By Kindsey Bernhard
NKyTribune intern
UK Hoops defeated Washington State University 69-67 on Wednesday afternoon despite taking a 20-point lead early in the second quarter.
Kentucky improves to 9-3 on the season after the win. UK moved up a spot in the polls this week after the win over Radford on Sunday. UK ranks 18th in the Associated Press poll and No. 24 in the USA Today poll.
The Wildcats started the game hot offensively, but the second quarter was a different story. The Wildcats went 4-of-5 from the three-point range, taking an early 26-8 lead in the first quarter. Washington State had 11 turnovers in the first quarter, contributing to UK’s early lead.
Kentucky hit its largest lead, 20 points, with 9:30 left in the second quarter. Then Washington State came alive. The Cougars finished the first half on an 11-0 run to cut UK’s lead to two at halftime. The Cougars outscored Kentucky 28-12 in the second quarter.
“I think we probably relaxed a little bit and felt like we didn’t have to move as much,” head coach Matthew Mitchell said. “And then I thought our offense – which is a bad trait that this team must work on and improve – when we make shots we play much more energetic on the defensive end. And then when its gets tough for us, we tend to kind of, you know, withdraw from the fight on the defensive end.”
“We kind of got punched early in that first quarter,” Washington State head coach June Daugherty said. “We showed our resilience just stepping up and getting it down to a couple points at halftime. Seesawed back and forth.”
“… Our kids got confident,” Daugherty said of her team’s comeback. “They started believing in each another. We started moving the basketball better.”
Mitchell said he was concerned how his team was going to handle Washington State’s pressure, especially without sophomore point guard Taylor Murray. She sat out the second-straight game with a broken finger.
“We did well at times,” Mitchell said. “And at times, we didn’t. It was a really up and down day for us.”
The Cougars took their first lead of the game in the third quarter, but the one-point lead didn’t last long. Sophomore guard Maci Morris scored 10 of her 14 points in the third quarter to give UK a 6-point cushion heading into the final quarter.
The second half is when Kentucky needed the veterans to step up and they did. UK’s two seniors led the team in scoring for the second-straight game. Guard Makayla Epps finished with 20 points and 5 rebounds.
“I told them at halftime that the energy dropped, the hustle dropped, some of the effort dropped,” Epps said.
“It was a really gutty performance,” Epps said. “We had to gut it out. They scored 28 in the second quarter. I mean without Taylor, we all had to step up big. We won the game by two points so, you know, a win’s a win.”
Forward Evelyn Akhator recorded her first double-double since Dec. 9 against Middle Tennessee State. She finished with 19 points and 13 points; it was her eighth double-double of the season.
Washington State had a chance to tie the game with 12.9 second left, but went 0-2 from the free throw line, sealing Kentucky’s win.
Kentucky has the week off for the Christmas holiday. The team will travel to Durham, North Carolina, to take on No.17/18 Duke University at 7 p.m. on Thursday, Dec. 29. The Blue Devils are 10-1 on the season.
Kindsey Bernhard is a journalism senior at the University of Kentucky. She is from Ft. Wright and played high school basketball at Notre Dame Academy.