LEXINGTON, Ky. – The University of Evansville women’s basketball fell to No. 20 Kentucky, 100-62, on the road inside Memorial Coliseum in Lexington, Ky. on Tuesday night.
“We got off to a bit of a bad start there and spotted them some points and a lot of that came from us turning the ball over,” said Aces head coach Matt Ruffing. “I felt like when we realized that was the case our toughness level went up. We lost the second quarter by five and won the third quarter by two because of that little stuff. From here on that’s something we can build off of. We hit some shots and they tried to go to a zone and we shot them out of the zone, which is always a good thing. This is a great atmosphere against the 20th-ranked team in America. I’m really proud of the way we fought coming out of halftime.”
For the third-time this season, graduate guard Hannah Noe led the Aces, scoring 23 points and knocking-down six three-pointers. Junior guard Kerri Gasper added nine points, four rebounds, and four assists, while redshirt sophomore guard Marley Miller contributed eight points and three boards. The Wildcats were led by Maci Morris and Tatyana Wyatt who each finished with 20 points with Wyatt recording a double-double with 10 rebounds.
Kentucky opened the contest on a 19-0 run before Noe drained a three from the top of the arc with 5:06 left in the first quarter to put the Aces on the board. Junior center Kelsi Scott backed down her defender and laid it off the glass for her first points of the night with 3:01 remaining in the opening period as the Aces trailed 33-5 after the first 10 minutes of action.
The Aces responded in the second quarter, putting together a 6-2 run midway through as Evansville’s deficit was 32 at 55-23 at the halftime break.
In the third frame, Evansville continued to show its resilience opening the quarter with a 12-7 advantage over the Wildcats in the first three minutes out of the break. The Aces intensity paid off in the third stanza as UE outscored the Wildcats, 22-20, in the quarter.
Noe poured-in her fifth three of the contest to open the fourth quarter and trim Kentucky’s lead to 27, but the Wildcats responded with a 9-0 run as Kentucky earned a 100-62 win.
Kentucky out-shot the Aces from the floor, 57.1% to 46.8%, and narrowly edged Evansville in three-point shooting, 47.1% to 42.1%.
Evansville returns to Meeks Family Fieldhouse for the first time in nearly three weeks when the Aces face Morehead State at 1 p.m. on Sunday.
