Kentucky Women’s Basketball
Kentucky vs. Southern
Memorial Coliseum – Lexington, Ky.
Sunday, November 11, 2018
Kentucky Head Coach Matthew Mitchell
Opening Statement …
“Well I’d like to say happy Veterans Day. We’re so appreciative of our veterans and the service to our country, and to live in a country where we have freedom that’s provided to us by the sacrifices that our veterans make is really, really something we are so appreciative of. Hope all the veterans had a great day out there. We appreciate their service. Really pleased that our team is improving. Long way to go, we need to continue just to stay humble and hungry in practice every day, and get better. Saw some things that really showed some improvement tonight. Some little things that are happening for our basketball team. We just have to keep working in practice every single day to get better. I thought there was improvement in some key areas tonight. Thought we were able to really rotate a little bit better in our man-to-man press than we had in our first game. Thought we just really created a lot of havoc with mixing our defenses. So, proud of our players for that; 41 points off 29 turnovers. Really excited we’ve had 20 plus assists in both games and that is a team that will share the ball. A big step tonight, we were able to make 13 threes. Proud of the team, taking another step forward. We just have to stay with it and keep working hard.”
On Rhyne’s (Howard) big game…
“Really proud of her for being that aggressive. We talked to her and had a conversation with her Saturday about just the kind of mentality we wanted her to have. She’s such a great passer, and she sees the floor so great that a lot of times she can get inside the paint and she’ll make a heck of a pass. She’s so gifted and has great eyes and great athletic ability. She gets close to the goal –we want her to get that power jump shot and finish. I thought she looked to do that tonight. I thought her teammates did a great job setting her up for some great catch and shoot 3s. Really confident in the stroke she has on her shot right now, and she gets her feet set up quickly, and it was a good night behind the line. What’s so exciting about her, so much room for improvement and learning the game. I thought she got better from the first game to the second game and that’s what we’re hunting right now. We’re a long way from being a finished product. We just need to keep seeking improvement every day, trying to get better and that’s what I’m so proud of with the players right now. We really wanted to come out more focused tonight than we did Wednesday night. I just thought they really took coaching to heart and tried to get that done. Good night for our team.”
On the bench having 26 points…
“You love great contribution from your bench that’s hard to predict from game-to-game. We thought Southern (University) played hard they’re the defending champions in their conference, they have some good players, but like I told our team, I thought the way we built an early lead was not because Southern was playing bad, it was because we were playing good, and that’s a mentality we need to have. No matter whether you’re starting the game or coming off the bench, you need to work hard to do things the right way, so I thought the bench gave us a nice spark and lift. Anytime you can get an overall contribution from everybody and everybody can pitch in and score some points really helps you out so I’m proud of the bench tonight.”
On teachable moments in the fourth quarter…
“It happens with teams, and it doesn’t happen with great teams. You lose focus. Teams can lose focus with a big lead and let your mind wander. We’re trying to be the very best team that we can be and that is staying with it for 40 minutes. That’s not easy to do or easy for a coach to sit up and talk about. It’s harder for a team to actually produce that. I thought Southern for a stretch there played harder, more physical, scrapped more, got a lot of open shots that they didn’t make, not because of our defense we just were not dictating the game. I thought they were dictating, and sometime when a team is missing shots like they were, you feel like you’re defending, and we weren’t defending well. We lost focus there and offensively lacked patience and poise and I thought they were more physical there in that stretch. So, refocusing there after the timeout there was about 8:30 left in the game, I thought the team tried to rally and focus back in and finish the game off with some success. We want to be a 40-minute team. A team that can stay focused and we’re going to have to with this Southeastern Conference competition and we’ll learn from it and get better. That’s one thing this team has shown us they can do. They have high character, they want to be good and they’ll learn from that portion of the game.”
On if Rhyne was in full gear…
“I thought she was in low gear when she hit those 3s too, she was not in high gear at that point in time. She’s a phenomenal shooter. She took some steps forward tonight on that, it’s a work in progress. You’ve been such an effective player and productive player, and now your coach is telling you that you have to ratchet it up and ramp it up a little bit it’s not a going to be an overnight thing, but I’ll tell you what, what she has made improvement from Wednesday to Sunday and that’s just what she has to keep doing. If she can continue that, where she can play with the tempo, pace and intensity we want her to play at, she’s already very gifted and very smart, she’ll have a chance to be a great player.”
UK Student-Athletes
#4 Maci Morris, G
On how the physicality of Southern helped them…
“It was good. We got a little bit more of a test, especially on offense. They were really a pressure team so it gave us an opportunity to play against a more physical team, being able to make sure we take care of the ball, make stronger passes and just attack the rim.
On Howard’s stellar performance…
“She hit seven [three-pointers] which tied program history; most 3s in a game. She’s just a freshman. She’s been working really hard since the last game and coach challenged her and I think she stepped up to the plate. I thought she did better than what we thought she could and she’s just going to keep on doing better and blow our minds.”
On what the last two games can provide looking towards the tougher end of the schedule…
“It gave us the opportunity to be able to practice our plays, make sure we know our rotations on defense and be able to practice that at a high intensity, going against somebody different than ourselves. It gives us a new look at what teams are going to do so it will prepare us for our next game.”
On what it means having a big-time scorer alongside herself…
“I love it. It takes so much pressure off of me, so I love it. It just gives us another opportunity and expands our ability to play. It makes it a lot easier for me and it’s going to make it a lot harder on other teams to be able to guard us because we have so many weapons offensively. Especially if one of us isn’t having an on night, another one will be. So you can go with…whoever’s on. We have a lot of talent we can go to.”
Statement on Veteran’s Day…
“Also, it’s Veterans Day so I just want to give a shout out to all veterans and their sacrifices and services they give to our country, so thank you guys.
#10 Rhyne Howard, G
On her effort in tonight’s game…
“Coach just told me I had to bring the energy so I was trying to show him what I could do.”
On her three-pointers in tonight’s game…
“My teammates got me open looks so I just had to make sure I made them.”
On how she achieved personal success tonight…
“Well, after practice I usually just stay and put some more shots up and I’m always in the gym trying to work on my shot and get better.”
On her game as a guard and finding her teammates…
“I just like to get everyone involved in the game. Even if somebody is off, I just want to keep feeding them the ball so they can know their confidence.”
On whether she knew she was “on” tonight…
“Yeah, when I took that first shot I knew I was on.”
