Not that Bonnie Henrickson wanted to remember her first official win as Kansas University’s women basketball coach forever.

“Right now, I’m just pleased for the kids,” Henrickson said following Wednesday night’s 59-48 victory over Sacred Heart in Allen Fieldhouse.

The Jayhawks won because they forced Sacred Heart into 27 turnovers and 32.1 percent shooting (17-of-53).

“If we can’t score, we can still defend,” Henrickson said, “and that was the difference tonight.”

Scott McClurg/Journal-World Photo

Even though KU has had difficulty producing points, Wednesday was a far cry from Sunday’s season-opening 53-49 loss to Texas-Arlington — a game in which Crystal Kemp scored 26 points and her teammates only 23.

Against Sacred Heart, all nine scholarship players scored, and Kemp wasn’t even the leading scorer. Double-teamed by the Pioneers, the 6-foot-2 junior scored just seven points and snatched but four rebounds despite playing a team-high 35 minutes.

Kemp also didn’t start for the second straight game because of an unspecified violation of team rules. That gave freshman Taylor McIntosh the nod, and McIntosh shared team-high scoring honors with senior Aquanita Burras. Each had 11 points.

“One thing about Taylor is she’s going to try,” Henrickson said. “She’ll make freshman mistakes, but she works hard. (Her start) was by default, but she made the most of her minutes.”

McIntosh also had eight rebounds, one fewer than Burras’ team high, but McIntosh also played 10 fewer minutes.

Still, Burras’ outing was notable because of the way she bounced back from her dreadful 1-for-11 shooting performance against UT-Arlington.

“Ooooh, I just had to block that game out,” said Burras, who was 4-for-8 from the field. “I had a couple of early layups tonight that helped.”

Often over the last couple of years, the Kansas women haven’t been able to overcome long dry spells. Wednesday night, they suffered another one when they were outscored 11-1 during the last 6 1/2 minutes of the first half.

Sacred Heart, a Fairfield, Conn., school regarded as one of the top teams in the Northeast Conference, went into the break with a 29-25 lead, thanks to the Jayhawks’ prolonged drought.

“We have those in practice, too,” Burras said. “We’ve got to lose that.”

The Jayhawks avoided sinking spells in the second half, racing to leads of as many as 11 points, then hanging on down the stretch when the Pioneers cut the gap to four (52-48) with 1:34 remaining.

Instead of fading, the Jayhawks scored the last seven points.

“At halftime, we had a talk without ourselves,” Burras said, “and said we had to create more turnovers because that leads to our offense.”

Kansas collected 24 points off the Pioneers’ 27 errors . SHU counted just 11 points off KU’s 15 turnovers.

Turnovers and the share-the-wealth offense proved decisive.

“We can’t relay on Crystal every night,” Burras said, “because there’ll be nights when they double-up on her like they did tonight.”

Kemp, who declined to talk about her violation of team rules, said she doesn’t mind coming off the bench.

“That’s coach’s decision,” she said. “I just try to go in and help maintain the momentum or change the pace if we need that.”

6Sports video: KU women win Get the stats: KU vs. Sacred Heart box score

On paper, it may have been one of Kemp’s worst nights. In addition to her low point and rebound numbers, she missed four of five free-throw attempts and had a team-high four turnovers. But she was smiling afterward.

“It feels good,” she said. “We finally got a win.”

Kansas (1-1) won’t have a long Thanksgiving break. The Jayhawks will be back in Allen Fieldhouse on Saturday for a 1 p.m. game against UMKC.