Kentucky women’s basketball got its intensity back. Now, it needs wins.

After suffering a 25-point blowout loss to Florida on Thursday night inside Memorial Coliseum — UK’s worst home loss since 2008 — Kyra Elzy demanded intensity.

Kentucky’s head coach said the Wildcats failed to respond to Florida’s physicality, and that soul-searching would be required to respond to the heavy defeat.

“My message to the team (is) we are not victims,” Elzy said Thursday after the Florida loss. “We’re dealing with some adversity, but so are other teams in the country and we just have to bow up, step up to the challenge. That’s what we’ll do.”

Elzy called for improved defensive intensity and an increase in offense generated by UK’s defense.

Both of those changes came Sunday afternoon inside Rupp Arena, but they came in a losing effort as UK dropped its fourth straight game.

Playing again without the suspended Dre’una Edwards — the team’s second-leading scorer and leading rebounder — and without the injured Robyn Benton — the team’s fourth-leading scorer — Kentucky showed heart and hustle in a 63-54 loss to Ole Miss.

“I thought we stayed together through the good and the bad,” Elzy said of UK’s showing against Ole Miss. “I thought we answered some runs, which has me encouraged. But all the things that probably made us come up short, what has me encouraged is that we can go back and fix those things.”

The Wildcats never led in the game, but with only seven players available to play, simply staying in the game and having a chance to win in the fourth quarter was evidence of marked improvement from Kentucky after losing three straight by 20 or more points.

“I thought we showed fight today,” Elzy said Sunday after the Ole Miss loss. “I asked them to earn their blue and that was leave your heart on the floor, hustle. We had to make 50-50 plays, hustle plays on the floor, get on the boards, let’s battle there, come and fight and get to the free-throw line. So I thought we did some things that we needed to do.”

But for all the benefit that came from UK’s increased intensity, renewed desire to battle for loose balls — the rebounding battle ended at 34 apiece between an undersized Kentucky team and Ole Miss — and quality bench minutes provided by rotation players like guard Emma King and forward Nyah Leveretter, the Wildcats are in desperate need of wins.

Prior to Sunday’s game, Kentucky (8-7 overall and 1-4 in Southeastern Conference play) was projected to be out of the NCAA Tournament by ESPN bracketologist Charlie Creme. That won’t change after Sunday’s loss, no matter how much the NCAA Tournament selection committee takes into account the absences of Benton and Edwards.

Kentucky now has a 1-6 record this season against teams projected by ESPN to be in the NCAA Tournament, an underwhelming résumé with just six weeks left in the season. That record will likely be 1-7 when the next projection comes out this week.

UK also dropped out of the Associated Press Top 25 poll on Monday for the first time this season. The Wildcats didn’t receive a single vote.

“Seeing that I am a senior leader and everyone’s looking for me to say something, I have to be the one to continue to stay positive,” senior guard Rhyne Howard said after leading the Cats with 24 points and 10 rebounds in the loss to Ole Miss. “It can get frustrating at times, but I don’t try to let (my teammates) see how frustrated I am. Just continue to encourage and continue to uplift them because if I’m frustrated and I start getting down myself (then) everyone’s going to get down on themselves.”

With this context in place, the next seven days will define the trajectory of this Kentucky women’s basketball season, which is also Howard’s final college season.

UK will play three games this week, all on the road: At Auburn on Tuesday night, at Vanderbilt on Thursday night and at No. 12 LSU on Sunday afternoon. The Wildcats haven’t won a road game yet this season and own a 5-9 road record with Elzy as head coach.

Auburn and Vanderbilt are two of the worst teams in the SEC, with offenses that both average less than 65 points per game. Granted, UK hasn’t scored more than 58 points in a game during its current four-game losing streak.

Auburn is the only SEC school without a conference win, with an 0-6 record in SEC games so far this season. Vanderbilt is 1-4 in SEC games and plays No. 1 South Carolina on Monday night.

Securing road wins against Auburn and Vanderbilt would have been seen as bare minimums at the start of the season.

Now, they’re paramount to UK’s hopes of reaching the NCAA Tournament.

“I think our margin of error is so small, there’s some free throws that we need to be able to knock down, there’s some layups that we have to be able to hit,” Elzy said. “My message to the team is that we have to weather this storm, there’s no quit in us, there’s no lay down. We have to figure out a way to get the job done.”

Short-handed again?

It is unclear if Benton or Edwards will play for Kentucky in Tuesday night’s game. When Elzy was asked by the Herald-Leader on Sunday about Edwards’ ongoing team suspension and whether Edwards would travel with the team to Auburn, Elzy said “things are being handled internally” and “no further comment.”

Elzy said Benton is day-to-day with the ankle injury.

Tuesday

Kentucky at Auburn

When: 8 p.m.

TV: SEC Network Plus (online)

Radio: WBUL-FM 98.5

Records: Auburn 8-9 (0-6 SEC); UK 8-7 (1-4)

Series: Auburn leads 26-24

Last meeting: UK won 76-71 on Jan. 21, 2021, at Auburn