LEXINGTON, Ky. — Bernadette Mattox now has laurels. Her rest period atop them lasted 10 minutes.
‘‘That’s how long I enjoyed last year,’’ the Kentucky women’s basketball coach said. ‘‘I knew we had to start getting ready to work even harder.’’
Mattox, who lost 53 games her first three years, engineered a surprise season in her fourth. UK went 21-11 and won an NCAA Tournament game for the first time in 17 years.
‘‘This is not a first step where we’re there to fall back,’’ Mattox said. ‘‘We are working to become one of the top teams in the country. We want Kentucky’s women back on the map.’’
Yes, UK has history.
In 1980, it lost to Oregon in the national championship game of the Association for Intercollegiate Athletics for Women, then the governing body for women’s sports. UK won the Southeastern Conference in 1982. In 1983, it went 23-5 and averaged 3,645 fans per home game.
Returning all five starters and eight of its top nine scorers, UK could scale such heights again.
‘‘The SEC is the No.1 conference in the nation, but we know we can compete with these teams,’’ senior point guard Erica Jackson said. ‘‘If we can compete with SEC teams, we can win the whole thing.’’
A national championship seems a distant dream. A more likely goal: hosting the first two rounds of the NCAAs.
‘‘That’s something we’d have to fight to get,’’ Mattox said.
Respect has come slowly. In preseason Top 25 balloting, UK received 62 votes in the ESPN/USA Today coaches poll (seventh among those ‘‘also receiving votes’’) and 24 votes from the Associated Press (15th in ‘‘also receiving votes’’).
Though it tied for fifth in the SEC last year, winning its most league games ever — seven — UK was picked just seventh in the 12-team league this winter.
‘‘Our play last year should have earned us some respect,’’ Mattox said. ‘‘Those people picking the polls haven’t come to see us this preseason.’’
UK can earn respect: It will face either seven or eight ranked foes and 15 NCAA Tournament teams, including matchups with No.1 Connecticut and defending national champ Purdue.
Jackson, who averaged 11.5 points and 3.9 assists last year, is UK’s heart and soul. ‘‘She’s the reason we did what we did last year,’’ Mattox said.
Senior guard Tiffany Wait (13.7 ppg) and junior forward Laura Meadows (12.2) are third-year starters. The other starters are sophomore forward LaTonya McDole (8.3 ppg) and senior center Shantia Owens (8.3).
Meadows — second-team All-SEC last year — and McDole are under Mattox’s microscope.
‘‘We talk about it every day: The forwards have to rebound and be physical,’’ McDole said.
Katie Vieth, a 6-foot-3 senior center from St.Henry High School, averaged just 3.1 points and 1.6 rebounds last year while hampered by severe shin splints. Recovering from surgery on both legs, she is expected to miss the first few games.
Rae Keith, a Withrow High and Cincinnati State product who averaged 1.1 points and 4.1 minutes a game last year as a backup point guard, transferred to Division II Kentucky Wesleyan for her senior season.
