GREENVILLE, S.C.- While she has shown flashes of brilliance this season, Eniya Russell proved how important of a piece she is to Kentucky if it wants to make a run in the SEC Women’s Basketball Tournament on Wednesday.
The Wildcats found themselves in a predicament before the opening tip-off as it was announced that Maddie Scherr was unavailable due to concussion protocol just 51 minutes before the start of the game.
With that in mind, once the ball tipped off and the game began, it was an inauspicious start for the Wildcats after Georgia jumped out to an 8-2 lead.
Then, three-minutes-and-39-seconds into the game, Russell cut the Lady Bulldog lead to four with a mid range jumper — her first of 10 first quarter points.
”[Coach Elzy has] been preparing us for this moment,” Russell said after the game. “One down, we got to have somebody else to step up.”
After her first bucket, Russell would go on to hit a 3-pointer and a layup to give Kentucky its first lead of the game. That lead extended to seven points after she capped off the opening frame with a step-back 3-pointer at the buzzer.
Despite coming off the bench, Russell would go on to finish with 19 points and lead all Wildcats and, at +25 in the plus-minus, she was the most efficient player on the floor and took care of business in just 28 minutes.
Despite being under the 30-minute mark in playing time, Kentucky head coach Kyra Elzy said her substitution patterns didn’t involve looking ahead to the Thursday matchup with Tennessee.
”The minutes balance out how they do,” said Elzy postgame. “I’m more of a feel, gut, how the flow of the game is going, how [Russell] is playing, when we need to rest her, who is playing well at that time. I usually don’t say, ‘Oh, she’s played 20 minutes, let me sit her down.’ It’s just a feel of the game.”
Russell has begun to cement herself as an X-factor to this Kentucky team as she scored 10 or more points in three of the Wildcats’ five conference wins this season. Kentucky is also 4-3 in games where Russell leads the Wildcats in scoring, with three of those wins being conference results.
For Russell, she says that it’s a matter of mentality.
”[It’s] just having the mindset of stepping up, being ready to play on both ends of the floor, forgetting about the mistakes,” Russell said. “It’s basically a new season right here, so why not?”
Heading into the second round of the Women’s SEC Basketball Tournament, Kentucky will need her on-court leadership considering that Scherr will still be on the sidelines in concussion protocol.
While 19 points is impressive, what makes a performance like Russell’s so impactful to the game is the facilitation of offense and defense, both of which Kentucky will need to pull off the upset against Tennessee and both of which Kentucky has struggled to maintain across multiple games.
The Wildcats will face the fifth-seeded Lady Volunteers at approximately 2:30 p.m. ET, 25 minutes after the conclusion of the noon matchup between Mississippi State and Texas A&M. The game will be broadcast on the SEC Network.
