STARKVILLE — Sunday was the right time and Humphrey Coliseum was the right place for the University of Kentucky women’s basketball team.
Right now, the Wildcats are the Southeastern Conference regular-season champions.
A’dia Mathies and Bernisha Pinkett each had 13 points, and No. 13 Kentucky forced Mississippi State University into a season-high 33 turnovers en route to a 76-40 victory before a crowd of 1,759.
Kentucky (24-5, 13-3 SEC) earned its second SEC championship in the regular-season finale for both teams. The first came in 1982 when the winner of the SEC tournament was crowned the SEC champion.
The Wildcats also handed the Lady Bulldogs their worst SEC home loss since an 85-47 defeat to No. 19 Auburn on Feb. 12, 1994.
“Kentucky, the reason they won a championship this year is that continued effort,” MSU coach Sharon Fanning-Otis said. “It has been their defense that has created so much of their offense, and with the turnovers we had that gave them some pretty easy looks. I want to give credit to how hard they played, and I want to congratulate coach Matthew (Mitchell) and his staff and his team on their success this season.”
The victory spoiled an afternoon MSU (14-15, 4-12) honored seniors Diamber Johnson, Porsha Porter, Catina Bett, Ashley Brown, Danielle Rector, and Judith Tabala and celebrated the career of Fanning-Otis, who earlier in the week announced she planned to retire at the end of the season. Fanning-Otis, who is in her 17th season at MSU (36th overall), is MSU’s all-time wins leader (281).
MSU had little to celebrate once the game started.
A layup by former West Oktibbeha County High School standout Shamia Robinson (seven points, six rebounds in 26 minutes) cut Kentucky’s lead to 8-7 with 14 minutes, 58 seconds remaining in the first half. But Kentucky used a 21-3 run that spanned the next 10:30 to blow the game open. MSU went 1 of 15 from the field and committed seven turnovers in that stretch. Many of the misses came on good looks at the basket, and five of the turnovers were unforced or came as a result of MSU trying to do too much too quickly.
“It is something they live and die on,” Johnson said of Kentucky’s pressure defense. “They have a game plan and they go out and do it every day.”
Mitchell praised the intensity of his team, especially on the final day in a week that saw the Wildcats earn three wins after a 77-75 loss at the University of Alabama dropped them into a first-place tie with the University of Tennessee. The Louisville native and MSU graduate and his players sported T-shirts that celebrated their SEC championship in the postgame interview session. The shirts had the team’s motto for the season: right team right place right now.
“It has been a long, long process and journey for them,” Mitchell said. “When you talk about starting 10-0 (in the league) and you feel like you’re doing some good things and then you suffer a three-game losing streak and you’re uncertain about some things and you have three tough games left, I just think it makes it a little bit sweeter that way (we did it).”
Kentucky beat Vanderbilt 70-61 on Monday and won Thursday at South Carolina 53-50. Samarie Walked had nine points and 10 rebounds, and Bria Goss, Maegan Conwright, and Kastine Evans each had eight points for Kentucky, which had nine players earn double-digit minutes and used 12 players.
Mathies, who is a candidate for SEC Player of the Year, said the Wildcats have stuck with a mentality that thrives on defense.
“You just have to be mentally tough, you have to be focused, and you have to be willing to work and know we have each others’ back,” Mathies said. “Just knowing that each other is going to work for each other makes us go out and play harder.
“The pressure we bring to people is something they can’t experience anywhere else. I think we just did a very good job of doing that tonight.”
MSU had 16 turnovers in the first half and trailed 41-17 at halftime. A run in the second half never materialized thanks in large part to Kentucky’s energy in its full-court pressure defense. The Wildcats forced 29 turnovers in an 88-40 victory against the Lady Bulldogs on Jan. 8 in Lexington, Ky. Their effort Sunday marked the 11th time this season (fourth in SEC games) they have forced 30 or more turnovers in a game.
“We did come out with that energy and ready to win, but I just felt like we couldn’t do it the whole 40 minutes, and they can,” said Porter, who had eight points, five rebounds, three assists, and five turnovers. “I felt like we went into a slump where we didn’t score and it is just hard for us because we just didn’t know what to do.
“Kentucky is a good basketball team. Everybody knows that. We were just trying to bring as much energy as possible to keep the score down a little bit. It just didn’t happen.”
MSU shot 26.4 percent (14 of 53) from the field, its sixth time under 30 percent this season, and third time in the past five games. The 33 turnovers pushed MSU’s total in the past 10 games to 176. The team has 86 assists in that span.
Freshman Kendra Grant led MSU with nine points. She also had five rebounds and six turnovers. Johnson also had eight points in her final game at Humphrey Coliseum.
MSU’s fourth-straight loss, and ninth in its past 10 games, coupled with Auburn’s 46-43 victory against the University of Mississippi dropped the Lady Bulldogs to the No. 10 seed for the SEC tournament in Nashville, Tenn. MSU will take on No. 7 seed Vanderbilt at 2:30 p.m. Thursday on day one of the four-day event. The winner will get the SEC’s automatic bid to the NCAA tournament. Vanderbilt defeated MSU 65-59 on Feb. 5 in Starkville.
Entering Sunday’s game, MSU knew it would have to win four games in four days to get back to the NCAA tournament. The loss means the Lady Bulldogs will have to win at least two games at the SEC tournament to have a chance to finish with a .500 record to earn consideration for a bid in the Women’s National Invitation Tournament.
Johnson, who said last week MSU believes it can win four games and four days to claim that NCAA bid, reiterated the team believes it can play with anyone in the league if it executes.
“We are not doubting ourselves,” Johnson said. “I don’t think everybody is looking to go home after the first game. We still feel we can go in there and shake some things up.”
Adam Minichino is the former Sports Editor for The Commercial Dispatch.
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