Rhyne Howard is a college basketball legend. These numbers help tell the story.
The Rhyne Howard era is officially over.
Kentucky’s first-round NCAA Tournament loss to Princeton on March 19 in Bloomington, Indiana, meant one of the most storied careers in collegiate women’s basketball history has come to an end.
Howard spent four seasons at Kentucky, spanning two head coaches in Matthew Mitchell and now Kyra Elzy, setting records and thrilling the Big Blue Nation along the way with scintillating scoring performances.
While Kentucky never reached the Sweet 16 of the NCAA Tournament with Howard on its roster, there was still vindicating team success achieved earlier this spring as the Wildcats won the Southeastern Conference Tournament.
There will never be another player in the UK women’s basketball program like Rhyne Howard.
These numbers help tell the story of what she accomplished in Lexington:
1
Howard had one triple-double as a Wildcat. It came in November during a UK home win over Winthrop, and it was just the third triple-double in UK women’s program history.
Howard posted 22 points, 10 assists and 10 rebounds in the victory.
The program’s other triple-doubles were recorded by Makayla Epps in November 2015 and Leslie Nichols in February 1986.
2
For all of Howard’s stunning individual success, it’s worth noting Kentucky won only two NCAA Tournament games with Howard on the roster.
As a freshman in 2019, Kentucky defeated Princeton in the first round before losing to N.C. State. As a sophomore in 2020, the NCAA Tournament was canceled due to the coronavirus pandemic. As a junior in 2021, Kentucky defeated Idaho State in the first round before losing to Iowa.
This year, Kentucky lost to Princeton in a 6-11-seed upset in the first round.
As a team, the Wildcats earned one piece of hardware during Howard’s college career, but it was a significant one: UK won the 2022 SEC Tournament as the No. 7 seed, upsetting LSU, Tennessee and No. 1 South Carolina on the way to Kentucky’s first SEC Tournament title since 1982.
5
For all the statistics that communicate Howard’s greatness, it has been stressed by Howard and others that it’s the off-court relationships that have meant the most to Howard during her time as a UK player.
The number that best describes this is five.
Howard’s longtime teammate and roommate, senior guard Blair Green, sustained a season-ending Achilles injury in late October and couldn’t play this season.
So Howard took several occasions to honor her friend this season, wearing a No. 5 jersey with “GREEN” on the back during a Senior Day win over Auburn and an SEC Tournament win over Mississippi State.
The gesture also helped honor former UK men’s basketball player Terrence Clarke, who died in April 2021 and was a close friend of Howard’s.
10
During her illustrious college career, Howard scored 30 or more points in 10 career games, including three times this past season.
Her career-best scoring game came as a sophomore in January 2020 when Howard scored 43 points in a road win at Alabama.
That 43-point outing tied the UK program record for the most points scored in a game. The other 43-point performance came from Jennifer O’Neill against Baylor in December 2013.
33
Not only has Howard been a dependable scoring and rebounding presence for Kentucky for the past four seasons, but she has done that while playing the vast majority of minutes in each game for UK.
For her career, Howard averaged 33 minutes played per game. This number steadily rose for each of her four college seasons: She averaged 30.9 minutes per game as a freshman, 31.2 minutes per game as a sophomore, 34.9 minutes per game as a junior and 35.3 minutes per game as a senior.
60
In more than half of her games as a Kentucky player, Howard led the Wildcats in rebounding..
Howard was UK’s leading rebounder in 60 of her 114 career games, including in 15 of her 31 games as a senior.
One of Howard’s biggest selling points as a WNBA prospect is her versatile nature as a 6-2 guard that can play a variety of positions, and her ability to grab rebounds serves as further evidence of her all-around abilities.
77.2
As the go-to option in Kentucky’s offense, the ball was in the hands of Howard on most possessions. This meant that Howard was frequently fouled when driving to the rim or taking a jump shot, and she made opponents pay at the charity stripe.
For her UK career, Howard made 77.2% of her free-throw attempts, including a career-best 80.8% during her senior season on her highest volume of free throws attempted (Howard made 135 of 167 free throws this season).
114
Howard played and started in 114 games over the course of her four seasons with the Wildcats.
This included all 31 games during her now-completed senior season.
Howard never came off the bench for Kentucky.
284
Howard ranks first all-time in UK women’s basketball history in career three-pointers made with 284.
Howard made at least one three-pointer in 99 of her 114 career games, including in 26 of 31 games during her senior season.
2,290
Howard scored 2,290 points during her four-year college career at Kentucky.
This ranks Howard 17th all-time on the SEC women’s basketball career scoring list and second all-time on the Kentucky women’s basketball career scoring list. In first place is Valerie Still (1979-1983) with 2,763 points.
Howard is also second all-time in Kentucky history, combined men’s and women’s basketball, in points scored. The leading Kentucky men’s basketball scorer is Dan Issel with 2,138 career points.
This story was originally published March 21, 2022 at 6:30 AM.
