Georgia Amoore's performance against Belmont was a confidence builder

For the past 10 games, Georgia Amoore hasn’t been the player Big Blue Nation expected her to be — not necessarily in a bad way though. Instead of being the productive scorer fans saw at Virginia Tech, Amoore’s role shifted to being a facilitator. At one point, the guard was averaging almost nine assists per game. She currently averages just under eight.

Despite her assists going on a downward trend, her points are heading upward. Over the past three games, Amoore has scored 20 or more in all of them. In Friday night’s win over Belmont, Amoore tied her season-high 23 points for her most productive game yet.

There have been multiple games where Amoore will only make one or two, sometimes even zero, threes per game. But against the Bruins, the fifth-year senior made seven, a season-high. Out of the eight shots she made from the field on the night, only one of them wasn’t from the perimeter, and it was a fastbreak driving layup.

“I’ve been in the gym, I’ve shown up way more these past couple of weeks and I’ve really put a lot of effort into it [shooting],” Amoore said postgame. “Tonight I had a slow start… my confidence is gonna come out and it’s always been there.”

“The first bit of the season has definitely been a bit of a challenge,” she continued. “I’m building confidence every single day and tonight was just the defense, the undisciplinedness of it, kind of let me have really, wide open shots to take advantage of.”

“It’s really funny because, it’s nothing that I haven’t seen before,” Head coach Kenny Brooks said. “People look at her stat-line and ask ‘Well how do you think Georgia’s playing?’ and I think she’s playing phenomenal… She felt confident about it… she got to see the hard work come to fruition.”

Plus, Brooks revealed that he changed her shot two weeks ago.

“If looks could kill,” he said, “I wouldn’t be here right now. But she didn’t fight me on it. She wasn’t comfortable with it. She didn’t like it… we simplified some things.”

“We have an unwritten or unspoken verbal communication where I know when she doesn’t like something, but I’m really stubborn and I’m like ‘No, we’re going to stay with it.’ Now two weeks later, it looks really, really good.“

Despite a productive third quarter, the 'Cats only lead the Bruins by three. Georgia Amoore scored 14 points in that quarter alone.

Kentucky 57 | Belmont 54 | End 3Q

— Katie Hutchison (@KHutchisonKSR) December 21, 2024

At this point, Amoore averages 16.3 points per game, just as much as she did during her final season as a Hokie. At one point, she was averaging only 11.7 points per game.

Amoore’s production keeps getting better and better, just like the player she was at Virginia Tech. While fans have yet to see a 39-point performance like she had last season against Virginia, there’s no doubt that Amoore has a bright season ahead of her here at Kentucky.