How Kentucky plans to avenge its heartbreaking loss to Vanderbilt

The last time Kentucky women’s basketball faced off against Vanderbilt, Big Blue Nation, Kenny Brooks, and I were left staring at the scoreboard in disbelief. Despite shooting an incredibly efficient 56.4% from the floor and 50% from beyond the arc while winning the rebounding margin by 18, the Wildcats suffered a brutal 84-83 loss in a game they probably should have won.

Now, Kentucky has a chance for revenge as they head to Nashville on Sunday. If the Wildcats want to even the score, they have to look back at the film from that first matchup and clean up all the self-inflicted wounds.

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What went wrong in the first matchup?

You simply cannot win high-level basketball games when you turn the ball over 20 times, and the Cats did. Vanderbilt took massive advantage of Kentucky’s sloppy ball-handling, swiping 10 steals and committing only six turnovers of their own. The bad thing is, most of the turnovers were just bad or lazy passes. They could have been avoided entirely.

That 14-turnover differential gave the Commodores the extra possessions they desperately needed to survive Kentucky’s hot shooting and rebounding.

Then, there is the Mikayla Blakes problem. The Vanderbilt star guard is averaging an incredible 26.3 points per game on the season, and she completely torched the Cats in the first meeting. Blakes played all 40 minutes, dropping 37 points while shooting 6-for-9 from deep and just toying with Kentucky when they switched a big on her. Tonie Morgan and Asia Boone have to find a way to stay in front of her, get over those screens, disrupt her rhythm, and run her off the three-point line.

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The Cats can block a lot of shots inside, but not a lot you can do when they are dropping in from deep.

Kentucky’s massive frontcourt advantage

If there is one thing the first game proved, it is that Vanderbilt has absolutely no answer for Kentucky’s size inside. The Wildcats bullied the Commodores on the glass, outrebounding them by a staggering margin of…

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Publish date : 2026-02-22 11:00:00

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