Cats drop in scoring during skid with lack of prolific scorer

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By Tyler Spanyer | UK Hoops beat writer

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After beginning the season with the second-best start in program history, UK Hoops has hit a series of roadblocks.

The Cats have lost three of their last six games, and the scoring average in those six games has gone down by 19 points that UK averaged before its Dec. 22 game against Duke University.

The Cats are averaging 14 more points from a year ago. But, they don’t have a player who has scored to the bulk that A’dia Mathies did last seasons.

Mathies averaged 16.1 points per game in her senior year and 15 points per game when she was a junior, two years where UK advanced to the Elite Eight and lost no more than three conference games.

Senior forward DeNesha Stallworth is almost at an identical average to last year’s total. She has 12.8 points per game compared to last year’s 12.5 points per game.

In the five games since Stallworth had arthroscopic knee surgery, no UK player has surpassed her scoring average.

UK has been 2-3 in those contests.

“We were getting good attacks and some good passes offensively, but we weren’t finishing anything outside or inside the paint,” senior guard Kastine Evans said after UK lost to Florida on Jan. 5.

Junior guard Jennifer O’Neill is averaging 12.5 points per game, second on the team, but has the lowest shooting percentage on the team. She has put up 177 shots, the most on the squad but three shots per game less than Mathies last season. O’Neill’s average includes her 43-point performance against Baylor University on Dec. 6.

The current top three teams in women’s college basketball — the University of Connecticut, University of Notre Dame and Duke — each have three players averaging more than three points higher than the Cats’ leading scorer.

Stanford University, which is ranked No. 4, is led by senior forward Chiney Ogwumike, who averages 27.3 points per game. Her total is the third highest individual average in the country this season.

Evans, who leads the team in minutes, is currently on pace to shoot the ball 8.8 times per game, much lower than Mathies’ average of 13.5 shots per game last season.

In the Cats’ three losses this season, they have shot at or below 35 percent from the field, and have shot a combined 10-45 from behind the arc in those games.

In the Cats’ 80-69 victory over the University of Missouri last Sunday, UK shot 38 percent from the floor.

“It is very difficult to play basketball with five people standing in the lane, and you are scared to shoot perimeter shots that you know you can make and have been making all year long,” UK head coach Matthew Mitchell said after Sunday’s game.

“It is a mental toughness that you have to have at this point in time.”