Kentucky women will try to ride hot streak to SEC Tournament title

Kentucky may not have gotten a coveted double bye in this week’s Southeastern Conference Tournament.

Kentucky may not be the favorite going in, but the No. 13 Cats certainly have caught the league’s attention by winning six straight games by an average of 15.2 points a game.

“I definitely think South Carolina’s the favorite; there’s no question,” ESPN and SEC Network analyst Nell Fortner said before the tournament tips off Wednesday.

“But Kentucky might be playing the best basketball right now. They’re just rolling, kind of steamrolling everyone right now.”

UK’s six-game win streak matches that of defending tournament champion South Carolina going into Jacksonville. The Cats would have to go through the No. 3 Gamecocks to even get to the championship game.

“This has been a particularly exciting year and it looks like anybody can win on a given night,” UK’s Matthew Mitchell said of conference parity. “Even South Carolina, who had such a great season and it’s only the second time in league history that somebody went 16-0, they had some real battles in the league.”

But after watching his team get convincing wins — including two against two of the SEC Tournament’s top three seeds — to close out the season, Mitchell is feeling good about UK.

“These have been games full of hustle, full of effort,” he said. “And they haven’t been easy teams. … It would be surprising to me if we let up now.”

Five things to keep in mind as Kentucky heads to the SEC Tournament:

1. South Carolina: With a blowout win over Louisiana State on Sunday, the Gamecocks became just the second team in league history to complete an undefeated regular season. But they don’t seem happy with that one regular-season title.

“We still have a lot more that we want to accomplish,” two-time SEC Player of the Year Tiffany Mitchell said. “And that’s winning another tournament championship and getting to the Final Four again.”

The Gamecocks go to Jacksonville to defend their tournament title with three of the most dominant players in the conference in Mitchell (14.9 points), newly crowned SEC Player of the Year A’ja Wilson (16.6 points, 8.7 rebounds, 3.3 blocks) and fellow forward Alaina Coates (11.7 ppg, 10.1 rpg).

South Carolina, which won its 16 league games by an average of 16.6 points a game, enters the event in the top five in scoring offense, scoring defense, field goal percentage, field goal percentage defense, three-point percentage, rebounding and blocked shots.

2. Playing for placement? The six victories down the stretch probably have helped Kentucky earn the right to host the first two rounds of the NCAA Tournament in two weeks, but it’s still murky if the Cats will be placed in their home away from home (Rupp Arena) for the next two rounds (should they get that far).

As the NCAA Selection Committee has it now, the Gamecocks are the country’s No. 2 overall seed behind unbeaten Connecticut. South Carolina likely would go to Rupp based on geography.

So for UK to have a chance to play in Rupp Arena this postseason, it’s looking like something would have to happen to knock the Gamecocks from that No. 2 overall seed.

3. Seeding issues: It’s been 12 years since Vanderbilt won four straight games and claimed the tournament crown, something that’s only happened twice in league history. The Cats, the No. 5 seed, would have to do just that if they want to win their first tournament title since 1982.

If they can get a victory Thursday over the winner of LSU and Alabama, UK would need to beat two teams it’s already fallen to this season in Florida and South Carolina (twice) to even get to the championship game.

And the Cats have depth problems with basically a seven-player rotation, including six playing 22 minutes or more a game this season. Makayla Epps leads the league this season in minutes played averaging 35.6 per game. Senior guard Janee Thompson is sixth overall, averaging 33 per game.

4. Speaking of depth: The latest ESPN Bracketology released Tuesday has nine SEC teams getting into the NCAA Tournament field: No. 3 South Carolina, No. 13 Kentucky, No. 15 Texas A&M, No. 16 Mississippi State and No. 25 Florida as well as Georgia, Auburn, Missouri and Tennessee (who all were ranked in the top 25 at some point this season).

The league was so deep and the talent so spread out that eight of those nine teams suffered at least five losses in SEC play this season. Missouri, Tennessee and Auburn each finished 8-8 in league play.

5. Up is down: Tennessee, which always travels with thousands of fans no matter where the tournament is played, is the No. 7 seed after suffering a record eight league losses. It’s the lowest seed ever for the Lady Vols, who own 17 SEC titles while the rest of the league owns 19 titles combined.

The tournament Cinderella would have to be Florida, which earned the No. 4 seed after winning 10 SEC games this season, including three of its last four. The Gators finished last season 13-17 overall and 12^th in the league. Florida also gets the benefit of playing in its home state for the first time in tournament history at Jacksonville’s Veterans Memorial Arena.

This story was originally published March 1, 2016 at 5:34 PM with the headline "Kentucky women will try to ride hot streak to SEC Tournament title."