LEXINGTON, Ky. – No. 20 Kentucky women’s basketball (3-0) controlled the Wofford Terriers (2-1) from start to finish Tuesday night, never trailing in a 76-42 win inside Historic Memorial Coliseum.

The Cats jumped to a convincing 22-5 lead thanks to Dazia Lawrence, who nailed her first five shots to score all but seven of Kentucky’s first-quarter points.

“I was just confident in my shot,” Lawrence said postgame. “Just staying true to myself, not passing up any open shots at all, just being confident in knocking [shots] down.”

Kentucky Head Coach Kenny Brooks called the scoring burst “needed.”

“I thought it was what we needed,” Brooks said. “I keep telling her ‘We brought her here for a reason.’ But you know, seeing the ball go through the hoop for her, it’s something that we definitely need.”

While Lawrence went on to lead all scorers with 19 points in her career night, she was not the only one to have a career performance as Clara Strack also had a career-high 15 rebounds alongside 16 points.

Despite this, Brooks said her performance left him wishing for more.

“I love her to death, [but] I called her out after the game,” Brooks said. “I said, ‘I didn’t think you played well.’ And it’s because of the expectations that she and I sat down to figure out what we want. We need her to be a leader.”

Kentucky went into halftime leading Wofford 34-12, the Terriers’ lowest-scoring first half since a prior matchup with the Wildcats in 2020, where they finished the first half with just 11 points. 

“We took them out of a lot of their things,” Brooks said. “They resorted to trying to go one-on-one with our bigs. I thought we did a good job handling that.”

Wofford shot just 20% from the field and 17% from beyond the arc in the loss. The Wildcats also blocked 16 of the Terriers’ shots, the second-highest mark in program history.

Brooks also noted postgame that he was impressed with Teonni Key’s performance, as she would quietly drop her first career double-double with 11 points and 13 rebounds in just 21 minutes.

“Teonni, like I said before, she is the key to what we’re going to do,” Brooks said. “Because when she’s playing well like that, it gives us another big body in there, it makes us difficult to deal with.”

The Wildcats will return home Saturday night at 6 p.m. in their first big test of the season against No. 18 Louisville. That game will air on the SEC Network+.