Kentucky women’s basketball routs Morehead in opener but has room for improvement

It took Kenny Brooks’ second Kentucky women’s basketball team some time to get rolling.

But on a night when shots weren’t dropping, UK did enough of the little things to get a big win.

The heavily favored, 24th-ranked Wildcats fell behind early and led by just seven points early in the third quarter against an Eagles team picked to finish at the bottom of the OVC. But an avalanche late in the third helped spark UK to a 75-59 win Monday at Memorial Coliseum.

Kentucky (1-0) used a 14-1 run late in the third to build some breathing room while suffocating Morehead State. In one third-quarter stretch, the Eagles missed eight straight field-goal attempts.

Point guard Tonie Morgan, making her Kentucky debut after playing her first three seasons at Georgia Tech, led UK with 16 points and four assists. The 5-foot-9 senior is replacing Georgia Amoore, who played five seasons and 157 games for Brooks between Virginia Tech and Kentucky.

“It’s an adjustment, Georgia just understanding me and what I want,” Brooks said on his postgame radio show. “You take for granted how many easy opportunities she gets for her team. But that’s why she’s the No. 6 pick in the WNBA draft. She was that good. We’re gonna find it (with Morgan); we’re gonna find different ways to get the opportunities.”

Center Clara Strack finished with 15 points, 15 rebounds, three steals and three blocked shots for the Wildcats, but Brooks said “she could have been a lot better, and she’ll know it.” Brooks was critical of Strack’s overreliance on fadeaway shots and said “she wasn’t really good defensively tonight.”

Conversely, guard Jordan Obi — who missed last season with an injury after transferring from Penn — impressed Brooks with a 15-point, 15-rebound performance of her own in her UK debut.

“She was probably the brightest spot for us tonight,” Brooks said. “I thought she did some good things for us, and she’s gonna get her feet wet and get her feet back up underneath of her.”

The Cats struggled from the floor (37.5%) and particularly from behind the 3-point line, where UK was 4 for 24. That helped Morehead State remain within striking distance. The Eagles hit 10 of 27 3-pointers to outscore UK 30-12 from behind the arc.

But Kentucky punished the Eagles (0-1) inside. UK outscored Morehead 38-20 in the paint and had a 54-33 rebounding advantage. That included 21 offensive rebounds for the Wildcats, who outscored the Eagles 22-3 in second-chance points.

UK also had an 11-2 edge in fastbreak points. The Wildcats forced the Eagles into turnovers on 21.6% of their possessions.

Morehead State got off to fast starts in each half, taking a 13-4 lead in the first quarter and sinking three 3-pointers in four possessions to open the third. UK responded in the first quarter with a 16-0 run to go in front to stay, and the Eagles never got closer than six points the rest of the way. Kentucky’s 14-1 third-quarter run effectively put the game out of reach.

“Tonight was very eye-opening for us,” Brooks said. “We have to get better. We do. We have to get better. But I don’t think we came out of the box last year and we were a finished product. We have film. We’ll watch it, we’ll dissect it and see where we need to get better at.”