As Kentucky and USC renew heated rivalry, expect it to be ‘knock out, drag out’

On both sides of the court Sunday, South Carolina and Kentucky women’s basketball will be dealing with injuries and adversity, relying on young players in key roles as the Wildcats try to get their season on track and the No. 10 Gamecocks attempt to hold on to their spot near the top of the rankings.

But while both teams have plenty of their own issues to deal with, there’s no overlooking the intense, sometimes heated rivalry between the two programs.

“Doesn’t matter what the records are,” USC coach Dawn Staley said Friday. “It’ll probably be a knock out, drag out (game).”

There are a lot of reasons why the Wildcats and Gamecocks don’t get along. Over the past five years, they’ve both finished in the top four of the conference every year. They play each other twice a season, and the contests are always physical affairs, the kind that encourage bad blood. And two years ago, forward Alexis Jennings was part of a mass exodus from Kentucky, eventually landing at USC.

But for Jennings, who will return to Rupp Arena for the first time in two years on Sunday, there’s not much to say about the matchup.

“I’m really not sure, honestly,” Jennings said when asked why the two teams seemed to dislike each other so much. “I don’t know. I don’t even have anything to say.”

That being said, she said she doesn’t bear any ill will towards UK or its players.

“There’s memories,” Jennings said of her time in Lexington. “I built a lot of relationships while at Kentucky, but I’ve moved on. I’m at the University of South Carolina now. And we’re just focusing on playing well. We got a short bench, so we’re just looking to run our sets and focus on our keys to win.

“I talk to a few (old teammates). Just because my path was different from theirs doesn’t mean we can’t still be friends.”

Jennings’s comments were reciprocated by the coach she left at Kentucky, Matthew Mitchell.

“As far as any lingering animosity with anybody that had to do what they had to do, I am just wishing that everyone does great and finds happiness and success,” Mitchell said of Jennings, according to the Lexington Herald-Leader.

Success for Jennings has been easier to come by at South Carolina, where she says the offense is better matched to her skills than it was at Kentucky, where guards were considered the main force in the attack.

“Here I feel like Coach just wants to get the ball pounded into the posts,” Jennings said. “We have advantages and we’re good in the low post — I feel like that’s what I do best. So that’s what I lean on in games like this.”

Still, both Staley and Jennings said some of the edge of the rivalry may be dulled a bit by the face that as USC deals with injuries that press freshmen like Lele Grissett and Bianca Jackson into larger roles, it is simply trying to make sure everyone is prepared, to say nothing of getting them excited for a rivalry game.

“They’re just trying to make sure they can execute,” Staley said of South Carolina’s freshmen. “We can’t tell them exactly what the rivalry is until they’re actually able to experience it. So they’ll experience it on the road there.”

South Carolina and Kentucky tip off at noon on Sunday. The game will be televised on ESPNU.

This story was originally published January 20, 2018 at 7:14 PM with the headline "As Kentucky and USC renew heated rivalry, expect it to be ‘knock out, drag out’."