‘A lack of discipline’: Kentucky women’s basketball lets 15-point lead get away at Georgia
With 7:04 to play in the second quarter of the Kentucky women’s basketball team’s 72-65 loss at Georgia on Sunday afternoon, senior forward Ajae Petty committed her second personal foul. The Wildcats had dominated the first quarter and taken a double-digit lead, so UK coach Kyra Elzy chose to keep Petty in the game.
Not four minutes later, Petty picked up her third foul and Georgia (11-11, 2-7 SEC) laid the foundation for a massive run that would not only tie the score at 30 at halftime but give Georgia a lead it would largely maintain for the rest of the game.
“Sometimes you can connect with your player and be like, ‘You know, I can trust you today on this one. We need you to go,’” Elzy said. “It’s the flow of the game. So there’s different variables that go into it, but at the end of the day, I have to trust my gut instinct. Sometimes I bring her out, sometimes I keep her, depends on the feel. Today, I thought it was important for stability to try to keep her in there and see if we could, you know, continue our run. But you know, she ended up picking up the third one, and so that’s the gamble of it.”
From the point of Petty’s third foul to the end of the second quarter, Georgia outscored Kentucky (9-14, 2-7 SEC) 13-0. The Bulldogs, who trailed by as many as 15 in the second quarter, went on to outscore the Wildcats in both the third and fourth periods and earn their first win since a conference play-opening victory over Texas A&M on Jan. 4.
“I thought we got off to a great start,” Elzy said. “I thought we attacked the zone. We were solid defensively. I thought when Georgia made a run, we did get into foul trouble, but I thought it was more a lack of discipline. We started reaching, you know, getting out of position which calls fouls, leaving our feet so I thought they were more lack of discipline fouls.”
Petty, ultimately, did have her best game in a while after being held to a combined 19 points over the past three games, finishing Sunday with 25 points, but her time on the bench due to foul trouble — and her more cautious play while on the floor in an attempt to avoid another — proved costly, as Georgia’s offensive attack, led by Javyn Nicholson (24 points), De’Mauri Flournoy (16) and Asia Avinger (14), overpowered UK.
“I’m sure there was frustration, but that’s where we got to grow up,” Elzy said In her postgame radio interview with WLAP-AM 630. “Yeah, you might be frustrated, but we continue to say, ‘We have to hang our hat on the defense until our offense comes back around.’ We started really hot. The thing about a basketball game, it’s a game of runs. Everybody’s going, you know, make a run and answer, and we have to weather the storm there.”
Unfortunately, for Kentucky, Petty wasn’t the only Wildcat who found herself in foul trouble. UK’s three leading scorers in the game — Petty, sophomore guard Saniah Tyler (18 points) and senior guard Eniya Russell (nine) — each had at least three personal fouls by the end of the third quarter, when Georgia had just a two-point advantage.
Things came to a head late in the fourth quarter when players from both teams had to be separated after a scuffle between UK junior point guard Brooklynn Miles and Georgia fifth-year forward Jordan Cole. The moment occurred roughly a minute after an official gave a warning to the Kentucky bench for unsportsmanlike conduct. Following the scuffle, Cole and Russell, who stepped toward Cole in the fray, were each assessed a technical foul.
That would not, however, be the end of the calls for Kentucky’s impact players. Tyler, who set the tone for Kentucky in the first quarter with 11 of the team’s 22 points (3-for-3 from long range), would foul out with 14 seconds remaining soon after making her fourth and final 3-pointer of the game to pull UK within three points of the Bulldogs. After senior guard Maddie Scherr grabbed a defensive rebound with 22 seconds to play, Petty turned the ball over beneath the basket and Tyler had no choice but to foul. Georgia iced the game with four made free throws.
Trouble with the boards
The Bulldogs’ big comeback was also due, in part, their rebounding and the Wildcats’ response following forced turnovers.
UK outrebounded Georgia 11-9 in the first quarter, but Georgia upped its intensity on the boards. By the end of the game, Georgia had outrebounded Kentucky 43-23, with 29 of theirs on the defensive end. Petty, Kentucky’s leading rebounder this season with just over 10 per game, had only five rebounds in the loss. No other UK player had more than four.
Elzy emphasized the importance of consistent, all-hands-on-deck commitment when chasing rebounds.
“We need people to the defensive boards,” she said. “We got to commit to that consistently, getting five people to the boards. We can’t be leaking out. You know, we got caught in between today. We were leaking out before we had the basketball, but we got to commit to five people going to the defensive boards.”
Turnovers allowed Kentucky to take control of the game early on — the Wildcats forced seven in the first quarter. But, despite forcing 21 total turnovers, the Wildcats struggled to follow through on any potential scoring opportunities that came from them. Kentucky scored 13 points off 21 Georgia turnovers while Georgia scored 15 points on Kentucky’s 13 miscues.
“We got the turnovers that we needed,” Elzy said on radio. “But we didn’t capitalize. We have to capitalize on those.”
The Wildcats don’t play again until next Sunday when Texas A&M (15-5, 3-4) comes to Rupp Arena to start the back half of conference play. Elzy said the break is critical for her team to prepare for what’s to come — a stretch that includes rematches with Mississippi State and No. 1 South Carolina, as well as games against Ole Miss and No. 9 LSU.
“Right now, obviously, very disappointed,” Elzy said. “And, you know, just have to find a way to fight our way out of this. And there’s no quit in us. And so we still have basketball games left to play, so we’ll figure it out.”
Next game
When: 4 p.m. Sunday
TV: SEC Network
Radio: WLAP-AM 630
Records: Kentucky 9-14 (2-7 SEC), Texas A&M (15-5, 3-4)
Series: Texas A&M leads 9-5
Last meeting: Texas A&M won 74-67 on Feb. 23, 2023, in College Station
