Jan. 29, 1974: That was the last time that Kansas and Haskell matched up in a women’s basketball game. But that hiatus of more than 50 years elapsed on Wednesday when the two teams met at Allen Fieldhouse, where the Jayhawks walked away with a 107-39 victory.
“About a year ago, I went through some adverse times in my life, in my personal life,” Haskell Indian Nations University head coach Adam Strom said. “Being a coach, there’s like a cohort of colleagues and Brandon (Schneider) reached out to me and we had some discussion, and he wanted to know what he could do for me, and I said ‘Brandon, you can do nothing for me, but you can do something for my program.'”
“It fit their schedule, it fit ours,” Kansas head coach Brandon Schneider said. “(I’m) just so excited about how the community rallied around it, I have a ton of respect for him and those young women and I played small college basketball myself so I know what you have and what you don’t have.”
The leading scorers of the evening were junior guard Brittany Harshaw for Kansas, who finished with 26 points, and senior forward Ivy Fox for Haskell, who finished with 10 points.
“It was definitely a huge relief because it was a really slow start,” Harshaw said. “But I’m so happy and I’m glad that I was able to make shots.”
Fox, who transferred to Haskell this year after playing for Division I La Salle last season, said she wasn’t fazed by Allen Fieldhouse.
“Well, I’ve been on this stage before so I just took it like another basketball game,” Fox said. “We all tie our shoes the same way is something our coach said to us before and I really took that in and just played hard.”
The 107 points scored by Kansas were the most scored by the Jayhawks since Dec. 1, 2010, when Kansas finished with 126 against the Maine Black Bears.
Senior forward Lilly Meister got the scoring started with a layup and a foul, giving Kansas an early 3-0 advantage. But Haskell fired back quickly. A made 3-pointer by senior forward Tea Murray knotted the game up and then a layup by Fox gave Haskell a 5-3 lead, the only lead they would hold during this contest. After Kansas drew even, the Jayhawks found the lead again, but tough defense from both sides kept the scoring to a minimum before the game hit the under-five media timeout with Kansas leading 14-7.
The first play after the timeout resulted in an and-1 for Harshaw and two plays later, the ball found Harshaw again under the hoop for her second layup and Strom called his first timeout, with Kansas leading Haskell 20-7.
Harshaw came alive after the timeout. A 3-pointer and two makes from the charity stripe gave her ten points, easily surpassing her season high. Senior guard Sania Copeland scored the final two points of the first quarter from the free-throw line in the final seconds and the Jayhawks went into the second quarter leading Haskell 27-10.
Haskell scored the first points of the second but freshman guard Keeley Parks answered with a corner 3 to increase the Jayhawk lead. Freshman guard Libby Fandel made her first 3 of the evening to increase the Kansas lead to 35-11, but Fox answered on the other end for Haskell with a 3-pointer of her own. The Jayhawks continued to control the paint, with three straight made layups for Kansas forcing Haskell to take another timeout trailing 42-14.
After the break it was all Harshaw once more. Harshaw drove down court for a fastbreak layup before draining three consecutive 3-pointers, increasing the Jayhawk lead to 53-17. Haskell senior guard Ona Dauphinais answered Harshaw with a 3 of her own, but Harshaw wasn’t done.
With 1:10 left in the second quarter, Harshaw made her fifth 3-point basket of the half, ultimately finishing the first half 5-for-6 from 3-point range. Junior guard Laia Conesa capped off a stellar half for the Jayhawks with a mid-range make as time expired, and Kansas went into halftime leading Haskell 60-19.
Junior guard S’Mya Nichols scored the first points of the third quarter for Kansas and senior guard Tierzah Penn scored first for Haskell in the third quarter. At the under-five timeout in the third quarter, Kansas held a hefty 70-22 lead over Haskell.
Out of the timeout, Haskell picked up its defense. Fox made her second 3 of the evening and the Jayhawks found themselves on a scoring drought that went on for over two minutes. In those two minutes, Kansas turned the ball over three times and Haskell collected a block and a steal.
Off a steal by Conesa in the final 30 seconds of the third quarter, Harshaw collected another bucket, tying her career high with 26 points that she had set against Iowa State at Allen Fieldhouse in February. At the end of three quarters of play, Kansas led 80-25.
Senior guard Elle Evans found nylon in the fourth quarter, sinking her first two 3-pointers of the evening. Parks added another from beyond the arc as well and the Jayhawks led 100-31 at the midway break in the final period of play.
The last five minutes of play were quiet, with Kansas adding seven points to its total, and Haskell adding eight. At the final buzzer, the score was 107-39.
Kansas (10-2) now moves on to Big 12 conference play as it heads on the road to face Iowa State at Hilton Coliseum in Ames, Iowa, on Sunday at 12 p.m. For Haskell (6-14), it will head east to Kansas City to take on another Division I opponent, the Kansas City Roos, on Saturday at 2 p.m.
Kahner Sampson/Special to the Journal-World
