Kansas women’s basketball finished its home slate for the month of November at 3-0 with a 99-51 victory over the Oral Roberts Golden Eagles on Tuesday evening.
Sophomore guard Jaliya Davis led the way in scoring for the Jayhawks with 26 points and two blocks, while sophomore guard Libby Fandel added 23 points, three assists and four steals and led the team with eight rebounds.
“I’m happy for Libby because I think it’s a game that we’ve all thought is coming,” Kansas head coach Brandon Schneider said. “In a game that she’s needed just from a confidence standpoint. She’s been practicing well, I know she hadn’t been shooting it the way that she’d like to start the season, so this should really give her a boost.”
Senior guard S’Mya Nichols exited the contest with 8:50 left in the third quarter after being struck in the forehead by the elbow of Golden Eagles sophomore forward Kayten Donley. Nichols spent a minute on the floor being tended to by athletic trainers before walking back to the locker room with a towel covering her face.
She returned to the Jayhawks’ bench in the fourth quarter with a bandage covering her forehead above her left eye. Schneider said that she received stitches, but doesn’t anticipate her missing any time.
Senior guard Brittany Harshaw also exited the game with an injury after she rolled her ankle on an and-1 3-pointer with 4:18 left in the game. Harshaw was helped to the Kansas bench before eventually returning to the locker room.
“Brittany basically turned her ankle,” Schneider said. “We’ve already gotten X-rays there and it’s negative, so we treat it as an ankle sprain and try to get her back as soon as possible and as soon as the medical staff thinks she’s ready to go.”
The injuries to Nichols and Harshaw reduced an already thin guard position to just three players down the stretch in Tuesday’s game. Senior guard Mariyah Noel has been out with a knee injury since before the Jayhawks’ exhibition games and senior guard Mykayla Cunningham is out for the semester with academic eligibility issues stemming from her last school.
“We’ll have S’Mya back for sure,” Schneider said of KU’s guard depth, “and I think Mariyah (Noel) is starting return-to-play protocol tomorrow so we could have her I think within a week to ten days maybe so that’s a good sign too. Then, hopefully, our medical staff is so good, hopefully Brittany will respond to around the clock treatment here in the next couple of days and be back as soon as possible.”
Kansas dominated from the jump, with Davis scoring the first points of the game with a pair of free throws 13 seconds in. The Golden Eagles responded with a bucket to knot things at two before the Jayhawks began to pull away courtesy of a 3 and a layup from Nichols.
Oral Roberts added two more layups before the midway point in the quarter, but the Kansas offense kept piling on and the Jayhawks led 17-6 at the under-five timeout. Out of the break, defense dominated for both teams, with neither side scoring for the first 2:42 after the stoppage.
The Jayhawks broke the scoreless drought with a layup from junior forward Regan Williams and outscored Oral Roberts 9-3 to take a 28-9 lead into the second.
Freshman forward Cydnee Bryant opened the second period with a bucket from beyond the arc, and the Kansas bigs dominated the first half of the second. Davis added four points in the paint, and Williams contributed a layup before Harshaw knocked down a 3 to send the Jayhawks into the under-five break with a 40-14 edge.
Both sides settled in defensively for the remainder of the quarter, with Nichols scoring all seven of Kansas’ points after the midway mark. The Jayhawks took a 46-21 advantage into halftime.
Without Nichols on the court for most of the second half, sophomore guard Anna Gooden took over as the primary point guard for Kansas for the remainder of the game.
Fandel capped off a 9-0 run to start the second half with a 3-pointer that increased the Jayhawks lead to 34. Oral Roberts stemmed the Jayhawk tide with a flurry of points before the midway mark in the quarter, with Kansas leading 58-30.
Fandel led the Jayhawks with six points in the final five minutes of the third. Harshaw capped the quarter with a corner-3, and the Jayhawks took a 74-34 edge into the final period of action.
Kansas kept its foot on the pedal in the fourth, with its lead only dropping below 40 twice as the Jayhawks traded buckets with the Golden Eagles.
Freshman guard Mollie Ernstes made a free throw to complete a four-point play. Fandel scored seven points in the final three minutes to cap off a 99-51 victory for the Jayhawks.
The Jayhawks will hit the road for two nonconference games against Big Ten schools next week, with their first matchup coming on Saturday against the Nebraska Cornhuskers in Sioux Falls, South Dakota on Saturday, and Kansas visiting Minnesota in Minneapolis next Wednesday.
“Go out and execute the gameplan,” Schneider said on what he wants to see from Kansas during this roadtrip. “I think, you mention Nebraska and Minnesota, we’re all similar in that Nebraska hasn’t played a Power Four opponent either, and then Minnesota would’ve played K-State right before they played us, so these will be good games for all three programs.”
Saturday’s game in Sioux Falls is a part of the MarketBeat Invitational, and is scheduled for 3:30 p.m.
