Maddie Scherr had nine rebounds, three steals, two blocks and two assists Sunday but was just 1-for-10 from the field. (UK athletics Photo)
Think about this. Kentucky went 23 of 25 at the foul line and outrebounded Florida Gulf Coast 38-29 Sunday.
Sounds like that should have been enough for coach Kyra Elzy’s team to win. However, it wasn’t because of one thing — much like John Calipari’s team, the UK women cannot make shots.
Kentucky was 19 of 58 overall from the field and just 2-for-14 from 3-point range. It was the same type of miserable shooting that UK had in a loss to in-state rival Murray on Friday.
Blair Green was 4-for-15 overall from the field and Maddie Scherr 1-for-10. Robyn Benton, who did hit some late shots against Murray, missed 14 of 18 in this loss. That was a combined 9-for-43 for that trio.
Elzy said she thought her team had “better effort and energy” Sunday than it did against Murray.
“That’s the expectation. We should do that all the time. But I did think we brought that today, which we were looking for. But also, the final result, we’re trying to win. It can’t just be effort and energy when we’re trying to win,” the UK coach said.
Making 20 turnovers that led to 32 points for Florida Gulf Coast is not winning basketball. The Cats also again made big blunders late in the game.
“We made costly defensive mistakes when it mattered. We talked about if people get by us, try to build a wall, make people score over us. If we’re going to foul them, we need to foul them on the floor. It can’t be an and-one,” Elzy said.
But what about the shooting? If that does not improve, the wins in Southeastern Conference play will be few and far between.
“At the end of the day, we have to be able to knock those layups down. All of them are capable of doing so. I think it’s more mental now, of seeing the ball not go into the basket. So, we’ll continue to work on it, and just try to give them confidence, because we’re a better shooting team than what we’re showing,” Elzy said.
That sounds a lot like Calipari on his team’s shooting woes. She also sounds a lot like Calipari talking about not hitting the panic button.
“I mean, it’s a long season. This is a marathon, not a sprint. We have one more (non-conference) game and that’s the most important game on our schedule to try to focus on,” Elzy said.
“We can’t bury our heads in the sand. We have got to find a way to go back, go to work and find a way to get a win and get back on the winning side of things.”
