Last Sunday Kentucky beat top-ranked South Carolina 64-62 in the SEC women’s tourney title game to earn an automatic bid to next week’s NCAA tournament. The Wildcats started the season 9-11 but have won 10 games in a row to make the NCAA tourney for the 2nd year in a row. Earlier today HoopsHD’s Jon Teitel got to speak with Kentucky F Dre’una Edwards about returning to the NCAA tourney and making the shot of her life last weekend.
You began your college career at Utah where you were named 2019 Pac-12 ROY: what did it mean to you to receive such an outstanding honor? It meant a lot: I overcame so much coming out of high school and that award put my name out there.
Why did you decide to transfer to Kentucky? I wanted more competition and knew that the SEC was the top conference in women’s basketball.
You got a new coach last year in Kyra Elzy: what makes her such a great coach, and what is the most important thing that you have learned from her so far? She is resilient and is a great example that even when your back is against the wall you need to have confidence in yourself. When we were losing there were a lot of people on social media who were going at her but I never saw her break down even once. She taught me to go out there and fight.
In November of 2020 you set a career-high with 27 PTS, tied a career-high with 15 REB, and had 3 STL in a win over Belmont: where does that rank among the best all-around games of your career? I was just out there having fun but it is definitely 1 of the top-3 games of my college career.
In the 2021 NCAA tourney you beat Idaho State before losing to Iowa: what did you learn from that run that you think will help you this March, and where does Caitlin Clark (who scored 35 PTS/6-12 3PM) rank among the greatest players that you have ever faced? Caitlin is definitely 1 of the best I have ever faced: she is awesome and can make shots from half-court. I learned that we have to keep fighting from the jump: you cannot go out there sluggish because it can bite you in the butt so we are super-focused this time around.
Your teammate Rhyne Howard is scoring more than 20 PPG this year: how crucial has she been to your team’s success? She is 1 of the best players in the nation and has been a key factor in our wins.
Last Sunday in the SEC tourney title game you scored 27 PTS and made the game-winning 3-PT shot with 4 seconds left to upset top-ranked South Carolina and clinch a spot in the NCAA tourney (www.youtube.com/watch?v=xgvN5Hk9oDI): how has that shot changed your life (if at all), and what was the feeling like in your locker room afterward? It was amazing in the locker room: we were all super-excited. That shot changed a lot for me and put my name out there in a lot of people’s ears.
Are you now the greatest “Dre” to come out of Compton or do you think that Dr. Dre is still #1? I will give it to Dr. Dre…but I am definitely top-2!
You have 9 siblings: how are you going to come up with NCAA tourney tickets for everyone next week? Hopefully my teammates have some extra tickets for me! My family will do whatever it takes to come see me play so even if they have to pay for their own tickets they will do so.
What kind of seed do you think you deserve, and what kind of seed do you think you will get? I think that we are around a #7 seed but I think we should be closer to a #4 seed. We deserve much more but I realize that we were down earlier this year (the Wildcats lost 8 of 9 games from January 9-February 10). Regardless of what seed we get we are coming to fight!
The Hoops HD Selection Committee – Initial Board
Tonight, our Hoops HD staff members will begin debating the selection of our NCAA Tournament field via Zoom conference call. Before we begin these proceedings – our staff sent two lists to our committee chairman Chad Sherwood – one list (List A) consisted of up to 36 teams that we would consider to be NCAA Tournament locks (meaning they would be in our field no matter what happens the reast of the way). Teams that were listed on all but two ballots on List A were immediately placed in the at-large portion of the Selection Board.
The second list (List B) was teams listed Under Consideration – teams that got at least 4 votes among both boards were placed in the Under Consideration portion of the Selection Board. Teams that won their regular season title (and considered the top seed in their conference tournaments in the event of ties) were automatically added to the Under Consideration board as well.
And here is what our committee came up with:
You may have also noticed a number of teams in the Under Consideration column listed in red – they have all been eliminated from their conference tournaments as of the time this column was published (notable bubble teams include BYU, Michigan, Wake Forest and Xavier).
Tonight, our plan is to name our 2022 Centenary and Stallings Award winners (click HERE for a history of the awards) and do an initial scrub of the teams Under Consideration. Once that is done, we will add at least 4 more teams to the at-large board; more spots could also be filled depending on what happens in conferences like the Big East and Big 12 where a bid thief is no longer possible.