No. 13 seed Liberty (26-6, 16-2 CUSA) will travel to Lexington, Kentucky to take on No. 4 seed Kentucky (22-7, 11-5 SEC) in the first round of the 2025 NCAA Women’s Basketball Tournament. Tip-off from Historical Memorial Coliseum is scheduled for Noon and will be televised by ESPN with Sam Gore and Tamika Catchings on the call. Liberty punched its ticket to the Big Dance with a 53-48 victory over two-time defending champion Middle Tennessee in the CUSA title game this past Saturday, earning their first CUSA crown in just the second year of league membership.
“The lights get a little bit brighter, but the game is still the same,” said Liberty head coach Carey Green. “We will be prepared against a really good team, playing at home. Those are challenges. As you get into this Tournament, nothing is easy at this point in time, and we know that.”
This will mark the Lady Flames’ 18th NCAA Tournament appearance all time, all coming in the past 29 seasons, but the first since 2018. The seven-year drought between appearances marks Liberty’s longest drought without an NCAA Tournament appearance since qualifying for their first NCAA Tournament in 1997. The Lady Flames bring an 11-game winning streak to Lexington, the 10th longest active streak in the nation.
Kentucky enters March Madness ranked No. 12 in the Coaches Poll and No. 13 in the AP Poll. The Wildcats will be Liberty’s second Top 25 opponent of the season, following No. 11 Duke on Nov. 7, an 83-67 loss at Liberty Arena. The Lady Flames have lost 42 consecutive matchups with top 25 opponents with the last victory also coming in the NCAA Tournament, a second-round win over DePaul in 2005 to send the Lady Flames to the Sweet 16.
“They’ve had a great season in the SEC,’ Green said of the Wildcats. “They were right at the top 2-3. They finished with a very tough ending to their schedule, on the road. They were successful at home.”
When the ball is tipped off Friday afternoon, it will have been two weeks since Kentucky last played a game. The Wildcats fell to Oklahoma, 69-65, in the SEC quarterfinal on March 7 in Greenville, South Carolina. Since then, the Flames have played four times, including three wins in the CUSA Tournament in Huntsville, Alabama last week.
Liberty shoots the ball well, ranking No. 16 nationally for three-point field goal percentage (36.9) and No. 28 for field goal percentage (46.1). The Lady Flames will have to contend with a stout Kentucky defense that leads the nation in blocked shots (6.9 bpg) and sits No. 6 in three-point defense (26.0) and No. 8 in field goal percentage defense (35.7). As has been the case all season, the Lady Flames should have an advantage in depth and balanced scoring. Liberty ranks No. 9 in the nation with 27.7 bench points per game, compared to Kentucky’s 8.4 bench points per contest which ranks No. 351 in the country out of 353 teams.
Liberty is 1-2 all-time against Kentucky, including an 0-1 mark in the NCAA Tournament where Liberty fell to the Wildcats in 2010. Liberty did win the only previous meeting at Memorial Coliseum, overcoming an 18-point deficit on Dec. 12, 1998, to record the program’s first ever win over an SEC opponent, 80-76. The three previous meetings in the series history have all been decided by 12 points or fewer. The team’s only previous clash in the NCAA Tournament came in the first round in 2010 at Freedom Hall in Louisville, Kentucky. Also a 4-13 matchup, the Lady Flames fell, 83-77, in that meeting.
Liberty and head coach Carey Green are very familiar with first year Kentucky head coach Kenny Brooks. A James Madison alum, Brooks previously was the head coach at his alma mater and then at Virginia Tech before heading to Lexington. Green and the Flames are 3-10 all-time against Kenny Brooks’ squads, including a 2-7 record during his time at JMU and 1-3 against his Hokies’ teams. The last time Green and Brooks squared off, Liberty posted a 59-40 victory at Liberty Arena over Virginia Tech on Dec. 7, 2021. Current Flames Emma Hess, Jordan Hodges, and Bella Smuda all appeared in that contest, while Georgia Amoore (now at Kentucky) started for Virginia Tech.
“They style of play is probably very, very similar to Virginia Tech when they were there,” said Green. “You have a dominating point guard like Georgia is. A player, unless there is an injury that comes up, will be playing in the WNBA and a very major contributor for whatever team she makes. She is an all-star, all-American caliber player. We were able to play them here a few years back and was successful. Georgia has definitely developed more. She is savvy. She was always savvy, but now she has a little more maturity behind here and she is very, very confident. She has a great future.”
Amoore is averaging 19.1 points and 6.9 assists per game this season while shooting 42.5% from the field and 32.4% from three. 6’5″ center Clara Strack provides a dominating inside-outside combo for the Wildcats. Strack is currently averaging 15.2 pints and 9.7 rebounds per game.
The Lady Flames are seeded No. 13 for the 8th time, marking the team’s most common seed. Most notably, Liberty was the No. 13 seed in 2005 when Green and current assistant coach Katie (Feenstra) Mattera and the Lady Flames upset No. 4 seed Penn State and No. 5 seed DePaul to reach the Sweet 16. Those are the Lady Flames’ only two NCAA Tournament victories in 17 appearances. That Liberty team is one of three No. 13 seeds ever to advance to the Sweet 16. Only seven No. 13 seeds have ever won a game, with 2020-21 Wright State being the most recent to do so.
The Lady Flames are 0-11 in true road matchups during the NCAA Tournament and 0-10 against SEC opponents in the Big Dance, the most frequently faced conference for Liberty in the Tournament. The Lady Flames are meeting an SEC foe in the first round for the 10th time in 18 NCAA Tournament appearances. Liberty is 2-23 all-time against SEC opponents, including a 1-1 mark this season. The Lady Flames lost at Tennessee on Nov. 16, 109-93, and topped Arkansas, 75-61, on Dec. 18 in the Cherokee Invitational in Cherokee, North Carolina.
