Rhyne Howard hit four 3-pointers in Thursday's loss. (Vicky Graff Photo)
All-American Rhyne Howard did what she could late but it was not nearly enough to keep No. 1 South Carolina from beating Kentucky 59-50 Thursday night at Memorial Coliseum.
Howard was held to five points through three quarters but had 16 points in period four. She was 8-for-15 from the field, including 4-for-5 on 3’s. She also had nine rebounds, four steals and a blocked shot but no other UK player reached double figures as UK dropped to 2-8 in SEC play and 9-11 overall.
Here is what Kentucky coach Kyra Elzy had to say after the loss:
On what Rhyne Howard did differently in the fourth quarter to keep the game close…
“I thought she started playing downhill. Rhyne was aggressive off the dribble, she made her mind up that she was going to finish at the rim. She made some big buckets down the stretch. I thought she played great off the ball screen, which had been good to us all night. I thought when we made the run, we got into our press, forced them to play fast, turnedRhy them over, got a couple of steals to get back into it late.”
On how the team played off Rhyne Howard tonight…
“At times, I thought we did a lot better. I thought when they kept her on one side of the ball screen, they were hard hedging. We kick back to our posts a couple of times. Dre’una (Edwards) made some plays, Olivia Owens made some plays, and that’s what we need. We have to take advantage of how they are guarding Rhyne and we’ve worked on it the last couple of days and will continue to do so.”
On Howard’s injury…
“She got hurt in this game, in particular, but as you saw, she battled through it, so we were glad to have her on the floor. She’ll see our trainer and let’s hope for good things.”
On how Robyn Benton played in her first game back…
“Well, she makes us different. She’s an athletic guard, one that can score, she didn’t do that tonight, but what she can do on the defensive end – she can pick the ball up in transition, she can play in the passing lane, she has a great knack for the ball. And it gives us another perimeter sub, which allows us to rest on people, which that’s why we could extend our press, when you have a rotation of people.”
On containing South Carolina’s interior play…
“We talked about it at halftime, I had to burn a timeout early. Our first shot defense was pretty good the majority of the game, it was when we were giving up the second and third shots, and then they were scoring in the paint, and that’s what they do well. In the second quarter, we held them to 10 points, but we started to box out a little more, and we just talked about we’re not going out jump them, they have more athleticism, but we have to find a body, do it by committee and everybody do their job and try to get a box out. I thought we adjusted for the most part.”
On why she thought it took being down 18 points to make a run…
“I thought we let our offense affect our defense. When we weren’t scoring, we gave them some easy scoring opportunities. But there’s something about when we see that ball go through the net, it gave us some energy, but then I thought we turned our defense up. When we had to have possessions, I thought we turned our defense up, and that’s what we have to do more consistently across the board.”
On what she told the team to start finding open shots…
“Well, we need ball movement. Ball movement, player movement. We went to our ball screens early because that’s a place that we thought we could attack off of, but then we weren’t taking it side to side. So, when we started moving the ball side to side, shifting it, then we started getting open looks.”
