A disastrous stretch in the fourth quarter put the nail in the coffin as Kansas women’s basketball dropped its second straight conference game 79-72 to the West Virginia Mountaineers at Allen Fieldhouse on Thursday afternoon.
Freshman forward Jaliya Davis led the Jayhawks in scoring with 21 points, while junior guard Gia Cooke led the Mountaineers with 24 points.
“In the third quarter we didn’t rebound and I think (we made some) compound mistakes,” Kansas head coach Brandon Schneider said. “Obviously I think they are a team that thrives on turnovers, some of them they created and some of them I thought we created and those are the ones we’d like to have back, just the silly ones.”
The game was the first for Davis since she started against Missouri on Nov. 15 at the T-Mobile Center in Kansas City, Missouri. She had missed nine consecutive games prior to Thursday’s matchup with what the program called “lower leg pain.”
“Yeah, it was good getting back out there,” Davis said. “Obviously, I didn’t start the season how I wanted to, but just being in there, getting in the training room, just getting back to work, (it’s) really exciting.”
West Virginia head coach Mark Kellogg was coaching with a heavy heart, as he learned recently that his mother had died. Kellogg said that he chose to still coach on Thursday because it’s what his mother would have wanted him to do.
“She was supposed to be here tonight, that was the plan before our season started,” Kellogg said. “For her not to be there but hopefully to be watching over just really means a lot.”
In her return to Allen Fieldhouse, Davis started the scoring for the Jayhawks with a fadeaway midrange floater in the second minute of play, giving the freshman her first points in 47 days. After West Virginia scored its first points on a 3-pointer, senior guard Elle Evans immediately answered with a made 3 of her own to give Kansas a 7-3 lead.
The Mountaineers played a hard press from the tip, forcing two 10-second violations from the Jayhawks before the under-five media timeout in the first quarter. At that break, Kansas led 9-7, with six of the Jayhawks’ points at that time coming from the hot hand of Davis.
Out of the break, defense reigned supreme. It took almost two minutes for the Jayhawks to find nylon after the timeout, but tied 9-9, Kansas found Davis under the basket and she missed the initial attempt but got the second chance to fall and drew a foul, giving the Jayhawks the lead again.
The end of the first quarter centered on Nichols, with all seven of Kansas’ points in the final two minutes coming off the hand of the junior guard. At the end of the first quarter, Kansas led West Virginia 19-14.
To start the second, the Mountaineers opened it up with a 3-pointer to cut their deficit to two, before a bucket by Davis and free throws from Nichols extended the Jayhawk advantage once more. West Virginia followed that up with an 8-0 run to reclaim the lead 25-23. Senior forward Lilly Meister recorded her first bucket of the game from deep, snatching the lead back for Kansas before the midway mark of the quarter.
A timing issue brought the game to a halt halfway through the second, and. out of the break, Kansas grabbed the momentum. Evans found the net for her second 3 of the day and followed that up two possessions later with another make from beyond the arc, giving the Jayhawks a 34-28 edge.
The Mountaineers responded again with a 6-0 run, with a layup off a sloppy Jayhawk turnover giving West Virginia the lead with 19 seconds left in the half. Kansas worked quickly, with Meister cashing in on her third bucket of the quarter to give the Jayhawks a 36-35 lead heading into the locker room at half.
Davis opened the scoring for Kansas in the second half with a physical layup, but the Mountaineers started hot and the Jayhawks found themselves trailing 40-38 just 90 seconds into the half.
Freshman guard Keeley Parks grabbed that lead right back for Kansas with her first 3-point make of the afternoon, and Nichols extended that advantage with a jumper just seconds later. The teams battled for the lead and entered the under-five timeout tied 47-47.
The back half of the third quarter was where the trouble began for the Jayhawks. The Mountaineers outscored the Jayhawks 10-4 over the final minutes of the third and Kansas turned the ball over four times during that stretch. Heading into the fourth quarter, West Virginia held a six-point lead.
Freshman guard Libby Fandel drew Kansas within three to start the fourth with her first 3-pointer of the afternoon, but West Virginia fired back with five straight of its own, and then another made 3, this time from the corner by Cooke, pushed the Mountaineers’ margin to 11 and forced Schneider to use his second timeout with 8:03 left in the game and Kansas trailing 65-54.
West Virginia piled on from there, with the Mountaineers cashing in on seven of their first eight attempts from the field in the final quarter. Midway through the final quarter, West Virginia found themselves leading the Jayhawks 75-59.
Kansas wouldn’t go down without a fight, with the Jayhawks still fighting hard and drawing closer late in the game. Fandel made her second 3-pointer of the afternoon with just over a minute left in the game to cut the deficit to 11 before Nichols knocked down both of her free throws to draw within nine.
The two teams traded buckets with the margin staying around there before a putback by Davis before the buzzer put the game to rest, with West Virginia walking away with a 79-72 victory and Kansas falling to 0-2 in conference play.
Kansas (10-4, 0-2) now heads to Orlando, Florida, to take on UCF on Sunday. That game is scheduled for 1 p.m. Central time.
Mike Gunnoe/Special to the Journal-World
