Georgia Amoore (Vicky Graff Photo)
Kentucky was riding high Feb. 2 when it won 96-86 at Oklahoma behind 43 points from Georgia Amoore that vaulted the Cats into the top 10 of the national rankings.
The last two games, though, have gone the wrong way. Kentucky lost 66-57 at Ole Miss and then fell 67-49 to No. 3 Texas on Thursday and barely scored more points than Amoore had by herself at Oklahoma when UK scored 45 points in the first half.
Kentucky faces a must-win game in Memorial Coliseum Sunday when it hosts Georgia because two of the remaining four games are against national powers South Carolina and LSU.
Texas (11-1), South Carolina (11-1) and LSU (10-1) basically have the top three spots in the league wrapped up and will get a double bye in the SEC Tournament. One other team will also get a double bye and Kentucky (8-3), Ole Miss (8-4) and Alabama (7-4) are in the best position to do that. Ole Miss still has games with South Carolina and LSU and Alabama still has to play LSU, Tennessee and Texas A&M.
Kentucky star point guard Georgia Amoore said the UK crowd against Texas was “great” but needs to be just as good Sunday (the game is sold out).
“Obviously, you want to come out with a win and some excitement and some energy, but just to show the way that the program has grown this year alone, and to hear that the game against Tennessee and LSU were sold out crowds, we need that,” Amoore said. “As Coach (Kenny Brooks) was touching on earlier, it’s a tough league and anything you can get to put you over the edge, it really helps.
“If you watch games around the league, those tight games, you know the LSU and Tennessee game, that is kind of what determines home or away because the crowd got involved. So we greatly appreciate the support and the energy in the building. You know the way Historic Memorial Coliseum is built, the sound echoes. Like, when we went on that run at the end (against Texas) we felt the energy and we definitely need more of that.
“It’s exciting, especially heading into March. You talk about potentially hosting (a NCAA Tournament game). How big would that be for BBN? But you know, it’s game by game, so we need to continue that for the rest of the season. I don’t know if it’s me being sentimental, but time is ticking. We just appreciate everyone coming out.”
Amoore said her message to the team is simple going into Sunday’s game.
“We’re at a point of the year that we can’t hang our heads like we don’t know what’s wrong,” Amoore said after the Texas loss. “It’s very clear what we’re doing wrong, and we can’t let this energy build up and snowball into the next game. I mean, Coach just said it, the way we played the last game had nothing to do with the way we played this game, it’s going to have nothing to do with the way we play Sunday against Georgia.
“A very present mindset, like, it’s not like we’re scratching our heads saying, ‘What’s going wrong?’ It’s very obvious that our aggression, our rebounding, our physicality needs to be fixed. But also reminding the girls that it’s something we can do. It’s not out of reach. It’s not something that we have to wish goes our way.
“Just staying positive because that’s literally all we can do. Like we cannot be miserable and let that carry over. But as I said, we have a select few games left where we can really go out and show some things.”
