No. 17 Kentucky Faces No. 10 NC State in NCAA Tournament Second Round
LEXINGTON, Ky. – The No. 17 University of Kentucky women’s basketball team looks to reach the Sweet 16 of the NCAA Tournament for a sixth time under head coach Matthew Mitchell when it faces third-seeded and host NC State on Monday at 7 p.m. ET inside Reynolds Coliseum in Raleigh, N.C.
The game will be televised regionally on ESPN with the entire state of Kentucky seeing the contest while a majority of the nation will be in whip-around coverage. Darren Headrick will have the game on the UK Sports Network on 630AM WLAP in Lexington. Every game of the 2019 NCAA Tournament can be streamed through WatchESPN. Ticket information will be available at gopack.com.
Kentucky (25-7) advanced to the second round after a come-from-behind victory Saturday against Princeton. The Wildcats were led in the game by senior guards Taylor Murray and Maci Morris who each scored 19 points. Murray added five rebounds, four assists and three steals while Morris hit three 3s with four rebounds and two steals. Combined the two players scored 19 of UK’s 28 third-quarter points that put the Wildcats in the lead for good against the Tigers.
The Wildcats are making their 15th all-time appearance in the NCAA Tournament and hold a 21-14 all-time record in the event, including a 17-8 mark under Mitchell. Kentucky is 5-5 all-time in the second round of the tournament, including a 5-3 mark under Matthew Mitchell. The Wildcats have advanced to five Sweet 16s under Mitchell with the latest coming in 2015-16 when they fell to Washington at Rupp Arena.
NC State (27-5) advanced to the second round of the event with a 3-51 win against Maine in the opening round Friday. Graduate student guard Kiara Leslie led the Wolfpack with 20 points adding six rebounds and three 3s while freshman center Elissa Cunane had 16 points and nine rebounds. Sophomore guard Kai Crutchfield had 14 points with five rebounds and two assists also hitting three 3s.
Leslie is the team’s leading scorer averaging 15.6 points per game with 7.1 rebounds per game and 93 assists while Cunane is averaging 13.7 points per game with 5.8 rebounds per game. Junior guard Aislinn Konig is the team’s leading 3-point shooter hitting 89-of-222 from long range this season while also leading the team with 122 assists.
Kentucky and NC State are meeting for the sixth time in program history with NC State holding a 3-2 record against the Wildcats. This is the fourth meeting between the two teams in Raleigh, N.C., with NC State holding a 2-1 record in those meetings. Monday is the first meeting between the two teams since a 66-62 NC State win on Dec. 30, 1995 at a neutral site.
For more information on the Kentucky women’s basketball team, visit UKathletics.com or follow @KentuckyWBB on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook.
NCAA Tournament Second Round News Conference
Reynolds Coliseum – Raleigh, N.C.
Head Coach Matthew Mitchell
Opening Statement …
“Well, we’re very excited for the team, to be able to find a way to advance in the tournament yesterday. They really fought hard, played hard, so we’re proud of that and we have a huge challenge ahead of us tomorrow. I’ve been watching a lot of North Carolina State here the last 24 hours and really they have such a fine team. Really, really tough. They’ve had a great season. It’ll be a big challenge for us to be on their home court and we’ll have to fight hard to win, but they have an outstanding team and we’re going to have to work really, really hard against North Carolina State tomorrow.”
On dictating the tempo in tomorrow’s game …
“Well, it’s what we’ve told our players is we have to try to be the best version of Kentucky that we can possibly be. So that means we would like for it to be up tempo. We’ve won games at different paces this year. And I’m proud of the team for that. We’ve been able to operate and some low-scoring games and, and um, find a way to win. And we’ve been able to be in some high scoring games and find a way to win sort of like yesterday was. So we obviously would like to have an up tempo game, but your opponent dictates a lot of that as well. So you know, I think North Carolina State does a great job of getting back and transition and trying to set their tempo so, you know, it’s, it’s at this time of year you’re going to play somebody really good and, um, I think you just have to work so hard to keep the focus on what you do well and try to be the very best of that that you can be. And we certainly hope we can play well tomorrow and play at a tempo that we’d like to play at.”
