After a top-25 win against Big 12 Conference regular-season champions Oklahoma, seventh-seeded Kansas will head to Kansas City on Friday to open up the conference tournament against No. 10 seed BYU.
“Us beating (Oklahoma), I feel like that helped us with our seeding for the NCAA Tournament,” said center Taiyanna Jackson, who was recently named a first-team All-Big 12 selection. “We just knew how important it was for us to end our season with a big win, which it was, against Oklahoma, a top-25 team, at Allen (Fieldhouse).”
Kansas’ 8-1 stretch to end the year has given it momentum to carry into the league tournament, where the Jayhawks are looking for their first victory in five years.
“I think that our sense of urgency in everything that we’re doing right now … is encouraging to me (going into the postseason),” head coach Brandon Schneider said.
The Jayhawks finished last season on the bubble of the NCAA Tournament before losing their first game in the Big 12 tournament to miss out on the Big Dance entirely, but Schneider and the rest of the team are hoping this year goes the opposite direction.
“Well, we convinced the Big 12 to move it to a different venue, we changed hotels, we’re eating at a different restaurant,” he joked. “We’ve tried to change as much as we can to kind of get off the last two years in terms of how we played.”
Jackson said the feeling is different with this year’s squad.
“The big difference is we’re more of a sisterhood, this team,” Jackson said. “We all want to make it to the NCAA Tournament, we all want to play the Big Dance, and we’ve all talked about leaving a legacy. We want to do something that hasn’t been done in women’s basketball here, and we’re all on track for that.”
Now, the Jayhawks will look to extend this legacy into the postseason, and they will have a new weapon on their side with fellow first-team All-Big 12 honoree S’Mya Nichols.
After leading the Jayhawks with 29 points and setting a new career high against Oklahoma, Nichols knows teams will most likely tighten their coverage on her in the postseason.
“If anything it’s going to be harder,” she said. “I feel like that’s not overlooked, therefore I’ll have the best defender on me probably. But that doesn’t really dictate anything because my teammates are just as good, and I feel like we can make a run any way we go.”
Schneider agreed, citing four, and nearly five, of Kansas’ starters, averaging double-digit points per game.
“That’s the thing that we’re excited about with our team, is we feel like there can be different people on different nights, even based on defensive coverages,” he said, though also noted the importance Jackson specifically will have in a matchup against BYU’s Lauren Gustin, who averages over 17 points and 15 rebounds per game.
“I think that’s the key thing for Kansas, is Jackson needs to be in the game and be part of that matchup. Here she was, there she wasn’t, so we’d like it to be head-to-head as much as possible,” he said.
The Jayhawks beat BYU twice in the span of five games, 67-53 in Lawrence on Jan. 31 and 70-62 in Provo on Feb. 17. However, in the first game Jackson had 25 points and 22 rebounds to Gustin’s 10 and 10, while in the second Jackson had two points and four rebounds as Gustin went for 33 and 18.
“I’ll just have to be smart going into the game. Because I know going forward, everybody’s game plan is to get me out and get me in foul trouble,” Jackson said of her own expectations. “Knowing that I just have to be smart and just be the player I know how to be without fouling and still having an impact on both ends of the floor.”
BYU forward Lauren Gustin (12) looks to shoot during the first half of an NCAA college basketball game against Kansas State Saturday, Jan. 27, 2024, in Manhattan, Kan.
BYU guard Kailey Woolston, right, drives around Texas forward Khadija Faye, left, during the first half of an NCAA college basketball game in Austin, Texas, Saturday, March 2, 2024.
While Jackson and Gustin will be the most important matchup, Nichols will have competition of her own with freshman guard Kailey Woolston, who is BYU’s second-leading scorer with 13.4 points per game.
“I feel like when tournament time comes around, everyone’s a different team,” Nichols said. “We’re a different team since we started, and (now) there’s a championship on the line. And people really amp up their intensity when there’s a championship on the line, (so) we can’t underestimate anyone.”
The Jayhawks will have the tough task of beating the Cougars three times in a season.
“It is hard to beat a team three times, but we are just going to go in there and do what we’re supposed to do and do the things that we know that we need to do to win,” Jackson said. “Anything can happen, they can come in there and beat us … so we just have to be the team that wants it more and is more connected.”
Kansas’ quest to end its conference-tournament losing streak will take place on Friday at the T-Mobile Center in Kansas City at 5:30 p.m. and will be streamed on Big 12 Now on ESPN+. General admission tickets can also be purchased for $10 on the Big 12 website.
Kansas guard S’Mya Nichols makes a layup against BYU Wednesday, Jan. 31, 2024, in Allen Fieldhouse.
Mike Gunnoe/Special to the Journal-World
AP Photo/Charlie Riedel
AP Photo/Eric Gay
Mike Gunnoe/Special to the Journal-World