Something’s not quite right with the Kentucky women’s basketball team.That much is clear from a three-game losing streak, UK’s longest since losing four in a row during the 2008-09 season. The latest was a heartbreaker to an up-and-coming Georgia squad. The Cats lost 61-59 after A’dia Mathies 4-foot runner came up short as time expired. The loss snapped a 25-game winning streak at Memorial Coliseum.Mathies’ full-court drive following Ronika Ransford’s free-throw miss with 6.6 seconds left was hardly the problem. In fact, Mathies was one of the few bright spots in the loss. She finished with 14 points, nine rebounds and four assists. She was basically the lone spark in another offensive struggle.”We are struggling offensively right now,” said head coach Matthew Mitchell, who could not hide his total displeasure with the way his team is playing right now. “We’re not making real good decisions at the point guard position. I think we played a little bit better when A’dia got there, so maybe that’s the answer.”For the second game in a row, UK failed to shoot 30 percent, going just 29.5 percent from the field this game.Starting point guard Maegan Conwright, who played extremely well at the beginning of the season, continued her midseason struggles and made just 1-of-6 shots from the floor.Sharpshooter Keyla Snowden, who has led UK in four of the last six games, was also 1-for-6. And leading scorer and reigning Southeastern Conference Player of the Year Victoria Dunlap was 4-of-14 from the floor.Clearly, the offense is missing injured point guard Amber Smith right about now.Mitchell thinks the problem is decision making and took the blame for the recent losses.”I’ve got to do a better job of coaching them in practice,” Mitchell said. “I’m evidently not coaching them very well because offensively we are miserable right now.”Kentucky, which has looked uninspired at times in losses to nationally ranked opponents Duke (No. 3) and Arkansas (No. 25), played better defense Sunday and forced 28 turnovers, but the Bulldogs still shot 50 percent from the floor.The Cats fought back from an 11-point deficit in the first half but could never regain the lead. Every time Kentucky had a chance to take the lead in the second half, Georgia would hit a big shot and reclaim momentum. Most of the time it came from freshman guard Khaalidah Miller, who finished with 24 points, including a shot-clock-buzzer-beating 3-pointer from five feet behind the arc with 1:46 left, or Porsha Miller, who came up with two key defensive plays down the stretch to preserve the win.”We seemed to have an answer,” Georgia head coach Andy Landers said. “We had the resolve today to stay the course.”Which is something Kentucky used to do but can’t right now. For some reason or another, things just aren’t clicking as the Cats face their first significant wall since last year’s magical run.”It’s bad,” Mitchell said of the current situation. “The mood’s bad in the locker room right now.”Coaches get all the credit in the world for successful seasons – which this one could very well end up being – but Mitchell is about to earn his paycheck now. Facing the toughest adversity his team has faced in years, how will he try to turn it around? How will his team respond?
