By Kindsey Bernhard
NKyTribune Intern
Greenville, S.C. – The third time was not the charm for the UK women’s basketball team.
Matthew Mitchell’s troops fell to South Carolina for the third time this season, losing 89-77 in the semifinal round of the Southeastern Conference Tournament Saturday at Bon Secours Wellness Arena.
The win propelled the Gamecocks to the championship game Sunday, where they defeated Mississippi State Sunday 59-49 after trailing 45-40 at the end of the third quarter. The Gamecocks have won three straight SEC tournament titles.
On Saturday, the Wildcats were without their floor general and starting point guard Taylor Murray. She was sidelined with a whiplash/neck strain. She is listed as day-to-day under concussion protocol.
Makayla Epps took over not only the point guard duties but also the scoring duties. She finished with a team-high 31 points. Epps’ 31 points tied her career-best at the SEC Tournament. She also pulled down nine rebounds and dished out three assists.
But the top-seeded Gamecocks were white hot in the first half. South Carolina shot 65 percent from the field in the first 20 minutes, while UK shot 49 percent. UK went 0-of-6 from the three-point line and South Carolina went 2-of-4.
The Gamecocks went into halftime with an 11-point lead and took their largest lead, 14 points, two minutes into the third quarter.
From there on, it was a different story.
UK went on a 9-0 run that lasted more than two and a half minutes. The Cats pulled within two points with a little more than a minute left in the third quarter.
“What I will say that was going right for us, we just had an attack mentality from the beginning,” Epps said. “Evelyn, myself, Maci, Makenzie, everybody who checked into the game for Kentucky had an attack mentality. It showed.”
The Cats kept within single digits of the Gamecocks until the final minutes of the game. South Carolina hit six free throws in the final minute and half to secure the win and a spot in the championship.
“The kids stayed really strong mentally today,” Matthew Mitchell said. “That’s one of the benefits we can take out of the game. You have to do that tournament time. It’s a really, really stressful, difficult time. You can let your emotions get ahold of you and send you in the wrong direction. We didn’t let that happen today. I was proud of our team for that. That was real growth, real toughness from them.”
Perimeter shooting plagued the Cats for the second straight game. UK shot 42 percent from the field but 2-of-19 from behind the three-point line.
Mitchell said despite his team’s shooting struggles he encouraged them to keep taking shots.
“We always felt like we could get shots,” Mitchell said. “We always felt like we could execute and get some shots. So, you just keep telling them, ‘hang in there, hang around, it’s going to pop open for you at some point. You can get it done’,” Mitchell said.
Despite being dominated in the paint in the previous two meetings, UK held its own on Saturday. The Gamecocks outscored the Cats by two points inside, 48-46.
South Carolina was without starting center Alaina Coates for a majority of the game with an ankle injury. The center’s absence opened up the paint for Evelyn Akhator who has struggled against Coates. Akhator recorded her sixteenth double-double of the season. She finished with 24 points and 11 rebounds.
UK will enter the NCAA Tournament with a 21-10 overall record, 11-6 in the SEC. One “bracketologist” has the Wildcats entering as a four seed.
The 2017 NCAA Division I Women’s Basketball Championship bracket will be announced on Monday, March 13, at 7 p.m. on ESPN.
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.