Wildcats Host No. 10 South Carolina Sunday at Rupp Arena
LEXINGTON, Ky. – The University of Kentucky women’s basketball team will play its second of three regular-season games inside historic Rupp Arena on Sunday when it squares off against No. 10 South Carolina at Noon ET. The first 5,000 fans inside Rupp Arena on Sunday will receive a free pom-pom, while junior guard Taylor Murray is scheduled to be available for autographs postgame in the Rupp Arena main lobby. The game will be Kentucky’s annual We Back Pat Game, supporting The Pat Summitt Foundation.
The game will be broadcast live on ESPNU with Roy Philpott and Brooke Weisbrod on the call. The action can also be seen through WatchESPN on computers, smartphones or tablets. Darren Headrick, in his first year with the program, will be calling the game on the UK Sports Radio Network. Fans in Lexington can hear Headrick’s call on 630AM WLAP. Live stats and free audio will be available online at ukathletics.com.
The Rupp Arena west patron entrance will be closed Sunday. More than 10,000 convenient parking spaces are available within a 10-minute walk of Rupp Arena. In addition, most surrounding parking lots and parking garages offer spaces for individuals with disabilities. A parking fee will be in effect for Rupp Arena events. A parking map is available here.
Kentucky (9-10, 1-4 Southeastern Conference) is coming off a six-day break following a disappointing 70-55 loss at Vanderbilt last Monday. Without leading scorer Maci Morris, who missed the game due to injury, Kentucky relied on Murray, who scored a season-best 23 points with seven steals in 40 minutes. Freshman forward KeKe McKinney scored nine points with six rebounds, while senior post Alyssa Rice had eight points and six rebounds. UK shot just 33.9 percent from the field and allowed the Commodores to shot 45.3 percent from the field, including seven 3s.
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| No. 10 South Carolina at Kentucky | ||
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Sunday, Jan. 21 – Noon ET |
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TV: ESPNU |
South Carolina enters the weekend ranked No. 10 in both the Associated Press Top 25 and USA Today/Coaches Top 25 with a 15-3 overall record, including a 4-2 mark in the SEC. The Gamecocks are 8-1 at home, 5-1 in true road games and 2-1 in neutral-site games.
USC is coming off a 95-82 bounce-back victory Thursday at Vanderbilt after falling at home to top-10 ranked Tennessee last Sunday. The Gamecocks were led by Alexis Jennings who went 9-of-10 from the field for 27 points and 13 rebounds, while LeLe Grissett scored 22 points with nine rebounds. Doniyah Cliney, Lindsey Spann and Tyasha Harris each scored in double figures as the Gamecocks shot 66.7 percent from the field as a team, including 6-of-11 from long range. South Carolina played without National Player of the Year candidate A’ja Wilson for the second straight game due to injury. Mikiah Herbert-Harrigan also missed the game due to injury.
South Carolina has been paced this season by Wilson who is averaging 23.2 points and 11.1 rebounds per game. Jennings is averaging 12.7 points and 7.4 rebounds, while Harris (11.6) and Spann (11.2) each are averaging double figures. As a team, USC hits 50.1 percent from the field and is averaging 82.2 points per game.
Kentucky leads the all-time series with South Carolina 33-28, including a 20-8 mark in games played in Lexington. This is the second time the two teams have met inside Rupp Arena. South Carolina won the only previous meeting in the historic building, 65-57, on March 2, 2008. The Gamecocks have won each of the last six meetings in the series with Kentucky’s last win against South Carolina coming March 1, 2015 when they defeated the Gamecocks, 67-56, inside Memorial Coliseum. Matthew Mitchell is 10-13 all-time against South Carolina as head coach at Kentucky.
Kentucky and South Carolina met three times last year for the second straight season with the Gamecocks winning all three games. The series started with USC claiming a 75-63 win in Lexington on Feb. 2 before posting a 95-87 win over UK in Colonial Life Arena on Feb. 26 to end the regular season. The two met again the following week in Greenville, S.C., in the semifinals of the SEC Tournament with the Gamecocks claiming a 89-77 victory against a Taylor Murray-less Kentucky.
For more information on the Kentucky women’s basketball team, visit UKathletics.com or follow @KentuckyWBB on Twitter, Instagram and Snapchat, or Kentucky Women’s Basketball on Facebook.
Kentucky Women’s Basketball
Pre-South Carolina News Conference
Joe Craft Center – Lexington, Ky.
