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Senior SeSe Helm scored 23 points and junior Sara Potts nailed a school record seven three-pointers, also finishing with 23, as the Kentucky women?s basketball team defeated High Point, 83-45, on Tuesday in Memorial Coliseum.
In UK?s last non-conference game of the regular season, the Wildcats rebounded from a loss to Cincinnati in their last game as the Wildcats shot 55.4 percent from the field and forced 25 High Point turnovers. Helm, Potts and Jenny Pfeiffer combined for 63 of UK?s 83 points, as Helm hit a perfect 7-of-7 for 23 points while Pfeiffer added 6-of-8 and hit all four of her three-point attempts, finishing with 17. Potts, who dropped in a career-high 23 points on 8-of-15 shooting and Pfeiffer, combined to connect on 11-of-16 from three-point land.
?It was a good win,? UK Coach Mickie DeMoss said. ?We got a lot of people in the game, and a lot of people played well. We shot the ball really well, hit some threes and had a solid inside performance. We played a team that was probably a little undermanned and had some injuries. But we came out, played with a lot of heart and played hard regardless of the score.?
The Lady Panthers (4-7) stayed with the Wildcats (8-5) in the early going, but after a Shambrica Jones? lay-in tied the game at 14 apiece, UK went on a 9-0 run to pull open the game. High Point broke the drought on a Charlena Martin field goal at the 9:26 mark, but the Big South Conference member managed only two points the rest of the half, as the Cats went into the break with their largest halftime cushion of the season, 42-18.
?We?ve been spending a lot of time on our defense and we?ve gotten better on the defensive end,? DeMoss said. ?Our man-to-man defense wasn?t very good at the beginning of the game; I don?t know if it was High Point or if it was us. They were hitting some shots and we were in their faces. We switched to zone, and the zone looked really good tonight.?
UK?s stifling defensive pressure held the Lady Panthers to just 30.9 percent shooting in the contest while forcing 25 turnovers. Meanwhile, the Cats blistered the nets with a 55.4 percent mark, the fourth time this season the Cats have eclipsed 50 percent shooting.
The Cats led by as many as 44, 80-36, with 5:43 remaining, as Potts drained her sixth trey of the game, tying a record that she and Pfeiffer jointly held from last season. For the first time all season, all 14 Cats saw the court, and nine players reached the UK scoring column.
?It felt great to break the record,? Potts said. ?Coach (DeMoss) told me that I was two (threes) away. I started to get excited and my shots weren?t falling so I had to calm down. Once I calmed down my shots started falling. I have to say that if it wasn?t for my teammates setting up some great screens then what I accomplished tonight wouldn?t have been possible.?
High Point, which had never met UK until tonight?s game, was led by Katie O?Dell and Martin, who scored 15 and 12 points, respectively. Though the Lady Panthers did not shoot well from the field, they managed to tie the Cats on the boards, as each team pulled down 32.
The Cats return to action on Thursday, Jan. 8, when they travel to Nashville, Tenn., to open conference play with No. 22 Vanderbilt (12-1). UK will tip-off with the ?Dores at 8 p.m. EST in Memorial Gym. All the action can be heard live on 1300 WLAP with Chris Cross.
