Kentucky junior Clara Strack is the first player this century with 30 plus points, five 3-pointers, and three blocks in a women’s regulation conference tournament game, according to the Naismith Awards. (Vicky Graff Photo)
Kentucky coach Kenny Brooks says he shoots with Clara Strack every day and if he was a betting man he would wager on her winning a shooting contest with her teammates even though Amelia Hassett and Asia Boone are two of the most prolific 3-point shooters in UK history.
“I’ve given her the green light all year long for moments like this and because I’ve seen her put the work in. If she puts in the work and I believe in it, and I’m going to say, okay, if it’s there, take it,” Brooks said Thursday after No. 17 Kentucky beat Georgia 76-61 in the second round of the SEC Tournament in Greenville, S.C.
Strack, a junior center, tied her career high with 33 points and made a career-high five 3-pointers. She also had eight rebounds, three blocked shots, two assists and one steal.
The only UK player ever to score more points in a SEC Tournament game was UK’s all-time leading scorer, Valerie Still, who had 34 in 1982. Strack also became the third fastest player to reach 1,000 points (63 games) at Kentucky behind Still and Rhyne Howard.
Strack had 13 points in the first quarter and 18 in the first half as Georgia dared her to shoot from 3-point range and she knocked down shots. She became just the sixth Division I player 6-foot-5 or taller to make at least five 3’s in a game since the 2002-03 season.
“The first play of the game, I noticed they were really in the paint on me, so I shot it. It went in, and I just kept shooting it. Coach Brooks has a lot of confidence in my 3. He told me I was going to make five one day, so he was right,” Strack said after the win which puts UK into Friday’s quarterfinal against league champion South Carolina, which had a double bye.
Brooks recently called Strack the “worst superstar” he has ever coached on national TV even though she earned all-SEC honors, including making the all-conference defensive team. Strack understood and accepted the criticism.
“I played terribly against Auburn (last week), so I think I needed that. I’ve always responded best to harsh
criticism, like tough love, anything like that. I think I needed it. I always need something like that to get me going,” Strack said. “It’s a long season. You’ll have lulls, but I think you have to remember to take it game by game. He was just trying to get me ready for the next game. There was no harsh feelings there. Maybe for a few minutes (laughter).”
Brooks said he expects Strack to deliver performances like the one she did Thursday and said he
called her the “worst superstar” in jest.
“Think about what I said. You don’t coach that many superstars. So, if you’re not the best in whatever group of three, that’s still pretty daggone good,” the Kentucky coach said. “I can challenge Clara like that because I know Clara, okay? I know what Clara needs.
“Clara and I spend a lot of time together. I’m the one that watches film with her. I’m the one that does her workouts. She’s best friends with my daughter, so she’s at my house, so she sees me in a lot of different lights. She sees me as coach, but can also see me as dad.
“We have a very good relationship, and so I know how to get her going. I know how to get her going. I’ll be very honest. I can’t do that with everyone, but that’s just how special our relationship is, and I know it.”
Georgia, like most teams, tried to be physical with Strack. It didn’t work.
“I think you just got to be ready. You know it’s going to be physical, and I just think you can’t shy away from physicality,” Strack said. “You have to take it, and you have to give it back to them. Then just being able to move on from that, move on to the next play, move on to the next possession, really anything like that mentally tough, physically tough.”
Teonni Key, who didn’t play when Georgia won at UK during the season, had a double-double with 14 points and 12 rebounds while point guard Tonie Morgan had 14 points and seven assists.
“I think Teonni is obviously a super important part of our team. She had a double-double, 12 rebounds. That in itself, it just helps us so much. Her energy, her effort throughout the whole game. She always goes 100 percent. I think that’s something that we really missed without her, obviously,” Strack said. “She’s one of the most important pieces of our team. Just having her presence on the court, even if it’s not scoring, whatever she does, it’s really important to have her.”
South Carolina beat Kentucky 60-56 when Strack had 24 points and nine rebounds. Brooks knows what kind of challenge his team faces against a fresh team that has been off the last four days while UK has played back-to-back games.
“We’re going to lace them up. According to a million people, we got nothing to lose, right? So we’ll just come out there and just be ready to play,” the Kentucky coach said. “This will be a great opportunity for us. We played them very well on Sunday. We get another opportunity.
“I’m not going to sit here and say it’s not. We’ve had two games already. This is our third game, and they haven’t played since we played them on Sunday. So obviously you’re going to have a competitive disadvantage because of that, but nonetheless, we’re going to go out here and use it as an opportunity to get better, because we’re looking forward to playing a lot of basketball for the rest of the season.”
Georgia coach Katie Abrahamson-Henderson praised Kentucky’s defense — the Wildcats held South Carolina to its lowest point total of the season.
“They’re so long. They just kind of back off, and they use their length a little bit more. They are really good at rebounding, and we’re just faster, more athletic. We could really push in transition. They did a good job of getting back in transition, because we didn’t get a lot of transition breaks tonight offensively for us,” the Georgia coach said.