On what the team needs to do differently …
“Well, I think in, in some ways in a tournament setting that there’s some similarities here and they’re not totally similar, but both teams had a really tough inside presence and both teams have dynamic guards. And so for us, um, you know, I think we have to rebound the ball. I’d like to try to rebound the ball better tomorrow. I thought Princeton really got after us there in the first half. We did a little bit better job in the, in the second half, but I think that North Carolina State has tremendous capabilities to rebound the basketball great athletes, physical players, tough-minded players. And so I think rebounding is going to be something that we need to be locked in and do the very best we can at that tomorrow. And other than that, I thought yesterday we were able to respond well when adversity hit. And I think there’s potential for that in any basketball game you play, obviously, but you know, it’s North Carolina State’s really a physical team, tough team. And we’ll have to fight hard to win tomorrow.”
On NC State Coach Moore paying him to do yard work many years ago …
“Well, I can’t confirm the hundred dollars. I don’t remember the a hundred dollars. That’s not the way I remember it, but I did lay a yard full of sod of at Moore’s house. That’s been 20 years ago this coming fall is when that happened and I was a graduate assistant at the University of Tennessee and it’s a long story, but I did end up laying sod at his beautiful home in Chattanooga and we spent that day together. And that was the beginning of what’s been a really beneficial relationship for me. He’s been a person that I’ve really looked up to and could learn from and he’s been gracious with his time over the years and, uh, he’s always has such a well-coached team and a tough competitor and his teams are tough to play against. I’m going to ask him tomorrow about the hundred dollars, cause I can’t remember that. I, and I, at that point in time, I would have remembered that I can promise you that.”
On similarities they can full from similar opponents …
“Well, I think the difficulty there is the timing. You play them at opposite times of the year. And so there’s some things that you could look at, but what we try to focus on is how are we playing now and how are they playing now and go from there. So you just try to gather whatever information you can from any recent games in this compressed period of time. I don’t think you can attach a whole lot of significance to it. Tomorrow’s a different day than any day when we played those other teams and now we’re playing each other. And so I think that’s probably the thing that’s most important or both teams is just to try to be the very best version that you can be tomorrow. A very good team is going to go home tomorrow and a very good teams gonna advance and it will be what would imagine it’s going to be a very tough battle. We’re certainly going to prepare for that.”
#10 Rhyne Howard, G, FR
On NC State …
“Oh, we know that they are very aggressive team and they’re going to push in transition and work hard and play very tough defense.”
On playing two games in three days …
“We’ve been preparing like we prepared for that by just conditioning hard all the time and we knew it was going to be tough so we just and endured and fought through everything that was going on.”
On playing her first NCAA Tournament game yesterday and what she can take from it for tomorrow …
“Oh, it was a great experience. Learning experience. Definitely. t just got me ready for what I will be going through. My teammates helped me. They’d been where I’ve been. I just look up to them.”
#32 Jaida Roper, G, JR
On playing a road game tomorrow …
“Of course, playing at your home is always more exciting. You know, you have the fans on your side, but I feel like we’ve been playing really well on the road this year and we’re ready for the challenge.”
On her no-look pass yesterday …
“I like to spice it up a little bit when I have the opportunity. Um, but credit to [Tatyana Wyatt], catching it and scoring off of it. All my teammates kinda know when I drive to like always be ready for my passes cause sometimes they get a little crazy. But shout out to Tatyana for catching it.”
On the team playing their style tomorrow …
“Yeah, Coach Mitchell talks to us a lot about focusing on Kentucky. We know they like the crash the boards. So we’ve been working hard on just finding people and rebound it and trying to get it out and push it as hard as we can consecutively so we can kind of wear on their condition a little bit because we have been working really hard with our conditioning. So just trying to focus on Kentucky. That’s our main goal.”
