Bubbles burst: Players with Kentucky ties in women’s NCAA Tournament that wasn’t
The field for the 2020 women’s NCAA Tournament — if there had been one — would have been filled with former Kentucky high school basketball stars. And several of those had strong shots to win a national championship.
But, because of the coronavirus pandemic, that wasn’t to be.
However, that didn’t keep ESPN’s Charlie Creme from releasing a final Bracketology that determined a 64-team field that could have been.
Based on Creme’s bracket, here is a look at the players with Kentucky ties who are missing out on March Madness this year.
The stars
Oregon, the nation’s second-ranked team in the final Associated Press poll of the season, featured Erin Boley, the 2016 Kentucky Miss Basketball and 2016 Gatorade National Player of the Year winner who starred in high school at Elizabethtown.
Boley, a 6-foot-2 junior forward who was in her second season with the Ducks after starting out at Notre Dame, was the team’s fourth-leading scorer at 9.2 points per game. She was stellar from three-point range this season, going 78-for-177 (44.1 percent).
Oregon was on a 19-game winning streak that included a rout of Stanford in the Pac-12 Tournament championship game. Boley starred in the Ducks’ semifinal victory against Arizona, contributing 18 points, five rebounds and three assists. That included 10 points in the first four minutes of the game.
“We’re a hard team to beat when Erin is shooting the way she is right now,” Oregon star Sabrina Ionescu said after the Arizona victory.
Grace Berger, a 6-0 sophomore guard who played at Sacred Heart, starred for No. 20 Indiana. She earned first-team All-Big Ten honors from the league’s coaches and was named second-team All-Big Ten by the media.
Berger was the second-leading scorer for the Hoosiers (24-8) at 13.1 points per game. She also averaged 5.2 rebounds and 3.5 assists and shot 76.9 percent from the free-throw line.
Indiana also had another player from Kentucky whose scoring average was in double figures. Jaelynn Penn, a 5-10 junior guard who starred at Butler, contributed 10.6 points and 4.5 rebounds and was 81.7 percent from the free-throw line.
Lexi Held, a 5-10 sophomore guard from Cooper, was No. 15 DePaul’s third-leading scorer at 15.4 points per game. She also averaged 2.7 rebounds and 2.3 assists.
The highlight of her season came in the Big East Tournament’s championship game when she scored a career-high 31 points in an 88-74 win against Marquette. She was the tournament’s Most Outstanding Player after making 10 of 14 shots, including five of six from three-point range.
DePaul averaged 84.9 points per game, which ranked second in the nation to Oregon.
“The freedom of having the greenest green light in America is what really allows us to shoot as well as we do,” Held said after the Big East title game, according to the Chicago Tribune.
Nila Blackford, a 6-2 freshman forward from Manual, was Kent State’s second-leading scorer (12.4 points) and leading rebounder (8.0). She was on the Mid-American Conference’s All-Freshman Team.
Bluegrass contingent
Kentucky: Blair Green, a 6-0 sophomore guard from Harlan County, was the 16th-ranked Cats’ sixth-leading scorer at 5.8 points and averaged 2.2 rebounds in 19.2 minutes per game. … Emma King, a 5-10 freshman guard from Lincoln County, averaged 1.4 points in 7.1 minutes per game.
Louisville: Mykasa Robinson, a 5-7 sophomore guard from Ashland Blazer, was the sixth-ranked Cardinals’ top contributor among five players from Kentucky high schools. She averaged 2.7 points and 3.1 rebounds in 17.7 minutes per game. … Lindsey Duvall, a 5-9 sophomore guard from Bullitt East who was Kentucky’s 2017 Miss Basketball, averaged 2.0 points in 6.2 minutes. … Jessica Laemmle, a 5-2 senior guard from Mercy, averaged 1.3 points in 5.6 minutes. … Molly Lockhart, a 6-3 freshman forward from Butler, averaged 1.2 points. … Seygan Robins, a 5-10 guard from Mercer County who was Kentucky’s 2018 Miss Basketball, averaged 3.0 rebounds and 11.0 minutes in two games before season-ending ankle surgery. Robins was twice named the KHSAA Girls’ Sweet Sixteen MVP after leading Mercer County to its first and second girls’ state championships in 2017 and 2018.
