No. 13 Kentucky Ready for Saturday Showdown at Virginia
LEXINGTON, Ky. – After a brief stop in Lexington to grab its third win of the year Wednesday, the No. 13 University of Kentucky women’s basketball team returns to the road this weekend as it travels to Charlottesville, Virginia, for a Saturday showdown with Virginia at 5 p.m. ET inside John Paul Jones Arena.
The game will be streamed on ACC Network Extra and can be seen through WatchESPN on computers, smartphones or tablets. Darren Headrick will have the call on the UK Sports Network on 98.5FM in Lexington. Live stats and free live audio will be available online at UKathletics.com.
Kentucky (3-0) has used its defense to win three first three games of the year, limiting each of its first three opponents to 52 points or less and a combined 34 percent from the field. In three games, the Wildcats have forced 72 turnovers and scored 75 points off turnovers. UK ranks 18th nationally and first in the Southeastern Conference in turnover margin at 10.6 per game while it is 31st nationally and first in the league in turnovers forced per game at 24.0. UK has scored 20 or more points off turnovers in every game this season. So far this season, Kentucky has 17 blocked shots, which ranks 13th nationally and third in the SEC. Junior forward KeKe McKinney leads the team with nine blocks, while sophomore guard Rhyne Howard has six. Both players rank inside the nation’s top 40 and top-10 in the league in blocked shots per game.
Offensively, Kentucky has scored exactly 67 points in all three games this season while shooting 35.8 percent from the field and 27 percent from long range. UK has a +6.0 rebounding margin with 24 more offensive rebounds than its opponents averaging 18.3 second-chance points per game. UK is averaging 15.7 assists per game and has a 1.2 assist-turnover ratio, which ranks first in the SEC.
Howard leads Kentucky so far this season averaging 15.7 points per game and 5.7 rebounds per game with eight assists, six blocks and six steals. Senior guard Sabrina Haines is averaging 9.0 points per game and 5.3 rebounds per game. Haines is 6-of-11 from long range this season sitting tied with Howard for most 3s hit. Junior forward Tatyana Wyatt is averaging 8.7 points and 6.7 rebounds per game, while McKinney is averaging 6.0 points and a team-best 7.7 rebounds pre game. Senior guard Amanda Paschal and sophomore guard Blair Green are both averaging seven points per game .
Virginia enters the weekend with a 2-1 record after starting the season with a home win over Bucknell, 84-60. The Cavaliers then traveled to California for a two-game road swing facing Southern California and CSUN. The trip started with a 59-49 loss to USC before a 72-47 victory at CSUN. Saturday’s game starts a difficult stretch for Virginia, who will travel to No. 4 UCONN next Tuesday before finishing non-conference play with Old Dominion, JMU, UCLA, Rutgers, UNCLA and either Mississippi State or South Florida. UVA is averaging 68.3 points per game this season, hitting 41 percent from the field and 35.6 percent from long range. The Cavaliers are outrebounding teams by 9.4 boards per game while averaging 15.7 assists per game and 8.7 steals per game. UVA is averaging 15.3 turnovers per game.
Senior guard Jocelyn Willoughby leads the team by averaging 20.0 points per game this season. Willoughby is hitting 45.2 percent from the field and is 6-of-12 from long range with 7.3 rebounds per game and a team-best 10 assists. Senior forward Lisa Jablonowski is averaging 12.0 points per game with 5.3 rebounds per game, while senior guard Dominique Toussaint is averaging 9.5 points per game with nine assists. Freshman guard Carole Miller and redshirt freshman guard Amandine Toi are averaging 9.3 and 9.0 points per game, respectively.
Saturday’s game marks the second all-time meeting between Kentucky and Virginia in women’s basketball. In the first ever meeting between Kentucky and Virginia on Nov. 15, 2018 inside Rupp Arena, the Wildcats came out on top 63-51. UK led 21-20 at the break before outscoring the Cavaliers 23-11 in the third quarter to take control of the game. UK shot just 33.3 percent from the field while Virginia shot 44.4 percent, but the Wildcats forced UVA into 32 turnovers and scored 32 points off those miscues to earn the win. Howard scored 11 points in the game for Kentucky with seven rebounds while Jaida Roper also had 11 points with three assists. UVA was led by Erica Martinsen, who had 15 points. Toussaint had five points while Willoughby had nine points and seven rebounds.
For more information on the Kentucky women’s basketball team, visit UKathletics.com or follow @KentuckyWBB on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook.
KENTUCKY HEAD COACH MATTHEW MITCHELL
On how the team has prepared for the Virginia matchup after the Stetson win…
“Well, we were happy to get the victory Wednesday night. We came back yesterday to try and improve what we saw our team do on Wednesday night, and there is tons of room for improvement, but I thought the players had a good session yesterday, and now we’ll just try and get ready for what I think is a really strong, tough and dynamic Virginia team.”
On how different Virginia is now from a year ago when you met them at Rupp Arena…
“Well, I think you’ve seen improvement. I think you’ve seen all of their players, their returners, take a step forward and they’re playing really physical basketball right now. I think they have good size at all positions. Just really aggressive defensively, and they’re going to make it tough on us to score. We’ve had a hard time here early in the season making some shots, so I think it’s going to be a real battle. But, I think you’re going to see an overall step forward from them in a year or two with Coach Tina Thompson.”
On turning the ball over from them 32 times last year, and if you could have success in that area this year…
“Well, I don’t know that we could replicate that. I think we had a good day that day, and looking back, I don’t know that they had their best stuff that day. But, I think what we’ve got to focus on is really trying to stay in front of the basketball. I think they can really drive it. I think Jocelyn Willoughby is just one of the best players that I’ve seen early on around the country, and I haven’t seen everybody, but she is very impressive. They just have some really good athletes who can put the ball on the floor. So, for us, we’ve just got to try to be as close to who we are as we can, in every game, no matter who we’re playing, but part of our equation is playing tough defense, being disruptive and trying to be on the attack, and doing everything we can to be the team with more hustle, and that’s going to be hard to do against Virginia, because they look like a team who is hustling hard to start the season.”
