Kentucky Women's Basketball -MARCH MADNESS - Kentucky Women Hold Off Liberty in NCAA First Round

     On March 21, Kentucky’s women’s basketball standout, Georgia Amore, emphatically validated her All-American status during the first round of the NCAA Women’s Basketball Tournament inside Historic Memorial Coliseum.  Amoore, who has been named to this season’s All-American second team by the Associated Press, the American Basketball Writers Association, and the Sporting News, equaled a UK scoring record for a NCAA Tournament game.  Amoore’s 34 points tied her with former UK stalwart  A’Dia Mathies.  Mathies, who was the Los Angeles Sparks’ first-round pick in the 2013 WNBA draft, would have been surpassed by Amoore, but Amoore missed one of her two free throws with 6.4 seconds left in UK’s scintillating 79-78 victory over Liberty.

     UK was well in control with a 67-50 lead with 9 minutes and 35 seconds left in the game.  Kentucky then went cold as the Flames got hot and roared back.  When Liberty’s Avery Mills hit a three-point shot, her only points of the afternoon, the Flames trailed by only one with 1:14 to play.  However, Amoore would hit a lay-up and then make three of four free throws in the final seconds to stretch UK’s lead to four.  The Flames’ Emma Hess would bank in a three-pointer to draw Liberty to within one point with two seconds to play.  Amoore, then took the ensuing inbound pass and dribbled out the remaining time, to set the final score.

     “The beauty of this party is survive and advance.  That’s what we did today.  I thought we had a really good showing in the opening half and (we did) pretty good in the third period but then you have to give credit to Liberty as they did a really good job in exploiting us and we have to be much better in the post.  We elected to go one-on-one and we didn’t do a very good job,”  UK’s coach Kenny Brooks stated in his post-game news conference.  “Also, I was disappointed in our post defense and we let the kids know.  We have to be better.  I thought we were late.  We don’t have (a lot of) time to get ready for our next opportunity but we will talk about our post defense. We played not to lose and especially in the last five minutes we were trying to band-aid every situation because with Teonni (Key) and Clara (Strack) fouling out it took away our anchor for our post defense.”   

     When the Kentucky lead was cut to one point, Amoore noted that meeting the energy of Liberty was important.  Dazia Lawrence added that staying calm, staying poised and staying focused was the key to pulling out the victory.  “Staying true to ourselves (was essential)” stated Lawrence.  “We have to focus on defense and to get stops, that’s my focus and the team’s focus when one aspect of our game is not working.”

     When asked about the close score, Amoore stated that this UK team was a new group.  “First tournament for a lot of the girls and it’s a situation where we might be a higher seed (but) Liberty had nothing to lose and they had all that energy.  Everyone wants to advance so we have to keep the pedal down,” Amore added.

     The sold-out crowd was raucous throughout the game.  Especially in the fourth quarter the 300 or so Liberty fans really came to life.  When asked if the UK crowd helped to ultimately thwart the Flames comeback, Coach Brooks said he really didn’t notice.  Brooks said that because he was in the moment, from his perspective, he was oblivious to the crowd.  With his tongue planted firmly in his cheek, he mentioned how it was analogous to tuning out his wife when she is speaking to him.  He quickly noted that he loves his wife, which amused the assembled media.  However, Brooks said that the UK women fed off the UK fans energy which was important to the team’s victory.  

     Carey Green, in his 26th year as the Liberty coach said this about UK’s coach Kenny Brooks.  “I think he really cares about his players and because of those relationships I think he’s getting the most he can out of them.  I wish him the very best.”  Green stated that he has known Brooks for a very long time.  “He does a great job in a very difficult conference and he’s been successful.”  

     In an exclusive interview with Nolan Group Media, Coach Green reflected on his relationship with the founder of Liberty University, Reverend Doctor Jerry Falwell.  Falwell died in 2007.  “I’ve never been around someone who was more inspirational than Dr. Falwell, “Green stated.  “Even with this close loss, his vision for athletics at Liberty was exemplified today.”