Malibu, Calif. ? When you’re hot, you’re hot, and Kansas University’s women’s basketball team was positively torrid.
The Jayhawks shot a white-hot 67.9 percent in dispatching Pepperdine, 82-54, on Tuesday afternoon in front of only 340 fans in Firestone Fieldhouse.
“How about that?” KU coach Bonnie Henrickson said. “And we shoot 78 percent in the second half. That’s crazy.”
Kansas (8-2) connected on 15 of its first 19 shots on the way to a 36-19 bulge and kept the Waves (6-6) at low tide the rest of the way.
“We shared the ball nicely,” Henrickson said. “(Pepperdine) gambled, and we got a lot of uncontested shots because we made the extra pass.”
Krysten Boogaard scored 22 points — two below her career high — while canning 10 of 14 shots, most of them underneath. The 6-foot-5 sophomore also collected nine rebounds.
Danielle McCray was also a force with 18 points and nine boards. The 5-11 junior added a team-high seven assists, most of them on passes inside to Boogaard.
The Jayhawks made 36 of 53 shots — 18 of 23 in the second half — to record the fourth-best shooting game in school history. The record is 72.1 percent against Creighton in 1981, but the 67.9 percent was easily the best field-goal percentage in Henrickson’s four-plus seasons on Mount Oread.
Kansas suffered a four-minute sinking spell that featured five turnovers late in the first half, yet still managed a 44-29 lead at the break.
Curiously, Kansas was guilty of one more turnover than it made in Sunday’s 67-64 loss at UCLA. KU was charged with 22 giveaways against the Waves, who had forced 38 turnovers in a victory over San Jose State on Sunday.
“We’re still too sloppy,” Henrickson said of the multiple mechanical errors. “We just can’t play like that.”
While the Jayhawks were draining shot after shot — all 11 Jayhawks who played had at least one basket — the Waves were woeful, finishing with a tepid .266 (17 of 64) field-goal percentage.
Kansas also posted a 42-29 advantage on the boards and turned 15 Pepperdine turnovers into 26 points.
After the game, the Jayhawks headed to Los Angeles International Airport to fly home for the holidays.
“I told them,” said Henrickson, who was bound for her hometown of Willmar, Minn., “there’s not much more fun than going home for the break with a win under your belt.”
The Jayhawks will entertain Houston at 1 p.m. on New Year’s Eve.