Tennessee guard Zaay Green, left, tries to pass around Kentucky guard Rhyne Howard during Thursday night's game in Knoxville.KNOXVILLE - Despite growing up an hour from Knoxville, Rhyne Howard didn't aspire to be a member of the Tennessee women's basketball program like most area girls' players do.
Her mother, Rhvonja Avery, played at Florida and once hoped her daughter would follow in those footsteps.
Instead, Howard created her own.
Howard, a 6-foot-2 guard from Bradley Central High School, has been named Southeastern Conference freshman of the week five times for the 15-2 and 16th-ranked Kentucky Wildcats, who pulled out a 73-71 victory over the 13th-ranked Lady Volunteers on Thursday at Thompson-Boling Arena. That was Kentucky's fourth win all-time in Knoxville.
Tennessee, which plays Sunday at Georgia, dropped a second consecutive game at home for the first time since the 1996-97 season.
Howard struggled with foul trouble, finishing with six points and five rebounds before fouling out in the fourth quarter. The 14 minutes were the fewest she's played in a game all season. She leads Kentucky in scoring (16.7 points per game) and rebounding (6.9), while shooting 46 percent from the field.
"Rhyne has had a tremendous impact," Kentucky coach Matthew Mitchell said Thursday. "These games will only help us grow, but she's been an unbelievable addition to our program. She's been a great person, a great person to coach and she'll just get better from it."
Howard spent her eighth-grade season at East Hamilton and earned all-district honors before transferring to Bradley as a freshman, where in four seasons she scored more than 2,500 points.
Prior to her senior season, she narrowed her college choices to Kentucky, Purdue and South Carolina. She noted that Tennessee "came late," plus since her mom played at another SEC school, Howard grew up "not liking Tennessee."
"When they recruited me, it kind of changed, but I didn't want to come," she said Thursday.
Howard and Maci Morris, who scored a game-high 27 points against the Lady Vols, have formed a solid tandem at the guard positions, backed by Taylor Murray, who was injured late in the first half against Tennessee and did not return.
"She gives me a lot of relief," Morris said of Howard. "We try to have each other's back every game, and after the game tonight she said, 'I let you down,' but I told her we got the win and that's all that matters.
"As good as she is, you would think she's selfish, but she's one of the most unselfish players I've ever been with, so it's awesome."
Contact Gene Henley at ghenley@timesfreepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @genehenley3 or at Facebook.com/VolsUpdate.