After a 77-56 defeat to the No. 9 ranked LSU Tigers in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, on Sunday, Kentucky women’s basketball’s grim regular season has come to a close, which means it is officially time to prepare for the SEC Tournament.
Finishing with an 11-19 overall record and an SEC record of 4-12, the Wildcats will serve as the No. 12 seed out of 14 in this year’s tournament.
Kentucky’s run for the championship will start against the No. 13 seeded Georgia Bulldogs in round one on Wednesday at 11:00 a.m as the two sides will take place in the first game of the tournament.
The matchup isn’t the first go around between the two teams as they already battled each other once this season back on Feb. 4 in Athens, Georgia, where the Bulldogs won 72-65.
Kentucky’s Ajae Petty scored a team-high 25 points in the loss, while Georgia’s Javyn Nicholson grabbed 13 boards and scored 23 points of her own.
If the Cats find a way to win the rematch, the No. 5 seeded Tennessee Volunteers (17-11, 10-6) — who have a first round bye — will be waiting for them in the second round.
The Cats were already downed by the Volunteers in Knoxville, Tennessee, back on Jan. 7, 87-69.
Recently, Kentucky has a track record of playing better in the postseason.
For example, in last year’s tournament, the Cats were the No. 14 seed as they finished the regular season with a 2-14 SEC record, but in the first round they beat the No. 11 seeded Florida Gators by 15 points.
The Cats then followed that up with an even more surprising win over Alabama in the second round before losing in the third round, but winning a single game in the tournament was not expected, and doing it by double-digits was more unexpected.
The previous year, the Cats finished SEC play with a .500% win percentage at 8-8 and went on to do the impossible and actually win the SEC Tournament, taking down No. 1 South Carolina in the championship.
Now, with nothing to lose and a whole lot to gain, the Cats look to make some unexpected noise and win their third SEC tournament in program history.
