For a young team, the Kansas women’s basketball squad is playing like they have been together for years. Kansas held on to their lead late, despite several Titan charges. At one point KU’s lead was as large as 16 points, but was often as slim as four. Whenever CSU-Fullerton pulled close, Kansas would regroup and pull away again. Led by Blair Waltz and her career-high 20 points, KU has won back-to-back games since March 6, 2001.
Kansas took its time to start scoring, but once they got on track they took solid control of the game. Netting just one point in the first three minutes, the team caught fire, putting up 17 more points in the following four minutes, led again by Blair Waltz.
Both teams missed several free throws in the game’s opening minutes. Nearly three minutes into the game, and the Titans clung to a 1-0 lead. KU did not seem able to get into an offensive flow coming transitioning out of a zone defense, so Coach Washington switched to a man-to-man scheme.
That’s when Waltz came out of her shell and starting burying shots.
Neither team grabbed many offensive rebounds – that, combined with mediocre shooting from both squads, made for a rather slow pace. The Titans mounted a late surge to pull within six points by the end of the first half, but an Erica Hallman buzzer-beater from mid-court pushed the lead back to nine.
The Jayhawks extended their halftime lead with five quick second-half points, but a 8-0 Titan run, then back-to-back three-pointers closed the gap with about 11 minutes left in the game.
KU was quite cold from the free throw line in the first half: as a team they hit just 2 of 7 foul shots. The second half prooved better, as the team finished hitting 15 of 22 free throws.
Final numbers: Waltz led all scoring with 20 points. Crystal Kemp added 15 points, Aquanita Burras scored 10, Erica Hallman notched 9 and Tamara Ransburg had 8. Leila Menguc contributed three free-throws.
Next up for the Jayhawks is a Saturday night game at San Diego Univeristy; tip-off is at 7 p.m. CST. A Kansas win then would mark the first time they opened a season 3-0 since the beginning of the 1999-2000 campaign, when the team won their first five games.
For full coverage of today’s game, read tomorrow’s Lawrence Journal-World, and see KUSports.com.