Blair Green, left, says UK has to learn to focus more on offense. (Vicky Graff Photo)
If a team cannot make shots, it’s hard to win. Just ask Kentucky coach Kyra Elzy.
Her team missed 48 of 65 shots Sunday in a 71-50 home loss to Arkansas.
“I mean, we got the shots that we wanted. They just weren’t falling. There’s days like that, but I think just coming right out the gates just being a little bit smarter and just running our offense. I mean, Arkansas really wants you to speed up and go down and they want to shoot it quick and they score a lot of points that way,” UK senior Blair Green, who had 14 points but missed 14 of 19 shots, said after the game.
“Our focus was to just kind of run the clock down and get the best shot unless it’s a wide open layup or if someone has the green light to let it go. And I don’t really think we came in that focused on that.”
Making shots has been a consistent problem. Kentucky is hitting just 41.3 percent overall from the field and 14 games and just 25. 4 percent from 3. Kentucky has six players hitting under 30 percent from 3 and the team’s best shooter is Jada Walker at 34.4 percent from 3.
“We’ll get there and I mean, it’s still early in the SEC. And we have a lot to learn. But we just got to keep our head up and just stay focused on what Kentucky basketball does,” Green said.
Elzy said her team was a “bit stagnant” and needs more movement on offense.
“We have to be able to step out and make that 15-17 foot shot consistently. I thought we had some open 3’s that didn’t go in for us. I told the players in the locker room that when our offense isn’t going, you have to hammer in on defense and get some stops,” Elzy said.
“I thought we let our offense affect our defense, especially in the third (quarter). We got frustrated offensively and we let that pour into the defensive side.”
Kentucky’s best scorer, Robyn Benton, missed the game with an injury. Kentucky’s most versatile player, Oregon transfer Maddie Scherr, had 10 rebounds, eight points, five steals and three assists. However, she also had five turnovers and missed 10 of 11 shots, including all five 3-pointers she attempted.
Kentucky has now lost four of its last five games to drop to 8-6 overall and 0-2 in SEC play. The team had a similar slow start last season under Elzy before rallying at the end of the regular season and then winning UK’s first SEC Tournament since 1982. However, that team had Rhyne Howard, the No. 1 pick in last season’s WNBA Draft.
“We’ve been through this before. We know how it goes. We just can’t be discouraged and keep our head down,” Green said. “We just have to keep working.
“Like we kind of know what we went through last year and we don’t want to continue that trend. So it just starts in practice, just getting more defensive reps. Just bringing that energy in practice just not going through the motions and yeah, just staying aggressive.”
UK-ARK WBB
Photos by Vicky Graff
