The Kentucky women?s basketball team travels to Oxford, Miss., looking for revenge when they take on the Ole Miss Rebels Thursday, Feb. 8 at 8 p.m. EST in C.M. ?Tad? Smith Coliseum. The game will be broadcast live on the Big Blue Sports Network with Neil Price.
The Wildcats fell to the Rebels earlier this season in overtime in Memorial Coliseum. Ole Miss connected on 18-of-23 free-throws, including five clutch charity shots in overtime to give them the two-point victory, 67-65. Junior guard Samantha Mahoney scored a game-high 16 points and junior center Sarah Elliott notched her seventh career double-double with 14 points and a career-high 18 rebounds to lead the Wildcats.
UK (15-9, 4-5 Southeastern Conference) is coming off an 84-74 win over Florida on Super Bowl Sunday. The victory over the Gators came after nearly pulling off an upset of No. 15 Vanderbilt last Thursday. Commodore Dee Davis dribbled the court and made a driving layup with 1.6 seconds left to give Vanderbilt the 63-62 win.
Both Kentucky and Ole Miss have had their share of close games this season. Eleven UK games have been decided by 10 points or less, including two concluded in overtime. Ole Miss also has had 11 games decided by 10 points or less with six OT games.
?I think Ole Miss is one of the surprise teams in the league this year, UK Coach Mickie DeMoss said. ?They are having a really good year. They just beat Arkansas in double overtime at Arkansas. Armintie Price has really taken a load on. She?s second in the league in scoring right at 19 points and leads them in steals, rebounds and everything else. I think their other two guards [Alliesha] Easley and [Ashley] Awkward are playing really well right now and shooting the ball really well. We?re certainly going to have our hands full.?
Mahoney eclipsed the 20-point plateau for the third time this season with a team-high 21 points in the win over the Gators on Sunday. She was one of four Wildcats in double figures as UK shot a season-best 51.9 percent (28-of-54) from the field, and won the rebound battle by 13 (44-31), its second-largest rebounding margin in SEC play this season. Against the Commodores, senior forward/center Jennifer Humphrey scored a game-high 16 points and senior guard Nastassia Alcius tied her season-high with 14 points.
Junior center Sarah Elliott, who came out of a three-game slump to score 18 vs. Florida, leads the team in scoring, averaging 13.3 ppg, while Mahoney follows with 13.1 ppg and a team-best 13.9 ppg in conference play. Humphrey is bringing down a squad best 9.8 rebounds per game, while Elliott adds 6.8 rpg.
The Rebels improved to 18-6 overall and 7-2 in SEC play with back-to-back wins at Florida and Arkansas last week. Price, who leads Ole Miss in scoring and rebounding, is one of the country?s best all-around players this season. She is coming off a 30-point, 13-rebound, six-steals, five-assist effort at Arkansas, including 20 points in the first half. Price also led Ole Miss with 17 points and 10 boards at Florida.
This is the 28th meeting between Ole Miss and Kentucky. The Rebels lead the series 19-8, including a 9-3 advantage when playing in Oxford. UK has won four of the last six meetings, including the last game played in Oxford. UK defeated Ole Miss last season in Tad Smith Coliseum, 81-75.
PRESS CONFERENCE QUOTES – FEB. 7
Head Coach Mickie DeMoss
?I think Ole Miss is one of the surprise teams in the league this year. They are having a really good year. They just beat Arkansas in double overtime at Arkansas. Armintie Price has really taken a load on. She?s second in the league in scoring right at 19 points and leads them in steals, rebounds and everything else. I think their other two guards [Alliesha]Easley and [Ashley] Awkward are playing really well right now and shooting the ball really well. We?re certainly going to have our hands full. Just watching the film again of our game here, we were just so close to winning that game. We just came up short there at the end. We let them get to the boards too many times, let them get too many offensive put-backs. But we had success down there last year. We are coming off a good win against Florida. I think it?s helped our confidence level and our spirit.?
On the success SEC teams have had on the road this season ?
?I don?t know if teams feel more pressure at home, or if my team does. Maybe there is more control on the road. You control more of their schedule and when they rest and what they eat. I don?t know if that?s the reason or that?s just kind of the nature of this season.?
On when she feels her team has played its best basketball this season?
?I don?t think this team has been really consistent, so it is hard to say. I thought Vanderbilt was probably one of our best efforts from start to finish. I thought we played smart, had a lot of things we had to defend and did a nice job of defending those things. As far as having all of our players just really clicking on the same day on the same page, I don?t know if we?ve had that yet. It seems like we may have two playing their best and then two others not contributing like we want.?
On the importance of the next two games in determining the team?s postseason fate?
?These two road games are obviously going to be tough with Tennessee ranked third in the country and Ole Miss was in the top 25. It?s going to be two tough battles. I?d have to look through the rest of the season, see what our record is and see what everybody else?s record is. I think every game, right now, is so important, especially when you have five games left. Each game becomes more and more important as the season goes on.?
On treating February as a brand-new season?
?We?re 1-1 and lost a close one to Vandy, which could have gone either way. So far, I have been pleased with the effort, with our attitude, and with our spirit. It?s been a year where we?ve been challenged with so many close games. We?ve been challenged with our resolve to come in and keep working to get better. We?ve been challenged to not drop our heads and keep believing, and I think we?ve done that. Up to this point, I was disappointed in the Vanderbilt game, but very pleased with the Florida win, so we?re 1-1 right now with five games left, so we?ll see.?
On Tennessee holding Alumni Weekend on Sunday?
