Alabama Women?s Hoops Drops Regular Season Finale to Kentucky
2/26/2006 12:00:00 AM | Women's Basketball
Sunday, February 26, 2006
BOX SCORE
LEXINGTON, Ky. ?? Navonda Moore gave the Alabama women's basketball team 24 points Sunday afternoon in the Crimson Tide's regular season finale against Kentucky, but the Tide couldn't overcome 20 turnovers in an 80-60 loss to the Wildcats.
Alabama hung tough against Kentucky for most of the game and was much closer than the final 20-point margin indicates. The deficit was just three at the half and Alabama drew as close as nine points with 4:29 remaining in the game. However, the Tide could never draw any closer down the stretch. UK's Jenny Pfeiffer knocked down four three-point baskets in the final 5:00 to put distance between the two teams. Pfeiffer led all scorers in the game with 29 points while Sarah Elliot added 20.
"I thought we played well on defense in the first half," Alabama head coach Stephany Smith said. "Navonda played really well on offense and hit some big shots for us early, but in the second half we stopped making our shots and our defense didn't step up the way we needed it to. That hurt us down the stretch."
Alabama will now enter next week's SEC Tournament as the No. 11 seed while the win for Kentucky gives them a bye in the opening round.
Moore and Kate Mastin lit up the scoreboard for the Tide from behind the 3-point arc, making nine of 16 3-pointers. Alabama's nine made three-points set a new season high. Moore and Mastin, who scored 14 points, combined to give Alabama 38 points on the afternoon, 27 of which came from behind the arc. Moore's five three-points established a new career high as well. As a team the Tide shot 47 percent from three-point land.
However, Alabama shot just 32 percent from the field overall and in the second half the Wildcats held Moore, the Tide's leading scorer, to just two points.
Junior Leah Drury hauled in 5 rebounds on the afternoon, a career for her as well.
Stat-wise, the two teams were very even on the day. Alabama hauled in 38 rebounds, two rebounds shy of its season average, to Kentucky's 40. The biggest difference in the stats though came in bench-points. Kentucky received 63 points from its bench in the game to Alabama's seven.
The SEC Tournament will begin Thursday in North Little Rock, Ark. Alabama will play the final game on the opening day of the tournament against either Florida, Vanderbilt or South Carolina.
