Hoops faces sweet rematch
March 28, 2014
By Tyler Spanyer | Hoops beat writer
A traditional power versus a program trying to make its first Final Four is a classic setup in Notre Dame University’s Purcell Pavilion. That is what 3-seed UK Hoops and 2-seed Baylor University bring to the table Saturday in a Sweet 16 matchup.
“It will be a real, real test for our team,” UK head coach Matthew Mitchell said. “Baylor has a fantastic team and they’ve had a great season, and we know from firsthand experience how tough they are and so we’ll just have to continue to try and prepare well.”
The Cats clinched their third-straight trip to the Sweet 16 after breezing through 14-seed Wright State University and surviving 6-seed Syracuse University’s comeback bid.
In their regular-season matchup, UK and Baylor needed 60 minutes to decide a winner as UK went on to win, 133-130, in a four-overtime classic.
Junior guard Jennifer O’Neill recorded a career-high and program-record 43 points in the win, while Baylor superstar senior guard Odyssey Sims scored a game-high 47 points, but fouled out in the first overtime.
“When you go back and watch that game, it was a very exciting game to watch,” Mitchell said. “But from a coaching standpoint, it wasn’t fun to go back and watch the kind of defense we played. We just didn’t have a very good defensive night at all. We certainly didn’t do a very good job against Odyssey (Sims).”
UK struggled after the win over Baylor while the Bears hit their stride, losing just three more games all season.
The Cats will use a balanced offensive and defensive game in an attempt to hold Sims, the nation’s second-leading scorer, in check on Saturday.
“She’s just so explosive and so tough to guard,” Mitchell said. “You need to play as well off the ball as well as you can to try and limit her getting the ball in her hands. She’s really, really hard to defend once she has the ball in her hands.”
The Cats and Bears tip off Saturday at noon. The winner will face the winner of the game between 1-seed University of Notre Dame and 5-seed Oklahoma State University in the Elite Eight.
