UK Locks Down on Defense as Offense Struggles
The way shots were doing everything but falling, you would have thought frustration would set in.
If it did, the Kentucky Wildcats didn’t let it show. Not on defense anyway.
“I thought Virginia made it really difficult on us to score in the first half and really played tough defense against us, had us out of rhythm,” Matthew Mitchell said. “To our players’ credit, we were able to play tough defense, disruptive defense. That was the goal going into the game and we were able to weather the poor offensive showing in the first to really come through with a hard-fought victory.”
Unbothered by missed shot after missed shot, UK kept the pressure on visiting Virginia from start to finish. Making it difficult for the Cavaliers to even get up a shot for long stretches, the Cats scored a 63-51 victory over a Virginia team that advanced to the second round of the NCAA Tournament a season ago.
“I thought it showed a lot of growth from a lot players,” Mitchell said. “We have a lot of returners on the team who I think a year ago would have been really deflated. Offensive struggles really deflated us from playing hard on defense last year. It was a problem that plagued us all year long and we’ve worked hard to correct that.”
Maci Morris was on that team last year and no one has worked harder to correct that issue from a season ago. She was ice cold all night, scoring nine points on 4-of-16 shooting, but she was fully engaged from start to finish. In so doing, Morris set the right tone for her team along with fellow senior leader and now fellow 1,000-point club member Taylor Murray.
“Just knowing the difference from how we would have responded last year to this year, it gives me a lot of hope for this team,” Morris said. “I was really proud of how we fought through the adversity and just continued to play hard on defense.”
UK (3-0) missed its first seven shots and was just 11 for 43 from the field early in the third quarter, but the Cats had a four-point lead anyway. Forcing 32 turnovers and attempting 24 more shots than your opponent will help overcome significant deficiencies in other areas, after all.
“I think tonight is a great game for us if this ever happens again, if we’re ever in this situation where we’re not shooting well, that we can look back and see that we won a game even when our shots aren’t falling,” Morris said. “The defense is what carried us through the game and got us the win.”
When the shots finally did start to fall, Virginia didn’t stand a chance. The Cats quickly hit seven of their next 11 field-goal tries, building a lead as large as 18 points in the process. UK would again fall cold late with 10 misses in its final 14 attempts, but the Cats’ traps and pressure never allowed an imposing Virginia frontcourt led by 6-foot-9 Felicia Aiyeotan to do major damage.
“We’ve got great size one through five, but we don’t have any singular imposing presence,” Mitchell said. “We gotta use our athleticism, our length and we gotta couple that with tremendous desire and hustle and effort. It’s a high-character group of players who want to win. They want to win and they want to be good and we just have to keep plugging here and working hard every day.”
A long road lies ahead for Kentucky, but the way the Cats performed in their first significant test gives plenty of reason for optimism.
“We need to get better offensively and we need to continue to improve defensively,” Mitchell said, “but a lot of good effort tonight, a lot of hustle, a lot of things we did right on defense.”
