Dominant first quarter enough as UK women’s basketball rolls in NCAA opener
There was no drama in the Kentucky women’s basketball team’s first-round NCAA Tournament win Sunday.
One day after the UK men needed a buzzer-beating 3 from Otega Oweh to force overtime in their tournament-opening win, the No. 5 seed Wildcat women hit what ended up being the game-winning shot just 22 seconds into a 71-56 win over No. 12 seed James Madison.
That Teonni Key jumper gave the Wildcats the lead for good in a game Kentucky never trailed.
“I’m proud of my kids,” UK coach Kenny Brooks said. “We came out, we were ready to roll. That was one of the things I was a little bit nervous about, because we hand’t played in two weeks and a day. We had a couple of our practices where I felt like they were swimming upstream when they were trying to run down the floor. It just felt like they didn’t have their wind, but they did a really good job, and they were ready to play.”
Midway through the first quarter, Kentucky led by just four points, but the Wildcats scored 22 of the final 26 points in the period for a 32-10 lead. Tonie Morgan and Jordan Obi combined for 13 points in the 22-4 run. James Madison missed 7 of 8 shots as Kentucky took control.
“It’s March, and we wanted to come out full speed ahead,” Morgan said. “We wanted to know that we’ve arrived here and that we didn’t want to go home. We new we needed to punch first, because that’s a really good program that was in front of us. “
James Madison actually outscored Kentucky 46-39 in the final three quarters but never pulled closer than 16 points until banking in a 3-pointer at the final buzzer.
Brooks acknowledged his team took its foot off the gas in the second half but pointed to the coaching staff’s decision to be as bland as possible in its play-calling with a substantial lead as the primary factor in the letdown.
“When you play in a tournament and you got great coaches ... they’re sitting there watching you and watching your calls,” Brooks said. “You’re not going to run everything. You’re not going to show them a lot. And so we went very vanilla in the second half.”
The win sets up a possible matchup for Kentucky with No. 4 seed West Virginia on the Mountaineers home court on Monday. West Virginia plays No. 13 seed Miami (Ohio) at 5 p.m.
Morgan led Kentucky with 18 points, seven rebounds and seven assists. Clara Strack posted her 15th double-double of the season with 10 points and 14 rebounds. Amelia Hassett (14), who scored eight of UK’s first 10 points, and Jordan Obi (12) also scored in double figures.
Kentucky outscored James Madison 24-9 from 3-point range. James Madison hit just 3 of 17 3-point attempts in the loss.
UK advanced to the second round of the NCAA Tournament for the second straight season under the leadership of coach Kenny Brooks, who played men’s basketball at James Madison and coached the women’s team there from 2003 to 2016.
Kentucky last advanced to the Sweet 16 in 2016.
This story was originally published March 21, 2026 at 4:45 PM.