Feb. 26, 2003
Lexington, Ky. – The Kentucky women’s basketball team looks to continue its winning ways when it travels to Columbia, S.C. to face 16th-ranked South Carolina on Thursday, Feb. 27 at 7 p.m. ET in the newly built Carolina Center. Thursday’s game marks the Cats’ final road game of the regular season before heading to the conference tournament on March 6-9 in Little, Rock, Ark.
The Cats (11-13, 4-8 Southeastern Conference) are riding a two-game win streak after defeating Florida on Thursday (49-47) and Alabama (73-71) in an exhilarating double-overtime game on Sunday. It’s the first time the Cats have won back-to-back conference games since the 1998-99 season.
Thursday marks the second meeting between South Carolina and Kentucky this month. South Carolina (19-6, 7-5 SEC) visited Lexington just three weeks ago on Feb. 2 and escaped with a 49-46 win. Rita Adams had 14 points while SeSe Helm tallied a double-double with 11 points and 13 rebounds. UK and USC have met twice for eight straight seasons as USC is Kentucky’s permanent home-and-home conference opponent. UK leads the overall series 17-12, but trails 8-4 in games play in Columbia.
“South Carolina will be ready to play as three of their seniors will be playing their final game at home,” UK Coach Bernadette Mattox said. “It will be a hostile environment and we will have to remain poised and limit our turnovers in order to win.”
Penn, the nation’s fifth-leading scorer and one of the three seniors to be honored for USC, is averaging 24.5 points per game. Junior Cristina Ciocan and senior Petra Ujhelyi follow as the team’s second and third leading scorers with 12.7 and 11.3 ppg, respectively. Ujhelyi leads the team and the SEC in rebounding with 9.5 boards a game.
The Cats are led by Adams with 14.2 points per game. Sara Potts is averaging 12.2 ppg while Helm follows with 10.6 ppg. In less than two years Potts has established herself as one of the finest shooters in UK history. She has already nailed 114 treys and needs just two three-pointers to move ahead of Tiffany Wait (115) at No. 2 on UK’s all-time three-pointers made list. She also needs only one three-pointer to tie Stacey Reed (65 in 1993) for most three-pointers made in a season. Potts has hit 64 of 142 (45.1 %) which ranks first in the SEC statistics in 3-pt field goal percentage and 3-pt field goals made.
The season finale versus Tennessee on Sunday, March 2 at Memorial Coliseum has been selected for a regional telecast by Comcast/CSS. Game time is 1 p.m. EST. One lucky UK student will win a free semester of tuition at UK. The first 200 UK students in attendance will win a Special Edition UK Mini Portable Radio. The game marks the final regular season contest. Adams, UK’s lone senior, will be recognized in a pre-game “Senior Day” ceremony.
