Asia Boone Hits Five 3s as No. 14 Kentucky Holds Northern Kentucky to Six Field Goals in 79-28 Rout

LEXINGTON, Ky. The scoreboard at Historic Memorial Coliseum said 79-28, and somehow the more telling number was six. That is how many field goals Northern Kentucky made all night on Thursday, Nov. 5, as No. 14 Kentucky smothered its in-state guest from the opening tip and never let go.

Senior guard Asia Boone led the Wildcats with 21 points, hitting five 3-pointers and passing 100 made 3s in her Kentucky career. Senior center Clara Strack posted a double-double with 11 points and 10 rebounds to go with four blocks and three steals, junior forward Me'Arah O'Neal scored 12, and first-year guard Ajša Sivka added 11 points, seven rebounds and three assists. Kentucky moved to 2-0. The Norse fell to 1-1.

Here is the official box score (opens in a new tab), Kentucky's recap (opens in a new tab) and Kentucky's postgame notes (opens in a new tab).

Twenty straight before the Norse could breathe

O'Neal opened the scoring with a free throw, Sivka and O'Neal each added two baskets, and Kentucky was up 9-0 before Northern Kentucky found the net with a 3. That was the last good news the Norse got for a while.

Strack scored four points in a row. Maddyn Greenway finished an acrobatic layup. Strack scored underneath again, O'Neal made two free throws, Savvy Swords put back a miss, and Ayanna Patterson closed the period with a layup and a runner. The 16-0 burst made it 25-3 after one quarter. Northern Kentucky went 1 for 9 from the floor in the period and turned it over 10 times, according to the Associated Press, and Kentucky's notes say it was the fewest points the Wildcats have allowed in any quarter since Kenny Brooks took over the program.

The run did not stop at the horn. Sivka opened the second quarter with a fadeaway in the lane, Strack scored again, and the streak reached 20 straight points at 29-3. Free throws from Swords, Strack and Diana Collins pushed it to 36-5. The Norse finally strung together a short burst of their own to get within 37-11, but Boone answered with a 3 and two free throws, and Kentucky took a 42-12 lead into the locker room.

Boone finds a rhythm the rest of the roster is still chasing

The second half belonged to Boone. Sivka scored on a layup to open the third quarter, Boone hit a 3, and O'Neal scored to make it 49-12. O'Neal later drilled a corner 3, and Swords followed with one of her own to push the margin past 40. Northern Kentucky answered with eight straight points to get within 55-21, its best stretch of the night, and Boone ended it with another 3 to send Kentucky into the fourth up 58-21.

She kept going. Boone hit a 3 early in the fourth, added a midrange jumper, and later finished a fast break layup as the lead swelled to 68-21. Sivka mixed in a 3 from the right wing. Boone finished 7 of 11 from the floor, 5 of 9 from deep and 2 of 2 at the line in 21 minutes, with six rebounds, a steal and a block. Kentucky said it was her fourth career game with 20 or more points and her second in a Wildcats uniform.

The rest of the shooting was a different story. Kentucky went 9 of 35 from 3 and 27 of 79 overall, a 34 percent clip that would sink the Wildcats against most teams on their schedule. Brooks was not worried. "They'll fall. They'll fall," he said afterward, adding that "out of the 35 that we took, maybe five of them were ill-advised."

A defensive night for the record book

The Wildcats forced 28 turnovers and turned them into 36 points. They collected 13 steals, tying the most of the Brooks era, with Collins leading the way with four to go with a team-high five assists. Northern Kentucky's starting guard Maya Layton committed eight turnovers by herself.

The shooting numbers for the Norse were almost hard to believe. Northern Kentucky made 6 of 44 shots, 13.6 percent, and just 2 of 20 from 3. Kentucky's notes say both the six made field goals and the 13.6 percent mark are the best defensive figures the program has posted since at least the 2002-03 season. The Norse had three assists and never reached double figures in a quarter. Half of their points came from the free throw line, where they went 14 of 18.

The 28 points were the fewest Kentucky has allowed under Brooks and the fewest by the program since it held Jackson State to 24 on Nov. 29, 2015. Through two games, the Wildcats had allowed 70 points combined, their lowest two-game opening total since the 1974-75 season, per the school. It was also the fifth win by 50 or more points of the Brooks era. Kentucky led by as many as 51, and it led by exactly that at the final buzzer.

Strack's stat line and the glass

Strack's box score line was the kind that gets screenshotted: 11 points, 10 rebounds, four blocks, three steals and two assists in 25 minutes. Kentucky's notes say she is the first SEC player to post that combination in 25 minutes or fewer since Candace Parker did it against Ole Miss on March 27, 2007. It was her first double-double of the season and the 32nd of her Kentucky career, three shy of tying Leslie Nichols for second in program history. With 10 blocks through two games, Strack sits 21 away from tying the school's career record.

She was also part of a rebounding avalanche. Kentucky grabbed 60 rebounds, its most since a school-record 67 against Morehead State in 2015, and 28 of them came on the offensive end. Swords had nine rebounds off the bench, seven offensive, and Sivka had five offensive boards of her own. Asked about team chemistry and filling a role from last season's roster, Strack pointed straight at the newcomer. "She's all over. She gets those offensive rebounds," Strack said of Sivka.

For Northern Kentucky, Sara Basaran and Anna Hamilton scored six apiece, Hamilton all at the line, and Ema Mačkić added five.

Rotation notes and newcomers

Brooks used the same starting five for the second straight game: Collins, Boone, Sivka, O'Neal and Strack. Kentucky is 2-0 with that group. Swords was again the first player off the bench, and 11 Wildcats played, with only Dominika Paurova not seeing the floor.

Nobody played more than Collins' 28 minutes. Patterson gave Kentucky eight points and six rebounds in 15 minutes. Greenway chipped in three points and two steals in 18 minutes, while Emily McDonald scored two in 16. Junior guard Jemma Amoore scored her first points as a Wildcat on a 3 in the fourth quarter, and Gabby Brooks got three minutes of run.

Brooks framed the night as a learning tool more than a statement. "This is an opportunity for us to stack some film," he said, adding that the Wildcats were working through a lot of different rotations and got a little disjointed late. Boone made a similar point about a roster with plenty of new pieces. "We're a fairly young team, but I don't think that means that we don't have the toughness to get through those moments of when the ball is not going through the hoop," she said.

What it means for Kentucky

This one told Kentucky two useful things. The defense is already a weapon, with two opponents held to four points or fewer in the first quarter and a combined 70 points in two games. And the offense still has room to grow. The Wildcats will not get many nights where 28 forced turnovers paper over a cold shooting game.

The series with Northern Kentucky now stands at 13-4 in Kentucky's favor, with eight straight wins. Brooks, in his third season in Lexington, is 50-19 with the Wildcats.

The first real test comes quickly. Kentucky plays No. 25 NC State in Charlotte on Sunday, Nov. 8, at 3 p.m. ET on ESPN2. The Wildcats then return home for Evansville on Wednesday, Nov. 11, Eastern Michigan on Sunday, Nov. 15, and Marshall on Nov. 20. After a Thanksgiving weekend trip to Daytona Beach for games against Maine and South Dakota State, Kentucky hosts Clemson on Dec. 3 and Louisville on Dec. 9, both at Rupp Arena.

On the men's side, read about Milan Momcilovic's six 3s in the Kentucky men's rout of Manhattan, and for the biggest women's result of the same night, catch up on Michigan's 77-66 win over UConn.

Sources: ESPN box score, UK Athletics (recap, postgame notes and postgame quotes), Associated Press.

Photo: Eddie Justice/UK Athletics.