Kentucky Women's Basketball - MARCH MADNESS - Missed It By That Much

   “We were one floater away from going to the Sweet 16.”  Those were the words of Kentucky’s women’s basketball coach, Kenny Brooks, after his team’s heartbreaking overtime loss to Kansas State in the Second Round of the NCAA Women’s Basketball Tournament.  Sharpshooter Georgia Amoore missed the aforementioned five-foot floater which would have advanced the Wildcats in the tournament.  To Amoore’s credit, she didn’t hang her head.  “I’m not going to let one shot affect five years.”  Amoore’s last game as a Wildcat, added another accomplishment to her stellar career.  She set the UK season record for assists when she fed Clara Strack for a lay-up with 5:27 left in the third quarter.  Amoore set the record with 212 season assists to better the 209 assists by former UK standout Patty Jo Hedges.  Hedges played during the 1981-1982 campaign.  Additionally, with only 56 seconds to go in overtime, Serena Sundell of Kansas State bettered her school’s previous career assist record by one. 

     UK blasted out to a 7-0 lead and KSU did not score until over four minutes had passed. When asked about his squad’s slow start, KSU head coach Jeff Mittie stated, “I guess a little bit of nerves.  I had no problem with our shots.  They were the right reads.  I’m going to guess...a little bit of excitement.”

     Excitement was rampant during the scintillating game.  There were an amazing 21 lead changes and, outside of that 7-0 UK run, the tightly battled contest was nip and tuck.  It seemed that UK would seal the game away when Teonni Key made a lay-up to put UK ahead 66-61 with 2:11 left in regulation.  However, after a UK turnover that led to a KSU three-pointer and a Strack miss, a red-hot Temira Poindexter hit her eighth three-pointer of the game and Kansas State took a one-point lead with 39 seconds in regulation play.  Seven seconds later, Amoore, from the top of the key, hit a three-point shot of her own and Kentucky was back on top by two.  Sundrell hit a 15-foot jumper and after UK’s Dazia Lawerence missed a contested shot, the game headed to overtime tied at 69.

      Key’s three-point basket gave UK a three-point overtime lead only to see KSU’s Poindexter, who finished with 24 points, tie the game with 1:38 left.  Poindexter credited her teammates with the confidence to knock down big shots.  “My teammates tell me to keep shooting and (it) is really what lifts me up and gives me the confidence,” Poindexter stated. 

     Amoore quickly tied the game with 1:11 to play.  However, Poindexter would end the scoring for both teams with the clock showing 56 seconds to play.  Even though there was no more scoring, those last seconds produced high drama.  During the frenetic ending, Strack, who finished with a team high 22 points, would produce a crucial blocked shot.  During the last 21 seconds, UK missed four very make-able shots, including Amoore’s last second wide-open floater. 

      In his post-game press conference, Coach Mittie exclaimed, “I think everyone just witnessed one of the great games of the tournament. It’s hard to even go over all the big shots both teams made.  You go the last 10 minutes of the game and there were just huge shots by both teams and different players.”  When asked his thoughts of the job that UK’s Coach Brooks had done, Mittie noted, “They have a really, really quality team that competes really well and he’ll keep putting together quality teams.”

     In summarizing his first season as UK’s coach, Brooks wistfully stated, “We built a foundation.  I think we are going to build off of that.  It’s been a terrific year.  I love what Big Blue Nation is willing to put into or pour into women’s sports.  So I think it’s something for us to be excited about and overall I think it was a success, a lot of fun.” 

    Adding more, Brooks noted, “That’s why I came here.  I felt like this was a sleeping giant.  When you have the Kentucky brand behind you and you can bring in good players who are going to play a really good style of basketball, it’s just going to energize the fan base.  I think Kentucky fans are knowledgeable.  They want to win, but they also want you to represent the university and I think we’ve done that.  I told the kids this is one of the most enjoyable seasons that I’ve ever had in my 24 years of coaching because of the way that they came together.  We know we went down fighting...it was just a terrific basketball game!”  Those who found themselves inside Historic Memorial Coliseum on March 23, 2025, would no doubt wholeheartedly agree!