Catrina Rawson/Special to the Journal-WorldManhattan ? So much for the red uniforms.
“We’ll use maybe pink next time,” Kansas University women’s basketball coach Bonnie Henrickson said.
Decked in crimson for the first time under second-year coach Bonnie Henrickson, the Jayhawks bowed to Kansas State, 69-63, Wednesday night in Bramlage Coliseum.
It was KU’s ninth straight loss to the Wildcats, but a far cry from the average 25-point defeat during that five-year stretch. Kansas, in fact, had the ball twice in the late going with a chance to tie, but couldn’t overcome its own miserable free-throw shooting.
“There’s no reason to go 50 percent from the free-throw line,” KU senior Kaylee Brown said.
Catrina Rawson/Special to the Journal-WorldActually, the Jayhawks were even worse than 50 percent in the second half, misfiring on nine of 15 charities after going 3-for-3 in the first half.
Even senior Crystal Kemp, who posted 20 points and 13 boards in her last game in Manhattan, flubbed a pair of foul shots when KU lagged by just three with 1:06 showing.
Meanwhile, K-State connected on nine of 10 free throws in the last :44 – five by junior Claire Coggins after freshman point guard Shalee Lehning’s four foul-line failures – to withstand the Jayhawks’ furious comeback.
“We were certainly hoping Coggins would be our catcher,” KSU coach Deb Patterson said. “There’s no guarantee, but that’s what we were looking for.”
Patterson was looking at a typical blowout victory over the Jayhawks with a little more than eight minutes remaining. The ‘Cats had bolted to a 17-point lead (56-39), and KU looked dead in the water.
Somehow, though, the Jayhawks came to life, outscoring the stunned ‘Cats, 18-4, over the next seven minutes and setting the stage for the nail-biting finish.
When Lehning turned the ball over with 1:19 remaining and KSU clinging to a precarious 60-57 edge, KU had a chance to tie with a three. But the Jayhawks couldn’t take advantage.
Then, with :17.5 on the clock, KU had the ball again with a three-point deficit (65-62) and couldn’t convert. In effect, the Jayhawks just didn’t have enough ladder to climb out of that double-digit hole.
Henrickson said the Jayhawks needed “a kick in our pants for falling down by 17.” K-State nursed a 31-29 lead at intermission, but K-State hit its first five shots of the second half while KU missed six consecutive free throws, gradually falling farther and farther behind.
But momentum changing uniforms when K-State’s Marlies Gipson, a 6-foot freshman, picked up her fourth foul with 12:18 remaining and had to go to the bench. KU had no answer for the McPherson product who scored a team-high 16 points in only 22 minutes.
“I could have defended a lot better,” Kemp said, referring mainly to Gipson. “It was poor defense on my part.”
K-State was credited with 38 points in the paint to KU’s 22.
Wednesday night was as close as KU has come to knocking off the ‘Cats since KU posted a 65-62 victory in 2001, but that was little consolation to the KU players.
“It doesn’t mean anything to lose,” said Brown, who battled foul trouble and settled for eight points, five under her average. “It hurts real bad. We need to get a win when they come to Lawrence, but we’ve go to do better if we want to win in Lawrence.”
Kansas, 13-4 overall and 2-4 in the Big 12, will travel Saturday to Baylor.
Notes: Jamie Boyd, who sat out last weekend with a medical condition, played 3 minutes and had one rebound. : Ivana Catic missed all four of her free-throw attempts, and her FT percentage slipped to 55.5 percent. : Kemp posted her seventh double-double of the season. She has scored 20 or more points in nine of the last 11 games.
