A few days after she was hired as Kansas University’s women’s basketball coach last spring, Bonnie Henrickson traveled to Wichita to make sure that the only Jayhawk recruit KU already had signed, Taylor McIntosh, still was coming to Lawrence.
“She never flinched,” recalled Henrickson, who has to be happy with the progress of the 5-foot-11 freshman from Wichita Heights High who grabbed a whopping 13 rebounds in Kansas’ 47-36 victory over Missouri-Kansas City on Saturday.
“You’re always pleasantly surprised when any freshman can come in right away and contribute like that,” Henrickson said of McIntosh, who collected 11 points and eight rebounds in just her second start, KU’s 59-48 victory over Sacred Heart last week.
Henrickson says the same strategy that has allowed the Jayhawks to pull out consecutive victories is the key to McIntosh’s early success.
“Defensive intensity,” said Henrickson, who no doubt would like to see more of the same today when Kansas (2-1) plays host to Denver (0-2) at 7:05 p.m. in Allen Fieldhouse. “I’m definitely pleased with how we’re playing on the defensive side right now.”
Offense, however, is a different matter.
Kansas’ shooting struggles continued against the Kangaroos on Saturday: The Jayhawks made only 18 of 55 shots and just four of 17 from three-point range. KU even missed more than half its free throws with a 7-of-15 effort from the line.
In its three contests Kansas hasn’t shot better than 40 percent from the field. The Jayhawks are averaging far worse from the three-point line, hitting only 23 percent. Even free-throw shooting has been a task because KU is barely hovering above 50 percent, knocking down only 25 of 48 charities.
“I know that our shooting will come around. We’re a better shooting team than we’ve shown so far,” Henrickson said.
Kansas will have to be if it wants to avenge the 69-63 setback it suffered to Denver in the Denver Wells Fargo Tournament last season.
KU leading scorer Crystal Kemp and guards Aquanita Burras and Erica Hallman combined to score 43 of Kansas’ 63 points in the teams’ last meeting, but the Jayhawks connected on only 25 of 68 field goals and four of 15 threes.
“Denver is pretty athletic and has a real athletic player in Jones,” Henrickson said of senior guard Tasha Jones, who is averaging 10 points a game and who scored 12 against the Jayhawks last year.
“They’ve had some injuries that has made depth a problem, and they also have five freshman. In a lot of ways, they are kind of like us, so we’re going to have to keep up our defensive intensity and hopefully our offense can come around a little bit.”
6Sports video: Kansas women knock off Tigers
KU-Denver game notes (.pdf)