Looking to get back in the win column after dropping two tough road games at highly ranked Duke and Tennessee last week, the No. 24 University of Kentucky women’s basketball team opens its Southeastern Conference home schedule against Missouri on Thursday at 7 p.m. ET inside Memorial Coliseum.
Single-game tickets for all Kentucky home games are available through the UK Ticket Office and through ticketmaster.com. Single-game tickets are $9 for reserved seating (all ages), $8 for adult general admission and $5 for youth (6-18/seniors 65+) general admission seating. General admission seating is free for ages five and under. Parking is available in most surface lots and parking garages around Memorial Coliseum and shuttles are available from most lots.
The game will be televised nationally on SEC Network with Courtney Lyle on play-by-play and Debbie Antonelli as the analyst. The game can also be seen through WatchESPN on computers, smartphones and tablets. Now in his 12th season, Neil Price will have the call on the UK Sports Network. Fans in Lexington can hear Price’s call of the game on WLAP 630 AM. Live stats and free audio will be available online at ukathletics.com.
Kentucky (9-5) is coming off a tough week dropping road games at top-15 ranked Duke and Tennessee, who is receiving votes in both national polls. The losses dropped Kentucky to No. 24 in the latest Associated Press Top 25. The Wildcats fell out of the USA Today/Coaches Top 25, but are still receiving votes.
Sophomore guard Taylor Murray was the story for Kentucky last week, returning from injury to lead the Wildcats in scoring in both games. Murray posted 18 points against Duke before a career-high 23 points with six rebounds and two assists against Tennessee. On the season, Murray is averaging 14.0 points and 5.1 rebounds per game, sitting second on the team with 27 assists.
Senior guard Makayla Epps leads Kentucky in scoring averaging 16.8 points and 4.4 rebounds per game. Epps leads Kentucky with 55 assists this season and is second on the team with 18 steals. The native of Lebanon, Ky., has scored in double figures in every game but two this season with five 20+ point performances.
Senior post Evelyn Akhator and sophomore guard Maci Morris are also averaging double figures for Kentucky. Akhator, who has eight double-doubles this season, is averaging 13.1 points and 10.7 rebounds per game. Morris is averaging 12.3 points per game and has scored in double figures in three straight games.
As a team, the Wildcats rank high nationally in several categories, including seventh in the nation and first in the SEC in fewest turnovers per game at 12.1. UK ranks 23rd nationally and second in the league in fewest total turnovers with 170, which is 69 fewer turnovers than the Wildcats had through 14 games last season. Kentucky also ranks top 15 nationally and second in the SEC in fewest personal fouls per game at 13.9.
Missouri has started its 2016-17 campaign with an 11-4 overall record, including a 1-3 record in non-conference road games and a 0-1 record against ranked opponents. The Tigers started SEC play with a win on Sunday, defeating Georgia 63-45 in Columbia. Missouri returns four starters and eight letterwinners from its 2015-16 squad which went 20-11 overall and 8-8 in SEC play.
Sophomore forward Cierra Porter leads the Tigers in scoring and rebounds, averaging 15.7 points and 9.3 boards per game. Sophomore guard Sophie Cunningham follows close behind in scoring, averaging 15.5 points. The last Tiger averaging in double-figures is senior guard Sierra Michaelis with 12.1. Senior guard Lianna Doty and Cunningham both rank No. 1 on the team in assists with 54 (3.6 per game).
Against Georgia, Michaelis led the Tigers in scoring with 20 points while Porter recorded her seventh double-double of the season with 20 points and 12 rebounds.
Thursday’s meeting against Missouri marks the seventh meeting in school history between the two programs in women’s basketball. The Wildcats lead the all-time series, 5-1, including a 3-0 mark in games played in Lexington. Kentucky has won four straight meetings.
Last season on Feb. 25, 2016 inside Memorial Coliseum, UK took down No. 24/24 Missouri, 69-59. Then-senior Janee Thompson had 24 points in the game, while Akhator scored 15 points with nine rebounds and Epps had 14 points and three assists. UK forced MU into 17 turnovers and had 20 points off those miscues.
This is the first of two regular season contests between the Wildcats and the Tigers this season as Kentucky will head to Columbia on Jan. 30.
For more information on the Kentucky women’s basketball team, visit UKathletics.com or follow @KentuckyWBB on Twitter, Instagram and Snapchat, or Kentucky Women’s Basketball on Facebook.
Parking
– New spectator parking options include the High Street Lot, located at the corner of East High Street and South Martin Luther King Boulevard, and the Alumni Center Lot on Linden Walk, resulting in nearly 200 additional parking spaces.
