These numbers have defined Kentucky women’s basketball’s late-season surge
The Kentucky Wildcats are Southeastern Conference women’s basketball champions.
It’s a statement that hasn’t been true since 2012, when UK last won an SEC women’s basketball regular-season championship.
In the postseason, it hasn’t been true since 1982, when Kentucky last won the SEC Tournament.
But a seemingly impossible dream became reality for Kyra Elzy’s team on Sunday afternoon in Nashville, when Dre’una Edwards made a three-pointer with just seconds left to defeat No. 1 South Carolina in the SEC Tournament championship game.
Kentucky finished the regular season and SEC Tournament with a 19-11 overall record, a 12-8 mark against other SEC schools and on a 10-game winning streak.
Here is a look at some of the most impressive numbers from UK’s late-season resurgence, which help explain Sunday’s stunning championship game win.
1
South Carolina was ranked No. 1 in the Associated Press Top 25 Poll when UK pulled its upset win Sunday, and the Gamecocks remained No. 1 in the country when the latest poll was released Monday.
UK’s win was just the second for the program against a team ranked No. 1 in the AP Poll, joining a January 2006 victory over Tennessee.
In Monday’s AP Top 25 poll, the Wildcats checked in at No. 16 in the country. This is UK’s first appearance in the Top 25 since Jan. 17, and UK is the only team in the Top 25 with double-digit losses.
2.94
Kentucky senior point guard Jazmine Massengill has an assist-to-turnover ratio of 2.94, meaning that Massengill dishes out 2.94 assists for every turnover committed.
But she didn’t even make mistakes over the weekend, combining for 15 points, 11 assists and no turnovers in wins over Tennessee and South Carolina in the final rounds of the SEC Tournament.
As of Tuesday, Massengill’s 2.94 assist-to-turnover ratio ranks sixth in the country and is the top mark in the SEC.
4.2
Edwards sank her pick-and-pop three-pointer in the dying seconds of Sunday’s win, with only 4.2 seconds left on the clock.
The shot was the second-latest game-winning shot in SEC Tournament championship game history.
The latest? Georgia’s Kelly Miller made a foul-line jumper with 0.8 seconds left as Georgia beat Vanderbilt in the 2001 title game.
7
Kentucky won last weekend’s SEC Tournament as the No. 7 seed in the tournament, after finishing the regular season with an 8-8 mark in SEC games.
Kentucky is now the second-lowest seed to ever win the SEC Tournament. The only lower seed was Auburn as a No. 9 seed in 1997.
Kentucky is also currently projected by ESPN’s Charlie Creme to be a No. 7 seed in the NCAA Tournament.
9-0
Kentucky’s current 10-game winning streak has largely been constructed using a new starting lineup deployment from Elzy.
For the last nine games — all wins — Kentucky has used the starting five of Jada Walker, Jazmine Massengill, Howard, Treasure Hunt and Nyah Leveretter.
All nine starts for this quintet this season have come in the last nine games.
Edwards is the first player in the game off the Kentucky bench, replacing Leveretter after about three minutes are played.
Despite coming off the bench during this time, Edwards has averaged 27 minutes played over the last nine games, compared to an average of 18 minutes played during this stretch by Leveretter.
10
The Wildcats have now won their last 10 games, with a six-game winning streak to close the regular season followed by four wins in four days in the SEC Tournament.
The 10-game streak is Kentucky’s longest winning run with Elzy as the head coach, and the longest winning streak for UK against SEC schools since the 2011-12 season.
10-0
This is Kentucky’s record this season in games that Edwards scores 20 or more points.
The record was lifted to 10-0 on Sunday when Edwards led UK with 27 points in the win over South Carolina.
Edwards has scored 20 or more points in the following 10 UK wins this season: Presbyterian (home), North Alabama (home), Winthrop (home), La Salle (home), Alabama (away), Mississippi State (home), Vanderbilt (home), Missouri (away), Auburn (home) and South Carolina (SEC Tournament).
34
As of Tuesday morning, Kentucky is ranked No. 34 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.
Kentucky racked up three Quad 1 wins and a Quad 2 win while in Nashville.
UK’s spot in the NET has risen five spots since Friday morning, the same stretch as UK’s three Quad 1 wins over LSU, Tennessee and South Carolina.
42%
Entering the SEC Tournament, Kentucky shot 32.38% from three-point range, a mark that’s more than 1% lower than its current shooting percentage from deep.
UK is now shooting 33.7% from distance thanks to a scintillating SEC Tournament from range, with the Cats hitting 29 of their 69 (42%) three-pointers.
In particular, senior guard Robyn Benton and sophomore guard Treasure Hunt helped UK shoot 42% from deep in Nashville as the duo combined to make 12 three-pointers over the weekend.
Benton and Hunt have each hit a three-pointer in three straight games.
1982
That year represented both the last time Kentucky won the SEC Tournament and the last time a Kentucky player was named SEC Tournament MVP.
Until Sunday.
As the Cats won their first SEC Tournament crown in 40 years, star senior Rhyne Howard was named the SEC Tournament MVP.
Howard joins Valerie Still — also in 1982 — as the two Kentucky players to be conference tournament MVPs.
Still continues to hold the UK program record for points scored at 2,763. Howard currently has 2,273 points.
