Kentucky women just had “one of those days” but Princeton was better from start to finish

Rhyne Howard, UK's second all-time leading scorer, walked off the court for the final time in her collegiate career Saturday. (Vicky Graff Photo)

Kentucky’s season ended with a 69-62 loss to Princeton Saturday in Bloomington in the NCAA Tournament opening round. It was another upset loss to a double-digit seed for a Kentucky team following the men’s team losing to Saint Peter’s on Thursday in nearby Indianapolis.

Princeton outplayed Kentucky from start to finish and had the lead almost the entire game to break UK’s 10-game winning streak. However, two UK players did not seem that impressed by the Tigers.

“Credit to Princeton but we’ve played better teams and come out on top,” UK All-American Rhyne Howard, who had 17 points and eight rebounds, said.

“I think the SEC is the top conference in women’s basketball, so that’s pretty much all I’ve got to say,” UK center Dre Edwards, who had 16 points and 12 rebounds, said.

What about only shooting 36 percent from the field and 27 percent from 3-point range against the Ivy League champion?

“I’m going to say it was just one of those days,” Edwards, who went over the 1,000-point mark in her collegiate career, said.

“Their defense wasn’t nothing that we haven’t seen before in previous games,” Howard said.

Kentucky coach Kyra Elzy gave a lot more credit to Princeton.

“Obviously it’s a disappointing day. It’s not the ending that we wanted,” Elzy said after the loss. “Give credit to Princeton. I thought they were the tougher team today. Made some big plays when they had to have them.”

That’s the correct analysis. Kentucky had chances and did not just fade away but any time UK had a chance to put pressure on Princeton it either could not make shots or gave up easy baskets. The Cats also did not seem to play with the connectivity it had during its 10-game win streak that ended with a Southeastern Conference Tournament championship win over No. 1 South Carolina.

“I told the players in the locker room in, this moment, it hurts. But when we have a chance to look back, I just told them how much I love them, how proud I am of them. When we were dead in the water, this team could have laid down and quit, and we did something really special,” the Kentucky coach said.

“To go on the run that we made to make it to the NCAA Tournament, to win the SEC Championship, we have some things that we have done, accomplished down the stretch that we will be proud of even though in this moment it’s hard to celebrate it.”

Howard and Edwards both had to leave the game in the first half and return to the locker room.

“Yeah, we both took some pretty hard hits, so we decided to step out for a minute,” Howard said. “I don’t think that’s what messed up the flow of our offense. We got very good looks and were able to do what we wanted to do. It just didn’t go in the basket.”

However, both players said what the team did to regroup and win 10 straight games to get to the NCAA Tournament shows what type of team UK had.

“It means that we fight and we don’t lay down for nobody. We dig deep and we play with our hearts,” Edwards said.

“We don’t care what nobody got to say about us. We are going to fight for each other,” Howard said.