KSR's top takeaways from Kentucky's 11-point loss at Texas

Kentucky has lost two games in a row and five of its last six following a 64-53 defeat at Texas. The Cats are now under .500 in the SEC under Kenny Brooks this season, and there’s still five more games to go in conference play. KSR has its top takeaways from the Monday night loss.

Turnovers, turnovers, turnovers…

Kentucky turned the ball over a season-high 23 times against Texas. They forced 16, but committed 23 of their own. If you wanted to try to single down the loss to one, singular stat, that would probably be where you looked.

Tonie Morgan and Teonni Key had six turnovers apiece in the loss, and considering they are often the team’s primary two ball handlers a lot of the time, that is, obviously, not a winning recipe.

To give Texas credit, they do hold opponents to just 54.8 points per game (T-7th nationally) while forcing 23.7 turnovers per game (11th nationally). Brooks even called the Longhorns “the best defense in the country” in his postgame press conference.

But for Kentucky, turnovers have been a multi-game issue, and they have to clean those up heading into March.

Is it time to start Asia Boone over Jordan Obi?

Unless Asia Boone truly just prefers to come off the bench, I would be up for seeing her in the starting lineup on a more consistent basis over Jordan Obi. Boone already averages more minutes per game than Obi (28.8 to Obi’s 27.8), but her starting games out could give Kentucky an extra lift offensively.

Against Texas, Boone made her first four three-point attempts, scoring 16 points and grabbing three rebounds against the Longhorns in 29 minutes of action. As for Obi, she had zero points for the first time this season. She has scored seven total points in Kentucky’s last three games.

Boone obviously gives up some size compared to Obi, but her quickness on the defensive end of the floor is something that the Penn transfer lacks. Plus, maybe Obi could benefit from being the sixth man. Maybe she could use the first few minutes to get a feel for the game before checking in.

Kentucky is playing at a high level despite undesired results

My last point before wrapping this up is that Kentucky is so, so close to being where they were before. I wrote something for the Vanderbilt takeaways article, but it reigns true here. No. 6 LSU lost by 13 at Texas this past Thursday, and long before that, they beat No. 10 Oklahoma by at in the Moody Center (the Sooners made a comeback in garbage time).

Point being, Texas is just really darn good. I personally think they’re the best team in the country not coached by Geno Auriemma. Their two losses are to LSU and No. 3 South Carolina, both on the road, and they’ve beaten both of those teams as well. Vic Schaefer has quite the squad down in Austin.

So, at the end of the day, the loss to the Longhorns suck and losses will always suck, but since Teonni Key has come back from injury, the Cats have started to play better and trend in the right direction. Soon enough, the results will show for it as well.