while reaching SEC finals
Rhyne Howard used the oft-cited Southeastern Conference moniker, the one mocked online and emblazoned throughout Bridgestone Arena in Nashville.
“It just means more.”
Howard said those words when explaining what it meant to exact revenge on a rival school, in a hostile environment, during Saturday night’s SEC Tournament semifinal win over No. 18 Tennessee.
The vast majority of the more than 9,000 fans who watched the game were clad in orange and white, exploding at every contentious refereeing decision and expanding their lungs in an effort to lift the Lady Volunteers out of a scoring deficit that existed for the entire game.
But that moment never came, an instead Kyra Elzy’s team got to savor a wire-to-wire triumph on its revenge tour stop in Nashville.
All three wins in the SEC Tournament by UK have provided the Wildcats with a measure of retribution for a regular-season meeting.
UK needed a 15-point fourth quarter comeback at home in February to score a stunning win over Mississippi State. The Cats dispatched the Bulldogs by 16 points in Thursday’s second-round game.
Kentucky led early and late at LSU in late January — UK’s first game with the formerly suspended Dre’una Edwards back in the lineup — but suffered a nine-point loss. UK brushed LSU aside by 15 points in Friday night’s quarterfinals.
Then came Tennessee, a team that tore Kentucky apart in Knoxville on Jan. 16, as the Lady Vols beat the Cats by 26 points on ESPN.
Saturday night’s nine-point Kentucky win laid that demon to rest as well, a cleansing exercise best explained by the emotions exuded by Kentucky’s coaches and players.
“It means a lot more when you beat them in the tournament,” Howard explained. “Yeah, we did lose to them. We weren’t playing to the best of our ability, but to be playing how we are now and as confident as we are now, it just means more than when we lost. They can’t say they’re going to the (championship) like we can.”
With each three-pointer that she made, senior guard Robyn Benton talked.
Not always in the most polite language, Benton told Tennessee fans to sit down and be quiet, shushing the crowd and touching three fingers to her head à la Carmelo Anthony.
When asked about the emotions of playing a de facto road game against a rival school in the postseason, Benton gave a knowing smirk.
But by the postgame press conference, Benton’s intense in-game demeanor had melted away.
She was the first UK player to hit “The Griddy” on the hardwood after the final buzzer sounded, and her whimsical personality further took over during the press conference.
“Ooh, child, things are gonna get easier,” Benton sang in a sing-song voice, referencing the iconic Chicago soul song as she talked about her 16-point showing, her largest scoring output since early December.
UK assistant coach Amber Smith pounded the press row table during her postgame radio interview with Darren Headrick, UK’s radio broadcaster.
Smith played at Kentucky from 2008 through 2012, and was part of the 2010 UK team that reached the SEC Tournament title game, losing to Tennessee in the finals.
Smith also spent time as a graduate assistant at Tennessee, and of course Elzy is a former star player, assistant coach and associate head coach with the Lady Vols.
Her second win over Tennessee as UK head coach was also her second win over former college teammate Kellie Harper, who has coached Tennessee since 2019.
“I love Kellie. We’re teammates, we’re Lady Vol sisters for life.,” Elzy said. “Obviously, I have a lot of love for the Tennessee program and what Coach (Pat) Summitt has built and the sisterhood that she has built.”
UK’s victory was also particularly sweet for senior point guard Jazmine Massengill, who spent her first two college seasons at Tennessee and had five assists with no turnovers on Saturday night.
In the minutes following the game, joyful screams from Kentucky’s locker room could be heard from down the hall.
It’s the first time Kentucky has reached the SEC Tournament championship game since 2014. The Cats’ lone SEC Tournament title came in 1982.
The Wildcats are now in rarefied air, using their two most recent upset wins to both cancel out regular-season defeats. UK becomes the lowest seeded team since Arkansas (a No. 10 seed in 2019) to reach the SEC Tournament championship game.
Sunday’s opponent, South Carolina, has won two straight SEC Tournament titles, and six of the last seven overall.
Kentucky’s last win over the Gamecocks came in February 2019, and UK holds a 1-4 all-time record in SEC Tournament title games.
But projecting the future with the help of the past has already proven impossible for this team.
In the hallways of Bridgestone Arena on Saturday night, away from most of the cameras and people, Elzy let her emotions take over.
Maybe it was the satisfaction of the last three nights, or the vindication she has felt in the last month with nine straight victories to secure a spot in the NCAA Tournament, but while wiping tears from her eyes, Elzy explained how much it has meant.
“I’m so proud of these damn kids,” Elzy said. “The tenacity that they have, the belief in each other, the belief in us. We were down and out.”
“Down and out,” Elzy repeated. “They fought for this program.”
Sunday
Kentucky vs. No. 1 South Carolina
What: SEC women’s basketball tournament championship game
When: 2 p.m. EST
Where: Bridgestone Arena in Nashville
TV: ESPN
Radio: WLAP-AM 630
Seeding: UK No. 7, South Carolina No. 1
Records: UK 18-11, South Carolina 29-1
Last meeting: South Carolina won 59-50 on Feb. 10 in Lexington