More Ky. prep stars
Samantha Fitzgerald, a 6-0 senior forward out of Southwestern, started six of the 25 games she has played in for Samford (18-14), the SoCon Tournament champions. She averaged 3.1 points and 2.1 rebounds in 11.0 minutes.
Ally Johnson, a 5-10 junior guard from Beechwood, averaged 8.4 points and 2.3 assists and shot 40.2 percent from three-point range for Bucknell.
Lauren Schwartz, a 5-11 freshman forward from Ryle, averaged 9.6 points (third best on the team for Rice) and 4.0 rebounds in 30.1 minutes for Conference USA’s regular-season champions. She was 84.0 percent from the free-throw line.
Morgan Turner, a 6-2 senior forward from Meade County, had ended her on-court career prior to the 2019-20 season because of cumulative back injuries, but she did play one minute for Creighton in her final home game (against Georgetown) and connected on her only shot, a three-pointer.
Marly Walls, a 5-8 sophomore guard from Nelson County, averaged 6.6 points, 2.9 assists and 2.5 rebounds in 16 games for Bucknell before her season ended with a knee injury.
Emma Young, a 5-10 senior guard from East Jessamine, averaged 9.7 points and 5.0 rebounds in 30.1 minutes per game for Texas A&M-Corpus Christi. She shot 80.8 percent from the free-throw line.
Five more
Evelyn Adebayo, a 6-2 senior forward, had stops at Gardner-Webb and Murray State before ending up at No. 5 Connecticut. She was a first-team All-OVC and All-Newcomer selection last season with the Racers after averaging 18.2 points and 11.4 rebounds. This season, she averaged 1.0 points and 2.1 rebounds in 6.5 minutes. ... Batouly Camara, a 6-2 senior forward, transferred to the Huskies from Kentucky, played in 10 games and averaged 0.8 points and 0.3 rebounds.
Lindsey Corsaro, a 2016 McDonald’s All-American who signed with Kentucky but was released from her national letter of intent, was a 6-1 sophomore guard for No. 10 UCLA. She averaged 5.2 points, 2.6 assists and 2.3 rebounds in 23.5 minutes for the Bruins.
Ciera Johnson, a 6-4 junior center who transferred from Louisville to No. 18 Texas A&M, averaged 12.1 points and 6.8 rebounds.
Terri Smith, a 5-7 junior guard, transferred to Southeast Missouri from Western Kentucky. She sat out this season, per NCAA rules.
On the bubble
The first team out of the field in Creme’s bracketology would have been Western Kentucky, and that would have kept five former Kentucky prep stars from participating in the Big Dance. Had the Hilltoppers eked their way in, here’s a look at those players:
Dee Givens, a 6-1 senior forward from Lafayette, was Western Kentucky’s second-leading scorer at 16.2 points per game to go with 5.0 rebounds. She was named first-team All-Conference USA as a senior and junior and was the league’s Sixth Player of the Year as a sophomore. As a junior, Givens was the first player in program history to post a 45-40-85 shooting line for an entire season (45.5 from the field, 40.1 from three-point range and 85.9 from the free-throw line).
Whitney Creech, a 5-8 senior guard from Jenkins, was WKU’s third-leading scorer at 13.7 per game to go with 3.7 rebounds and a team-best 4.7 assists. Creech is well-known around the Bluegrass for being the state’s all-time leading scorer for high school basketball, male or female, finishing her career with 5,527 points. She led the nation in scoring in each of her final two seasons at Jenkins. She averaged 42.0 points per game as a junior and 50.3 as a senior.
Alexis Brewer, a 5-9 senior guard who played in high school at LaRue County and Bardstown, began her college career at West Virginia. This season, she averaged 7.0 points and 2.1 rebounds for the Hilltoppers.
Sandra Skinner, a 6-1 senior forward from Clark County, played three seasons at Virginia Commonwealth before transferring to WKU, averaged 2.4 points and 3.3 rebounds in 11.2 minutes as a reserve.
Bree Glover, a 5-10 junior guard from Glasgow who started her college career at Mississippi, did not play this season.
This story was originally published March 16, 2020 at 12:32 PM.
