The bench for Kentucky women's basketball has to be more involved. It is the broken record of the season, and it played on repeat again this weekend.
Kaelyn Carroll finally got a little more run today, logging 11 minutes, and Lexi Blue got nine. But Josie Gilvin played a total of seven seconds in a game where head coach Kenny Brooks admitted his team just got too tired down the stretch.
"We’ve had three straight games we’ve gone to the fourth quarter down one possession, and we just run out of gas," Brooks said postgame.
If running out of gas is the problem, maybe someone needs to play more than seven seconds? We get it, maybe the defense isn't quite at the level Brooks wants, or you lose a little bit of offensive firepower when you sub. But you simply cannot win in the SEC playing people 40 minutes every single night. The legs go, the shots fall short, and the losses pile up.
Kentucky women's basketball is sliding
It seems that just a little bit ago, Kentucky was climbing near the Top 5. They were rolling. They hit a rough spot after Teonni Key went down, but seemed to right the ship with two massive wins over Florida and a Top-10 Oklahoma squad.
But whatever momentum they had has absolutely gone away.
The Lady Cats are now sitting at .500 in the conference (4-4), and barring an undefeated run the rest of the way, getting into the SEC title contention conversation is out the window. Brooks himself admitted that it was time to recalibrate expectations.
"We’re close, it’s a long season, sometimes you have to shift your immediate goals to try to get better, and that’s what we’re going to do," Brooks said. "We have a long-awaited break, and we’ll use that time to practice and try to get better."
The danger of being close
Being "close" doesn't really help you when you keep losing games, though. Instead of fighting for a top-4 spot and a double-bye in the SEC Tournament, Kentucky is now trying to avoid sliding all the way to playing opening night.
The loss to Georgia was a microcosm of the current issues. Georgia outrebounded Kentucky 40-31 and had two fewer turnovers than the Cats. Despite being shorthanded, the Cats made a spirited run in the third quarter to grab a 3-point lead. But the legs failed them again. The Bulldogs answered back, took a 2-point lead into the fourth, and Kentucky went cold, shooting just 5-of-16 in the final period as Georgia won in Historic Memorial Coliseum. It was Kentucky's first home loss of the year.
NCAA Tournament Implications
You can't lose home games in this league. Now sitting at 17-5 overall and 4-4 in the conference, there is a real chance Kentucky is sliding out of a Top-4 seed in the NCAA Tournament.
That would be terrible for the program. The top 16 teams in the country get to host the first and second rounds of the tournament at home. Losing that home-court advantage could be the difference between a Sweet 16 run and an early exit.
The Cats are going to be licking their wounds for a minute, finally getting a break in the schedule. Their next game will not be until February 1st.
Brooks is welcoming that time off.
"It’s much needed, the players need rest, and I’m not giving up on them, nor are they giving up on each other," Brooks said. "We’re not getting blown out by 35; we just got to figure it out and become a whole team again."