All it goes down as for senior Shaquina Mosley in the end is a good-looking night on the stat sheet. Had her last-second 18-foot jumper from the left wing, it would have gone hand-in-hand with Kansas University’s first conference win of the season.
Instead, her 18-point, 11-assist, nine-rebound night is paired with a 66-65 loss Wednesday night to Texas Tech, dropping KU to 6-15 overall and now 0-8 at the midway point of the Big 12 season.
Mosley, who played 39 minutes, had one major blemish on the career-night, and that came in the form of five turnovers. The last of those giveaways came with 16 seconds left and KU down by a point. She dribbled the ball off of her foot while nearing the paint, but a pair of missed free throws by Tech’s LaVonda Henderson gave the Jayhawks one more chance with eight seconds left. Mosley took the ball from freshman Danielle McCray and pulled up for the long deuce, but it missed long off the iron.
“I was just telling myself ‘This is my time to redeem myself and get it right,'” Mosley said. “I had to let that go really quickly to try and help my team win the game.”
KU took some solace in the fact that it was still in the game that late, after surviving a stretch which in previous conference losses had been a usual breaking points. An Alesha Robertson three-pointer put KU down by seven points at 59-52 with 5:28 left. A three-pointer by McCray with 2:05 remaining was followed with the freshman drawing a charge on Henderson on the other end. Junior Taylor McIntosh tied the game at 65-65 with a jumper as the shot clock expired in the lane, coming after Mosley was blocked on the left side of the paint.
But learning how to finish in close games is something the Jayhawks still need to work on as they keep plugging for their first conference win of the season. The next chance comes Saturday evening with a 6 p.m. matchup against Texas A&M down in College Station.
“Just as aggressive we were to get back in the game after being down seven, our last two possessions, I just wish we would have been as aggressive on those two to at least get one out of those off the galss and in the paint and get a chance to get an offensive rebound or get to the free throw line,” KU coach Bonnie Henrickson said.
Along with Mosley, McIntosh tallied 16 points on 6-of-10 shooting, and McCray had 15 points, including a pair of three-pointers. Robertson scored a game-high 20 points for Texas Tech.
For more on this game, read tomorrow’s Lawrence Journal-World
