Tonie Morgan became the first Kentucky player to have at least 18 points, seven rebounds and seven assists in an NCAA Tournament game. (Vicky Graff Photo)
Senior point guard Tonie Morgan said Kentucky wanted to come out “full swing ahead” against James Madison in the NCAA Tournament Saturday — and it did.
Coach Kenny Brooks’ team had a sensational first quarter to take a 32-10 lead,
“We wanted to know we’ve arrived here and we did not want to go home. We knew we needed to punch first because that was a really good program in front of us,” Morgan, who had 18 points and seven assists, said.
“It’s win or go home, so we have to start fast, we have to do things like that,” center Clara Strack, who had 10 points and 14 rebounds, said. “Millie (Amelia Hassett) was hitting (3-point) shots, everyone was just hitting shots.”
Kentucky did win 71-56 but was outscored 46-39 the rest of the game and lost its offensive efficiency and defensive intensity — something that cannot happen Monday when it meets host West Virginia for a berth in the NCAA Tournament Sweet Sixteen.
Coach Kenny Brooks was not as upset as one might have anticipated after his team was outscored the final three quarters.
“We were very fortunate to get up as much as we were, and we have a game on Monday night, and whichever opponent it is was sitting there watching us. So we were going to be as vanilla as possible. We weren’t going to try to do anything,” Brooks said.
“If that was a normal game and that was the end and we weren’t going to play for a while, we would have done a lot of things differently. That’s nothing against what JMU did in the second half. Kudos to them. But we kept it very vanilla. When you play in a tournament , you’re not going to run everything, you’re not going to show them a lot. So we went very vanilla in the second half.”
Host West Virginia beat Miami (Ohio) 82-54 Saturday to advance to Monday’s matchup with Brooks and his players watching. West Virginia is now 28-6 under coach Mark Kellogg.
“This is an event that these kids will remember for the rest of their lives, and so we want them not only to get a feel for this crowd and a feel for — we’re going to see an opponent we haven’t seen before, so they can get that, but it’s also an event. They’ve earned the right to sit here and watch and prepare for the next opponent,” Brooks said.
Amelia Hassett set the tone early for Kentucky with two 3-point goals and went 4-for-13 from 3-point range. She finished with 14 points, two rebounds, two blocks and one steal. She now has a school-record 96 3’s and has made multiple 3’s in 27-of-34 games this season.
“You look at Amelia’s stats and Amelia is our unhung hero because not only did we ask Amelia to go out there and knock down shots but we asked her to chase around Peyton McDaniel the whole time. She plays a lot of minutes (37),” Brooks said. “Amelia is fantastic, one of the most enjoyable players I’ve ever coached in my life and I’ve only had her for two years, but she is just really team oriented and does everything she has to do, and when she’s knocking down shots like that, it gives us the ability to separate.
“Also another thing, too, is she’s a big, big, big guard, so it really helps us rebound the basketball. A lot went into JMU’s rebounding prowess, but our kids took note of that because we can go on a list and talk about who we’ve out-rebounded, Texas, South Carolina, Vanderbilt, LSU, and we’ve out-rebounded them. Our kids took that to heart. I think the rebounding margin, JMU was plus 9, our was plus 8 in the SEC. So they were very, very motivated to do that. Amelia helps us do that because she’s such a big guard.”
Morgan became the first Kentucky player to have at least 18 points, seven rebounds and seven assists in an NCAA Tournament game. However, she did have five turnovers and she also had to briefly leave the game with a leg cramp in the second half.
“That won’t happen again. I’m going to get hydrated and be ready for the next game,” Morgan said.
Strack had her 15th double-double of the season and now has 30 career double-doubles, something only four other UK players have done. Her 14 rebounds against James Madison tied for the second-most in program history in an NCAA Championship game and most since Evelyn Akhator had 23 versus Ohio State in 2017.
