By Cody Porter and Les Johns

Matthew Mitchell’s UK Hoops team will honor three departing seniors and continue to fight for an SEC regular-season title against the South Carolina Gamecocks Thursday at Memorial Coliseum.

Senior guards Crystal Riley, Amber Smith and Keyla Snowden will be honored in a senior night ceremony before playing their last game at Memorial Coliseum. Tipoff against the Gamecocks is scheduled for 7 p.m., with the senior ceremony slated to start at 6:35 p.m.

“We would love to send these seniors out with a win,” Mitchell said.

Although it will be their senior night, Mitchell said he wants to keep focus on the team’s ultimate goal — the SEC championship, which they are currently battling for with the Tennessee Lady Volunteers.

“The tough part about tomorrow night is that South Carolina, they are a very, very tough group of players,” Mitchell said.

He later added, “This is not a night that I’m going to make a real big deal about other than trying to beat South Carolina because this is not a night where we need to get nostalgic.”

The Cats’ emotional leader of sorts, Amber Smith, said that she doesn’t plan on doing anything different despite it being her senior night.

“I’ve already told them — don’t cry because we got to play a game, and then y’all can cry,” Smith said, “but I’m not going to do anything different, I’m going to do the same thing because we know how important this game is and how important it is to win the SEC championship.”

She sat out Monday’s contest against Vanderbilt, but is eager to get back on the court Thursday against South Carolina.

Smith has had an injury-riddled, yet distinguished, career with the Cats. She missed the second half of her freshman year and had to sit out the entire season last year because of ACL tears.

“You just have to really admire a player who had to try and reinvent herself twice. She was just so dynamic,” Mitchell said.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen a kid that the fans embraced more.”

Smith is sixth in UK Hoops history with 409 career assists, and is just the seventh ever to have more than 400 career assists. Smith also leads the team with 76 assists on the season, averaging 20 minutes played per game.

Mitchell’s sixth player, Snowden, has had one of, if not the biggest contribution among the senior class.

Snowden transferred to UK after playing her freshman season at Akron University. The senior was a frequent starter her sophomore and junior seasons at UK, but this year is serving as the sixth man — averaging 9.4 points-per-game coming off the bench.

During his press conference on Wednesday, Mitchell joked that Snowden had no clue who he was while he was attempting to recruit her to Morehead State, prior to accepting his current position at UK.

“I was spurned by Keyla Snowden as the head coach of Morehead State,” Mitchell said, “she would not speak to me, I do not even know if she knew my name,” Mitchell added with a laugh.

“Suddenly I become the head coach of Kentucky and she thought I had learned enough to where I could coach her at that point.”

With a big smile on his face, Mitchell acknowledged that Snowden hated hearing his side of the story.

Mitchell believed that Snowden was a higher-level player than the teams recruiting her made it appear.

“She’ s the best sixth player in the league and I hope she wins that award,” Mitchell said.

Snowden said that while Mitchell had his own story, she got homesick after going to Akron and wanted to return and play for him at UK.

Now in her senior season, Snowden has made 42 3-pointers this season and is third in career 3-point field goal percentage in UK history; making 158 of her 428 three point attempts (.369).

Riley transferred to the Cats after starting her career with LSU. She has played in 17 contests this year. Her career-high in scoring is an 11-point effort on Nov. 11, 2010, in 24 minutes of action.

“Crystal Riley has just been a joy to coach,” Mitchell said. “She has done whatever we’ve asked her to do. She had battled through injuries and never complained.”

Mitchell added “she has had as much to do with our success as anybody.”

Riley said that she wants herself along with her fellow seniors to be remembered as leaders, especially since all three had to step out of their comfort zones.

She said that with one more academic year available to her, she would be joining the Cats as a student assistant for the 2012-13 season.

The No. 13/10 Cats enter the South Carolina matchup tied with the Lady Vols for first place in the SEC, both with 11-3 conference records with two games remaining.

Thirty years ago the Cats captured their lone regular season title in 1982 when led by UK all-time basketball scoring leader Valerie Still.

Later that season the Lady Cats added the SEC tournament title to their list of achievements.

The Cats have won 19 consecutive home games, including 11 straight in the conference.

“What South Carolina does so well is they have three dynamic guards,” Mitchell said. “I think probably all three of them will be considered for All-Conference honors.”

Snowden scored 15 points to lead the Cats over the Gamecocks in Columbia earlier this season 66-58.

In doing so, she was able to create opportunities against the best defense in the conference.

Mitchell said that even he believes he also has one of the best defenses, and if his offense ever struggles they will have it to assist their performance.

“If you are ever struggling offensively, you have to keep playing tough defensively,” Mitchell said. “That’s one thing you can point to. And, we did talk about that. They did such a good job on Monday night on defense and they built such a big lead. When the offensive sputtering started Monday night, we’d played such great defense that we’d built a sizable advantage and we were able to weather that storm.”