KSR's top takeaways from Kentucky's 8-point loss to the No. 7 team in the country

No. 16 Kentucky’s eight-point loss to No. 7 Maryland wasn’t fun. The first seven games of the season were, but this one wasn’t. Turnovers and missed opportunities offensively (and the difference in free throw attempts between the two teams) was the story of this one.

Here are KSR’s top takeaways from Kentucky’s first loss of the year.

Teonni Key, Clara Strack were not their usual selves

Kentucky’s stars at the four and five did not play like stars against Maryland. After having a really big game against Louisville, Teonni Key had just four points and five fouls in 14 minutes of play. It’s really unfortunate, but she was a complete non-factor on Wednesday.

As for Clara Strack, she had nine points, nine rebounds and two blocks, but we’ve been so accustomed to getting Herculean efforts from here that her outing also felt underwhelming. Against the toughest team Kentucky will face during non-conference play, she wasn’t quite her best self.

To be fair, no one on the team was awesome against the Terps, but it really didn’t help that two of your leaders didn’t really do a whole lot either.

Tonie Morgan’s performance was both great and horrible

If there was anyone on the team who you could argue that played well, you’d probably go with Tonie Morgan. It looked like Maryland’s plan defensively was to make Morgan beat them from the perimeter, and to her credit, she shot 4-5 from beyond the arc.

She also got downhill some and did have eight assists on the night, but Morgan was also responsible for eight of Kentucky’s 20 turnovers. That’s not good.

The 5-foot-9 point guard did a lot of positive things against Maryland that will leave you encouraged as we approach December, but you also can’t have your floor general coughing up the ball like that against such a good team.

Objectively and on paper, this is not a bad loss

To take a step back and look at this with a big-picture perspective, Kentucky’s 74-66 loss to Maryland isn’t the worst loss in the world. If good losses exist, then this is definitely one.

To Kentucky’s credit, when they got down by 20 at the start of the third quarter, they didn’t lay down and accept defeat, which would have been easy to do against such a good team. Even though it didn’t end up as a win, Kentucky did show some good signs for moving forward and fought through some adversity yet again.

Kenny Brooks talked about how the team believes in themselves following the Louisville game. This loss is no reason to suddenly lose belief in this group. There’s a lot of basketball left to be played, and Kentucky can still assert themselves as one of the best teams in the country prior to March.