Kansas University’s women’s basketball team showed most of the pluck but only about half the endurance of the indefatigable St. Joseph’s Hawk mascot.
In keeping with school tradition, the Hawk flapped his arms, er, wings from the tipoff to the final buzzer of St. Joseph’s stunning 70-67 victory over the Jayhawks in the championship game of the KU Credit Union Jayhawk Classic on Saturday at Allen Fieldhouse.
It marked the first time Kansas hadn’t won its own tournament since 1995.
“It was a tough loss,” KU coach Marian Washington said. “We lost to a very tough ball club. It was our fifth game in eight days, and it showed a little bit. We couldn’t maintain our intensity level like we needed to.”
Curiously, Kansas outshot St. Joe’s by 11 percentage points, hit a whopping 72.7 percent of its three-pointers to the Hawks’ 44.4 percent, outrebounded St. Joseph’s by seven and had 22 assists to St. Joe’s 16.
But the Jayhawks also missed half of their 10 free throw attempts while St. Joe’s nailed 16 of 17.
“The difference in the ball game was maybe three players, or two especially,” Washington said. “Their No. 10 got good positioning and knocked ’em down, and I thought their point guard did a great job breaking us down.”
No. 10 was Susan Moran, the tournament MVP who scored a tournament-high 30 points after hitting nine of 16 field goals and 12 of 13 free throws against KU. The point guard was all-tournament-teamer Angela Zampella, who collected 14 assists.
Throw in Amra Mehmedic, St. Joe’s 6-foot-5 center who banged in five of seven three-pointers, and the Hawks had at least one too many weapons.
“We knew coming in that they were all three-point shooters,” said KU’s KC Hilgenkamp, who scored 12 points and hit four of five three-point shots, including an improbable banked three that pulled Kansas to 68-67 with 14 seconds left. “We just had a hard time finding all their shooters all the time.”
Kansas (5-2) started fast for a change and bolted to a 16-8 lead, but St. Joseph’s (3-3) rallied for a 16-all tie, led by as many as seven in the first half and settled for a 34-31 lead at intermission.
The Hawks led by as many as 11 at 44-33 with 17:34 left before the Jayhawks responded. Kansas tied it at 52 and 56 before St. Joseph’s took what seemed an insurmountable seven-point lead at 68-61 with 1:09 left.
| St. Joseph’s | 34 | 36 | 70 |
| Kansas | 31 | 36 | 67 |
Attendance: 1,620.
But Kansas’ Jaclyn Johnson drained a three with 56.8 seconds left, the Jayhawks held on defense, then Hilgenkamp nailed her three-pointer to make it a one-point game with 14 seconds to play.
But Moran hit two free throws with 12.6 seconds left, and Kansas never got off another shot.
“We know what the problem is,” said Johnson, who paced the Jayhawks with 15 points despite playing just 26 foul-plagued minutes. “We know what the answer is. The question is, is everybody willing to work and fix it? I don’t know.”
The Jayhawks’ problem Saturday, said Johnson, who was named to the all-tournament team, was defense.
“We have to take this personally and play defense,” Johnson said. “You can’t let people run right by us and say, ‘Help.’ We’re a quick team. We need to play like it.”
Johnson who was joined on the all-tournament team by teammate Brooke Reves, who had 14 points and 10 boards Saturday also was miffed by the foul-line disparity.
“The refs took about eight points away from us,” Johnson groused. “If the refs had been consistent, it would have been different.”
Washington tried to put a happy face on the loss.
“The positive for us was, our kids never stopped playing,” she said. “We had a tough road trip, and we sure wanted this one. As hard as we are on ourselves, we’ll try to keep positive. This will definitely help us.”
As evidence of the Jayhawks’ leg-weariness, Washington pointed to their 5-for-10 free throw shooting.
“We were a little bit tired,” she said. “That hurt us at the free throw line. We didn’t shoot very well. We missed five of them. We’ve shot better. That’s one indication to me that we might be a little tired. But there are no excuses, other than that St. Joseph’s did a nice job of spotting their shooters up and knocking ’em down.”
The other members of the all-tournament team were Minnesota’s Tanisha Gilbert and Eastern Illinois’ Pam O’Connor.
Next for KU is an exhibition with Washburn next Saturday at Allen Fieldhouse.
Three-point goals: 8-18 (Krasnoshiok 5-7, Mehmedic 3-4, Meade 0-1, Zampella 0-6). Assists: 16 (Zampella 14, Moran, Snell). Turnovers: 8 (Zampella 4, Moran, Richardson, Krasnoshiok, Mehmedic). Blocked shots: 1 (Graff). Steals: 5 (Zampella 2, Moran, Richardson, Mehmedic). |
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Three-point goals: 8-11 (Hilgenkamp 4-5, Johnson 2-2, Scott 2-2, Reves 0-1, Bosi 0-1). Assists: 22 (Hilgenkamp 6, Jackson 5, Johnson 4, White 2, Reves 2, Geoffroy, Scott, Bosi). Turnovers: 15 (Johnson 4, Scott 4, Geoffroy 2, White 2, Reves, Jackson, Bosi). Blocked shots: 2 (Johnson, White). Steals: 2 (Reves, Johnson). |
