Green’s Big Night Helps UK to Top-15 Win
Blair Green has been a contributor all season, but she has not shot as well as she would have liked.
On Thursday – when Kentucky needed it most – Green found her range.
In a slugfest of a top-15 matchup between Kentucky and Texas A&M, scoring was already at a premium. Then Rhyne Howard picked up her second foul early in the second quarter, leaving the No. 11 Wildcats (15-2, 4-1 Southeastern Conference) to scratch and claw to hold on to a four-point lead. With Green hitting a pair of key 3s, UK did one better than that, building a double-digit halftime lead to pave the way for an impressive 76-54 victory over the No. 12 Aggies (14-3, 2-2 SEC).
“I’m really happy for her tonight,” Matthew Mitchell said. “She was a big lift for us, especially when you think of Rhyne going to the bench with the foul trouble. We haven’t experienced that a whole lot and she stepped up big, made some shots and kind of steadied the ship.”
After failing to reach double figures in each of her last six games, Green tied a career high with 13 points. She made 5-of-8 shots from the field and three of her five 3-point looks, the most treys Green has hit in a game this season.
Thursday’s game was a far cry for Green from her last, when she shot just 1 of 11 from the field in a win at Florida. After that outing, Mitchell texted the sophomore from Harlan County, Kentucky, native to check on her. Turns out she was doing just fine.
“I just wanted to make sure she was in a good spot and telling her how proud I was of how hard she’d been working on the defensive end,” Mitchell said. “Sunday night, she was just so happy the team had won. She was like, ‘I’ve already put it behind me,’ and she came in with a lot of pep in her step in practice.”
Green, with her coaches and teammates behind her, didn’t know anything else to do but get to work.
“My teammates just kept encouraging me and giving me confidence,” Green said. “I definitely got in the gym after that game and put up a lot of shots. I’ve really been working on it.”
Of course, Green wanted her shots to start falling. So did her coach, but that didn’t need to happen for Mitchell to want her on the floor. Green had played a combined 55 minutes in her last games before playing a season-high 31 against A&M.
“The thing I think I’m most proud of is coming into game on a three-game winning streak, she had really impacted the team defensively and had shown great hustle and improvement in that area,” Mitchell said. “I talked to her. For her to be a top-tier player – and we think she’s a top-tier talent – she had to put it all together. It was unfortunate that her shots weren’t falling, but she was taking good shots and she works every day at it. So we weren’t overly concerned about it.”
Green might have a reputation as an outside shooter, and she did nothing against A&M to dispel that, but she’s proven she’s valuable whether those shots are falling or not.
“I think I’ve just really been letting the game come to me, just making the extra pass, taking my shot when I’m open,” Green said. “He always gives me the green light to do what I need to do. I think he has confidence in me.”