– Spectator parking is located in all of the E-lots surrounding Memorial Coliseum, all lots are off control 3 hours prior to tip. Additionally, the South Limestone Garage (PS#5) and the Rose Street Garage (PS#2) are available 2 hours prior to tip.
– Parking is prohibited in any R (Residential) lots. Vehicles parking in R lots without a proper permit, along yellow curbs, grass spaces, or other non-specified and unapproved areas may be subject to ticket and/or tow.
– Disabled spectator parking is available with a valid, state issued disabled hangtag in the E-Lot (Employee Lot) north of the Joe Craft Center. These spaces are available on a first-come, first-served basis until full.
Transit Center Parking Garage
– UK women’s basketball fans can avoid traffic and congestion around Memorial Coliseum and park FREE at the Transit Center – available after 5 p.m. ET on weekdays and all day for weekend games.
– The Transit Center Parking Garage is accessible from Vine Street of High Street.
– Push the green flashing button upon entry, take the yellow token and store it in a safe place. Park in the garage and find the UK Athletics event staff member at the entrance of the garage near Lexington Avenue for a free parking token to use after the game when you exit the garage. Staff will remain on site until 20 minutes after tip.
– Please do not lose your token. If you lose your token, you will be charged an $8 fee for a lost token fee. If you lose your token, visit the pay on foot station located in the seventh floor elevator lobby of the garage and choose “lost token.” You will be charged $8.00 and given a new token that can be used to exit the garage.
Shuttles
– Shuttles are available beginning 2 hours prior to tip and pick up and drop off near the South Limestone Garage (Parking Structure # 5) (blue route) and inside the High Street Lot (green route).
– Shuttles will start back up after halftime to return guests to their parking areas. The shuttle will discontinue service 1-hour postgame.
Game Day Information
– Doors to Memorial Coliseum open one hour prior to tip.
– UK Athletics encourages women’s basketball fans to arrive early to ease traffic and parking congestion around the Coliseum.
Kentucky Women’s Basketball
Matthew Mitchell Pre-Missouri Quotes
Joe Craft Center – Lexington, Ky.
Jan. 4, 2017
Kentucky Head Coach Matthew Mitchell
Opening statement …
“Well Missouri’s having a great season. Robin’s (Pingeton) one of the best coaches in the league. They’ve got really good players. They can spread the floor and really give you a lot of trouble as you’re trying to defend them. Great one-two punch with (Cierra) Porter and (Lindsey) Cunningham and they just cause a lot of problems. We are really banged up right now and we’ve gotta find a way to work our way through a challenging time here. We’ve had some good practices here this week and we’ll try to finish up today with a good preparation and get ourselves prepared to work as hard as we can to earn a victory over Missouri.”
On the team’s injuries …
“Well, Jess (Hardin), that’s a big loss for us. That’s around 15 minutes a game that’s getting spread out between Maci (Morris) and (Makayla) Epps and Taylor (Murray). And Taylor’s not feeling great. She’s doing a good job but it’s still—it’s bothering her and Makenzie’s (Cann) nose is broken. Rachel Potter’s out. That hurts us in practice. She does a great job for us in practice and so it’s a challenging time right now with practice and just trying to make sure we keep everybody as healthy (as possible) while still keeping them game sharp. And so it’s just—people go through it. You go through these kind of things in a season and we’re just in one of those spots right now. But we went—I thought the team really worked hard yesterday. I saw some real improvement people in people yesterday. So they’re working hard and that’s what we’ve gotta keep doing every day.”
On whether Jess Hardin will miss Thursday’s game …
“Yeah. Hardin’s out.”
On Maci Morris’ play …
“Well, Maci is very important to us and she’s done a good job of being assertive. She just couldn’t get a few of those shots to fall. She shot the ball a lot at Tennessee but I thought it was because she was being aggressive. And I really liked that. She’s a very important part to our team, both offensively and defensively, and I just expect her to always go out there and make an impact on both ends through her hustle and her tenacity and she’s just highly skilled. So that’ll help us tremendously if she can have a good game and I think she will. Real encouraged with the progress that (Jaida) Roper and (Paige) Poffenberger) are making. They, I think—them kind of getting thrown into the skillet, so to speak, here and being in the fire, they’ve really upped their efforts in practice and I’ve seen tremendous improvement. So we’re starting to build some trust with those two freshmen and we just have to find a way as a team to play great basketball and win games.”
On whether Taylor Murray not feeling well is in reference to her finger …
“I’m just saying that’s it’s not real comfortable. It’s still—she would feel better if she didn’t have a big gob of tape on her hand. It still hurts to catch and she’s banged up. She obviously can perform. She did a great job Sunday in Knoxville. It’s not a matter of whether she can perform. It’s just we’re all kind of nicked up right now and it takes a toll collectively when everybody is. And so we just gotta soldier on here and find a way to continue to play good basketball.”
