Dazia Lawrence started off ice cold against NKU, but ended the game on a hot streak

Kentucky’s 29-point win over Northern Kentucky was an ugly one, and for the most part, you wouldn’t be able to tell by just looking at the stat sheet. Sure, Kentucky shot just 43% from the field and 20% from three, but they seemingly dominated across the board. There were some incredible individual performances sprinkled in there too. Perhaps one player who really epitomizes what this game was is Dazia Lawrence.

Through the first half of play, Lawrence had zero points — a goose egg in the scoring column. For whatever reason, she wasn’t playing like the aggressive “I’m gonna go get ’em”-type scorer that we know her to be.

However, to end the game, the Charlotte transfer made four of her last seven shots and finished with 10 points, with seven of those coming in the third quarter alone.

Postgame, Kenny Brooks told it like it was. In the locker room during halftime, he told Lawrence that she had to have a better second half.

“She didn’t have a choice,” Brooks joked regarding Lawrence’s second half improvement. “She got a tongue-lashing at halftime, and I think that she was either going to wilt or come out an play hard, and she came out and played hard.”

What was Brooks’ message to Lawrence you may ask? To be confident in her game.

“The only thing we said to her was to be confident,” Brooks explained. “She passed up a couple of opportunities and we were like ‘what are you doing’, and I even told her, I said ‘you’re messing up my offense if you don’t shoot that shot’ because [Clara Strack‘s] thinking she’s gonna shoot, so she’s going to rebound. Everybody is waiting for her to shoot it, and she passed up a couple of opportunities.”

“We need more from her, and she’s one of our best leaders,” he added. “She’s loud, she’s vocal in practice, and tonight, I thought she was just a little bit flat. But we need the effort that she gave in the second half right in the beginning and throughout the game.”

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