Girls basketball: Kentucky All-Stars nets sweep of Indiana All-Stars
By Andy Proffet Post-Tribune correspondent June 9, 2012 11:32PM
Updated: July 11, 2012 10:36AM
INDIANAPOLIS — By halftime of Saturday’s game, the Indiana girls basketball all-stars had almost matched their point total from Friday night’s loss in Kentucky.
Too bad the Kentucky girls had found their scoring touch, too.
Leasia Wright scored 15 points, one of five Kentucky players in double figures, and Kentucky rolled to a 92-75 win on Saturday.
Kentucky built a 52-36 halftime lead by limiting Indiana to 9-of-32 shooting with 16 turnovers.
Kentucky led 30-29 with 6:50 to play in the first half, but took a double-digit lead on a Micah Jones 3-pointer and Indiana never got close again.
“In the first half, when they would press us, we would get the ball in, clear it out, and we would go down and score,” Merrillville’s Raveen Murray said. “It’s just when they got into the zone was when we started to fall back, they started scoring and we stopped scoring.”
Murray finished with six points, four of those coming in the game’s final minutes with the Kentucky victory secured.
Part of the challenge of playing on an all-star team is getting used to fewer minutes, Murray said. She played 10 minutes on Saturday.
“From high school, on our teams we’d play 30 out of 32 minutes,” she said. “This time, we have to play in spurts.
“You can’t settle when you have a group of all-stars. You have to go out there and give it your all.”
Murray plans to take that lesson with her to college. She’s headed to Northeast Community College in Nebraska, but hopes to head to a bigger school after that.
“Wherever I go, I plan to play my game, attack … that’s what I do best,” she said.
CoCo Moore led Indiana with 18 points and Nariah Taylor had eight points and 14 rebounds. Indiana Miss Basketball Jessica Rupright had 13 points before fouling out with 5½ minutes to play.
That was indicative of a game in which the teams combined for 50 fouls. The teams combined to hit 49 of 72 free throws.
Bre Elder scored 13 for Kentucky, while Kentucky Miss Basketball Sydney Moss, Jones and Kendall Noble each scored 11. Moss added 10 rebounds.
Indiana shot just 29.2 percent for the game and committed 28 turnovers.
This is the first sweep in the series by Kentucky since 2008.