?I don?t know if they purposefully did it. It will be special. I know there will be a lot of players there that I helped recruit and coach for four years. It will be special to see some of those people there. I don?t know how much time I?ll have to really spend with them and devote not a whole lot of time and attention, but it?s always great to see former players. I?ve always said that that?s what coaching is ultimately all about ? the relationships that you form and, hopefully, the lives that you have touched along the way somewhere. I know that there have been a lot of great players and a lot of great people who have come through the Tennessee program. I?ll look forward to seeing some of them.?
On playing in Thompson-Boling Arena on Sunday?
?It?s kind of a double-edged sword. I look forward to going down and being back at where I spent 18 years of my coaching career. I have a lot of friends and fans down there that now pull for the Kentucky program when they?re not cheering for the Big Orange. In that way, I am looking forward to it because I know those people have generally supported what I?ve done here. I get notes all the time from fans down there about them being proud about what we have done here at Kentucky and things like that. I don?t think any coach really looks forward to going into Thompson-Boling Arena. You look at their record at home and it?s pretty staggering. In that sense, we know it is going to be a battle.?
On Kentucky?s 66-63 win over Tennessee last year if Coach Summitt will use it as a motivator?
?I don?t even think [Pat Summitt] has to remind them. She reminded me quite frequently over the summer, which she didn?t have to remind me either. I immediately started thinking about it the minute the buzzer went off last year at Rupp Arena ? that we were going to have to go back down to Knoxville next year. I don?t think she has to remind her players, they will remember that quite vividly, because they don?t lose many games each year, so they remember the losses.?
On whether Pat Summitt will be seeking revenge on Sunday?
?I think that even though she doesn?t like to lose and is one of the most competitive people I have ever met, I think in once sense after we beat them last year, she was very complimentary of the team. In a weird kind of way, she?s proud of what we?ve been able to do here at Kentucky. In that sense, I know that she was proud of what we?ve done. I?m sure she didn?t like it at their expense. She has got more rivals in the game, probably a bit more heated rivals than me.?
On beating Tennessee last season and if that was a defining moment in the program?
?I don?t think games carry over that length of time. I think it really did propel us at the end of last year. I think we drew a lot of confidence from that game, and that was something that this program needed. It needed another signature win. I thought the year before beating Georgia was big. Beating Tennessee ? there are coaches in our profession and have been coaching longer than I have, and have never beaten Tennessee. It?s a team that people strive to beat. It was a signature win for us. As far as this year is concerned, I?m sure those players will never forget beating Tennessee ? I hope they won?t, because it was one of the highlights of their career. Time moves on and there are other games and other situations that you have got to focus on.?
On keeping the players from focusing on what it will take to make the NCAA Tournament?
?I think that what we preach as a coaching staff is that we?ve got to stay in the moment, we?ve got to stay in the present. We?re not good enough to focus two or three games down the road. Right now, we have really got to get our focus on one game at a time, one possession at a time. I think as a coaching staff, that?s what we preach. I don?t have total control over what goes on in their minds. Some of them have probably looked down the schedule and looked at our record. They probably know in the back of their minds what it is going to take, but it is my job to try to keep our focus in the present.?
On playing Tennessee and LSU twice next year in the rotating SEC schedule?
?That?s going to be a huge challenge. It?s just the way the rotation landed. It?s computerized and for the last two years we?ve had Florida and Ole Miss. I think the first two years, it was Georgia and Mississippi State. It?s just the way it landed. To play two of the toughest teams in the league twice does present a challenge and it does represent a challenge on our record. Hopefully each year we?ll get better players and better athletes and be able to compete.?
On if she would like to switch to an East-West Divisional format like the men?s teams?
?We discuss this every year at SEC meetings. There are about three or four coaches in the SEC West that would love to go to the divisional format. But the coaches in the East do not want to go to that. If you look at the strength of the teams in the East, traditionally speaking, the East is loaded. To have to play Georgia, Tennessee and Vanderbilt twice, it?s not something that the coaches of the teams in the East are in favor of.?
On needing to win close games?
?If this game comes down to an end-of-game situation, it would certainly be nice for us to come out on the winning end of it. It?s really been a strange year. The ball did bounce our way at Alabama. There have been games that it has gone our way. Against Florida, we get up 28 and had to play the end of it out with going to the free-throw line and having to handle their press. That was good that we were able to pull that out. It wasn?t real pretty. We didn?t handle that situation extremely well, but we handled it well enough to win the game.?
#4 Sarah Elliott, Center
On the challenges of the last five games of the season?
?We?re just trying to take everything one game at a time. We?re trying not to think to far ahead. Of course we know what?s ahead, we know we have a tough schedule coming, but it doesn?t do us any good to focus on that.?
On treating the month of February like a new a season?
?January was a rough month for us. Coach [Mickie] DeMoss told us to come out and play in February like it is the start of a whole new season. We?re starting over and playing hard. We need to get over the hump to reach our full potential. Being 1-1 in the month of February is helping, and we?re still pushing through.?
On close games not falling in their favor?
?Coach DeMoss tells us to keep being positive, and that eventually the ball is going to bounce our way. We just need to keep fighting and stay positive, and I think that we can come out ahead in a close game situation.?
On the team?s mindset on facing Tennessee at home?
?We?re trying not to get ahead of ourselves, and we?re staying focused on Ole Miss for right now. Of course we?re excited about playing a great team like Tennessee on national television. But, we know that we have to go down there and give our all no matter what.?
