Kansas women’s basketball hosted the Washburn Ichabods for the 2026 edition of Late Night in the Phog on Thursday and collected a 68-50 exhibition win at Allen Fieldhouse.
Sophomore guard Libby Fandel led the Jayhawks in scoring, finishing the evening with 16 points and five rebounds. Senior guard Brittany Harshaw and junior forward Regan Williams also ended the game in double-figure scoring, at 15 and 14 respectively.
“I’m hesitant because we did not play with the kind of poise and composure that you need to, but she fought back in the right way,” Kansas head coach Brandon Schneider said of Fandel. “I thought (she) was aggressive and physical and played through contact.”
The game was a physical one, with both teams turning the ball over a combined 52 times and compiling 11 steals each.
“I thought it was great for us,” Schneider said of the game’s physicality. “We’re going to have a lot of games like that, whether it’s non-conference or Big 12 play, that’s going to be an opponent’s strategy, so it’s good that we got to deal with it in an exhibition setting.”
Freshman center Cydnee Bryant made her first unofficial appearance of the season for Kansas midway through the first quarter. Bryant, also a member of the volleyball program, has seen limited practice time with the women’s basketball program and will not join the team fully until the conclusion of volleyball season.
“We’ve had her at practice three times,” Schneider said. “So, the more and more we have her and can get her reps – she’s going to be a big, big part of our team, it’s just a matter of when is that going to happen. She’s admittedly not going to be in any kind of basketball shape, so the more that she practices with us the more reps that she’s going to get, but at the end of the day I’ve said over and over, our team has a ceiling and then we have a different ceiling with her.”
The Jayhawks were without two guards again during the game. Senior guards Mariyah Noel and Mykayla Cunningham both missed Thursday’s matchup, and Schneider said postgame that Cunningham would be out for the semester.
“Mykayla is out this semester,” Schneider said. “She’s not eligible but she will be eligible at semester.”
Schneider said that Noel is “week-to-week” with a knee injury that she suffered at practice before the Northeastern State exhibition.
Williams tallied the first points of the first quarter with a mid-range jumper in the first minute before things slowed down. The Jayhawks missed five consecutive field goal attempts after Williams’ bucket, before Fandel broke the drought with a fastbreak layup midway through the quarter.
Both teams exchanged baskets before Washburn stormed back with a 3-point basket in the final minute, sending both teams to the second quarter with Kansas leading 14-11.
Kansas looked like it was going to pull away to end the first half after a strong start to the second quarter had the Jayhawk advantage at 13 midway through, but three consecutive turnovers with under three minutes left – one from sophomore guard Anna Gooden and two from Bryant – allowed the Ichabods to inch closer. Heading into the final two minutes of the quarter, Kansas led by just six.
Sophomore forward Jaliya Davis was issued a flagrant 1 foul at the end of the half, and Kansas entered halftime clinging to a 31-26 advantage. The Jayhawks turned the ball over 16 times in the first half, with nine of those coming from Ichabod steals.
Washburn cut its deficit to four early in the third quarter, but both teams settled in defensively. Free throws from Nichols extended the Kansas lead to six before Harshaw sank the Jayhawks first field goal of the half 4:46 into the third quarter.
Kansas piled on from there, embarking on a 13-2 run over the final 2:50 of the quarter and taking a 52-33 lead into the final period.
The Jayhawks’ dominance continued into the fourth quarter, with Fandel and Harshaw helping Kansas extend its lead to 25 with eight minutes to play. That dominance did not last.
The Ichabods forced four turnovers from the Jayhawks down the stretch and Davis fouled out for Kansas, allowing the Ichabods an 11-0 run that cut the deficit to 58-44 heading into the final minutes. The two squads traded buckets in the final minutes, and Gooden was assessed a flagrant foul with under a minute left, but the Jayhawks held off Washburn and took home a 68-50 win.
Kansas now heads to its regular-season slate, with the first game of the nonconference schedule coming at home against the Omaha Mavericks on Tuesday. That game is scheduled for 6:30 p.m.
Kahner Sampson/Special to the Journal-World
