Arkansas falls at #25 Kentucky

LEXINGTON, Ky. — Lyndsay Harris, C’eira Ricketts and Skye Rees all finished in double figures but it wasn’t enough to lift the University of Arkansas women’s basketball team in Southeastern Conference action at #25 Kentucky Thursday.

Arkansas (8-11, 0-6 SEC) fell 52-69 to the #25 Wildcats (15-3, 3-2 SEC) winning their 14th consecutive home game. Arkansas travels to Tuscaloosa, Ala., facing the Crimson Tide Sunday at 2 p.m.

“We have a good team and a lot of talent,” Arkansas head coach Tom Collen said, “we’re just not playing good basketball right now. We have to wipe the slate clean and start over before Sunday.”

Harris led the Razorbacks with 14 points while Ricketts added 12 and Rees 10 for Arkansas but a poor shooting first half doomed Arkansas from the beginning.

Kentucky blasted out of the gates and set Arkansas on its heels from the opening tip. The Razorbacks were close through the first five points but Kentucky’s speed and efficiency was hard to handle in the early minutes.

The Wildcats came into the game as one of the best in the country in turnover margin but Arkansas was stingy with the ball. The difference came in rebounding where the Wildcats out-boarded the Razorbacks, 28-25, in the first half.

“Second chance points hurt us tonight,” Collen said. “We let them have too many looks at the basket.”

Arkansas finished the first half shooting 28.6 percent and had just one three-pointer, that from Harris. Kentucky shot 44.4 percent at the break and hit 15 second-chance points and had scored 26 in the paint in the opening period.

Both teams suffered through a nearly three-minute scoring draught at the end of the half but Kentucky went into the locker room with a 37-21 lead in the first 20 minutes.

Arkansas was more composed to start the second half and did well to play within themselves scoring four quick points, but the offense stalled and those four points were all the Razorbacks had through the first five minutes of the period.

The Razorbacks put together a scoring run behind six points from Harris but a called fourth foul on the Hoover, Ala., native, sent her to the bench with just over seven minutes to play.

Arkansas finished the game shooting 34.6 percent and they forced Kentucky into some bad shots as they fell to 36.5 percent for the game. The final rebounding numbers went Kentucky’s way, 37-49 and Arkansas finished with 22 team turnovers.

Download: Arkansas-Kentucky.pdf