CatsPause.com - UK women look to pick up pace in 2009-10

October 30, 2009

Matt May
CatsPause.com Senior Writer

The Kentucky women's basketball team knows how to suffocate opponents with its defense. Now Matthew Mitchell's squad is hoping its offense will produce enough to take advantage of the sticky defense.

It's been a rough few years on the offensive end of the floor for the Cats, who have been hampered by injuries, a lack of depth and a dearth of perimeter shooters. The Cats have shot exactly 37.8 percent from the field as a team each of the past two seasons and have not broken the 30 percent barrier on three-point shooting since the 2005-06 season, both indicators of a unit that has had significant struggles scoring points.

It's a trend Mitchell plans to change this season, as much because of a revamped roster as anything else.

"It's very evident we have to score more points than we have the last couple of years," Mitchell said. "I think we have the capability to do that but it's going to look a little different than it has the past few years. For a lot of reasons we just were not an up-tempo team last year, we just weren't capable."

The transformation starts with what Mitchell hopes will be a quicker pace for the Cats. Without a true center UK will be a team with more guards and wing players who are better suited to get up and down the floor like Pat Summitt's Tennessee teams. Junior star Victoria Dunlap is the one viable post player Mitchell expects to play a lot so he intends to open up the court and put the pedal to the metal.

"It's going to be a different style of play because for the last six or seven seasons we have had a really big low post presence," Mitchell said. "Our experienced frontcourt players now are not as tall but are a lot more athletic and dynamic so it's going to be a different look I believe.

"We'll see how it plays out because it's easy to talk about but much more difficult to implement. We're trying to be much more dynamic offensive, up-tempo and dynamic so any time you have that you have a few growing pains here and there."

Improvement will come with better shooting, an issue that has crushed the Cats in recent years. Only Amani Franklin shot better than 30 percent from beyond the arc last season, while she and Carly Morrow accounted for 94 of the team's 141 three-pointers. Both of those players return but Mitchell is hoping the addition of transfers Rebecca Gray, Keyla Snowden and Crystal Riley, plus a healthy Amber Smith at point guard can create a more consistent outside shooting attack.

Of course, as Mitchell pointed out, that only happens if the players actually make shots.

"The first thing is it wouldn't be very difficult to shoot it better so I'm not sure shooting it better is the goal, we want to be able to do a good job shooting the ball," Mitchell said. "Somebody said the other day, it may have been John Calipari, 'We've always had shooters, we just haven't had makers. We need people who can make shots, not just shoot shots.' The newcomers have added a dimension to it. We should have a greater ability to shoot the three-point shot and that transforms your offense. We just had a hard time (scoring) and people didn't have to be real creative guarding us."

The Cats may see the same game plan until they can prove they will be more capable on the offensive end.

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