On if Makenzie Cann getting a custom mask has helped her game …
“She did. It’s a big improvement. She went from not being able to see to being able to see. So, I think that in basketball that generally a key to being able to have vision on the court. Huge improvement in this mask over the other one.”
On how the team battling in these two losses will help the team in the long run …
“Sure, what it is is we give tremendous physical effort and we let our confidence erode just at an incredibly disproportionate rate to what’s reality and we have a lot of high achievers on our team that want to do well that let their confidence go which now divides your mind when you’re thinking you’re unsure. Now, you’re not in the right position and you start to make mental errors that we’ve just made in the Duke and Tennessee game. We had a legitimate chance to win both of those on the road against extremely talented teams, but we can’t do it making the mental mistakes. So what we’re trying to tell the team is that physically they just hustle and they won’t give up but let’s don’t get into a situation where, you know, your back’s against the wall and you let these leads stretch to 12 and at Duke we weren’t able to fight back. At Tennessee we were able to fight back and you know if we could’ve gotten a couple things go our way there at the end we had a great chance. But what happens before that time is we really make too many mental errors for what our margin for error and is. So I think it’s tremendously beneficial that – you don’t want to lose these games, you want to win these games – but there’s a reason. It’s not happening to you. You’re participating in it. You are actively involved in the result because of what you’re doing on the court. So we’ve just got to embrace the fact that we’ve got to be a smarter, sharper basketball team that’s in position because when we do that we’ll win a bunch of games.”
On whether the mental aspect is the key difference between playing at home and on the road …
“Well, I think the road games have been the quality of competition has been very difficult. I don’t think it’s necessarily the road. I think, as a general rule, everybody plays better at home but we can win on the road if we stop making the mental mistakes. So that’s my job as a coach is I’ve got to, with the help of our staff and the help of the players, we’ve all got to pay more attention. We’ve got to make sure we’ve got great plans in order to correct these things that are going wrong. I thought yesterday was a great, great day for us. The players I think recognize what a difficult schedule they’ve played and how close they’ve been in these games, but at some point you’ve got to learn the lesson so it does benefit you. It doesn’t do you any good to get beat if you just continue to do the same thing over and over against quality teams you’re going to get beat. Missouri is a really, really good team and we just can’t make a bunch of mental errors and expect to win. So we’ve got to be locked in and ready to go. We continue to practice hard, show film and teach in an effort to get those things cleaned up.”
On if he thinks the players are teetering on the mindset that things are beginning to go south …
“No. I think our kids are smart and understand that we could have a different record if we played a different schedule at this point in time. The bigger concern is trying to make sure that you can stay healthy and there are no guarantees on that. You have to play hard and practice hard. Things happen. That’s the biggest thing for me as a coach is trying to make sure that we practice as hard as we can while being smart because we need to stay healthy. I think we feel a little banged up because we all had two brutal, physical and tough games on the road. We have to weather it right now. The only problem that we have mentally is that we lose confidence way too quickly. There are a few kids on the team that have to work their way through that and they will. It’s why you come here, learn, grow and get better as a team. That’s why it’s such a great vehicle to teach these kinds of lessons because they have to stay confident. The only way you get true confidence is through achievement, so we’re trying to approach it from that way. Just clean these few mistakes up and you’ll get the results that you want. That’s the great thing about basketball. If we can get that done, then we are in great shape as far as reaching our postseason goal. In basketball, you can try to peak in the end and be playing your best at the end. I don’t sense any discouragement or panic in the team. They have to focus on what they need to do to play winning basketball.”
On how the zone defense is going …
“We had some good possessions. The situation there in the second half at Tennessee – we just had three guards play 20 minutes and had some flat out times where we didn’t go do what we were supposed to do. That’s what we have to figure out is how to stay focused and either let me know to use your timeouts strategically, but you can’t just stop playing. When we play in our zone, it’s pretty good. When you stand around, it’s not very good. We’re getting good stuff out of our zone. They’re moving better. They get better each week that we work on it so it will continue to be a part of our package. I thought yesterday was good – one of our better days of flying around playing man-to-man defense – and that’s what we’ll need against Missouri. (Missouri) is really dynamic offensively and they can spread you out and have a lot of good shooters. You’ll have to hustle no matter what defense you’re in.”
On if communication on the court is improving …
“That’s a constant thing that we have to emphasize and work on. I do see improvement there.”
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Evan Crane
Assistant Media Relations Director
University of Kentucky Athletics
Joe Craft Center, Memorial Coliseum
338 Lexington Ave.
Lexington, KY 40506