Friday, Jan. 19, 2018
Head Coach Matthew Mitchell
Opening Statement …
“Big game Sunday vs. a very good South Carolina team. We would love to get a big crowd out there at Rupp on Sunday to help us try to get a victory. It will be a tough game and the team is working hard trying to get prepared for a good South Carolina team.”
On Maci Morris’ status …
“We are hopeful. The week off (helped). We are re-evaluating her today and she looks like she has really made some great progress, so that will be good. And we got a good report on Makenzie Cann, so that would be great too. It would be good if we could get back to full strength and health and Maci is certainly trending in the right direction.”
On if the team is playing with the fire and intensity that he wants …
“I have never sensed through all the difficult times that there is quit happening. We are not getting a consistent enough level of play throughout a 40-minute game and what is difficult about it is that you will have flashes here and there but rarely have we had all five going in the right direction for a consistently long time. That is the thing that is hard. As their coach, you just continue to fight every day to make certain they know it is not happening to them. It is difficult for a team that is really relying on people that are in such different roles. It has just not come together the way we wanted it to or expected it to. But this is a big opportunity for us on Sunday and there is no better time than now to get going in the right direction. They practiced extremely hard yesterday and I still believe that our best basketball is in front of us. We need to leave the court with the sense of satisfaction that we gave it all that we had from the person playing the most minutes to whoever didn’t get into the game. That is what we are searching for and it has been elusive.”
On Taylor Murray …
“Her mindset and her mental approach was better. This has been hard on everybody and everybody has had different ways of working their way through it. I think that we maybe not processing things as aggressively and as well as we needed to, but she has been much better and much more aggressive in understanding that she can score in the basketball in different ways than getting a speed layup going right, which people continue to take away from her. Every coach does that. We notice a tendency from a player and we try to take it away so that shouldn’t be shocking to a player, but I think she has handled it much better and has scored in different ways the last few games, so I think that is important.”
On scouting a banged-up South Carolina team …
“That is a great question, but if we were maybe in a different spot, but we are so focused on trying to get our group to come together and believe that they can make it through this tough time. We just have so many young players who confidence is clearly shaken at times and it is a hard time. I think one of the hardest transitions is asking a young post player to go from high school to college. I was out watching a high school game last weekend and what they are able to do and be successful with in high school is just very, very foreign to what we are asking them to do. We are trying to keep them encouraged that they are making some progress and getting better. It has not shown up in the way that we all want it to show up as far as winning a basketball game with the consistent level that we would like and we are focusing on that. South Carolina has tons of challenges no matter who is playing. We will prepare for South Carolina like everyone is healthy and talk about the things that will be important for us in that game no matter who is playing. They are a very formidable team. Who is in and who is out, you just have to prepare for a very good South Carolina.”
On coaching against a former player …
“Again, we have so much going on with this team that the opponent (doesn’t matter). No disrespect to the opponent. We have great respect for them. Dawn has just done an unbelievable job and is a great coach and they have very fine players. But that is so far down on our list of issues that we don’t have time to talk about it other than how do we stop their players and what do we have to do to win. I think we are beyond that. As a program we are clearly dealing with some of the things that happened two years ago where our roster looks different and we have some young kids that are shouldering a load that would be much better if there were some veterans that could help them out with that, but as far as any lingering animosity with anybody that had to do what they had to do, I am just wishing that everyone does great and finds happiness and success. That is how we are dealing with that. There is not a bad bone or bitterness at all in these kids or in our locker room. We are just trying to get better. Trying to get better so we can show some progress and get some victories.”
On how he approaches a difficult stretch …
“Well, I don’t think it is a lot different than how we would approach it. You spend a lot of time making sure that the message of staying the course and believing in what we are doing here – because we have won a lot of games and have been very successful and we are going to continue to do that – but this has been a challenging time and a difficult time. Anybody that would say you don’t have some doubts during that time or negative thoughts creeping into your mind, they are a better person than I am. At the end of the day, what you have to have come through is faith. I have tremendous faith that we are on the right path. The good Lord has been so good to me and we have had so much success and we have been joyful during those times. Right now, I am not joyful about what is going on but I am trying to understand that this is an important process for these young people to get better and learn some lessons that they can learn. I have not approached it with any greater effort or less effort. We are trying to stay the course and we will be successful with this group of players, it is just taking us some time.”
