Joey Bongard | josephbongard@ku.edu
1,445. That is the number of days it had been since the Kansas Jayhawks women’s basketball team lost a home non-conference game. 341. That is how many days it has been since their last home loss to any team. Tonight, the fans in Allen Fieldhouse saw the very real possibility for those numbers to go back down to 0.
The 3-5 Wichita State Shockers came out slow, but got hot in the second quarter, ending the half tied with Kansas. Just 30 seconds into the half, Kansas star S’Mya Nichols picked up her 4th foul. This meant Wyvette Mayberry would be getting her biggest workload of the young season, while Laia Conesa and Elle Evans would need to step up if the Jayhawks wanted to win. However, during this quarter, Conesa also picked up her 4th foul, finding herself in foul trouble, and also finding herself a spot on the bench for some time.
The two teams combined for 25 turnovers in the first three quarters alone. The story of these quarters however, was that Kansas outscored the Shockers by 19 points on these turnovers, allowing them to stay in the game and be down by three before the final 10 minutes of play. On the other end of the floor, the Shockers bench outscored that of the Jayhawks by 13 points during that same time period.
The 3rd quarter was all about Elle Evans. She was lights out 3 of 5 from beyond the arc, being the anchor for the Jayhawks with 9 of their 13 points. This played crucial, as Kansas only scored 4 times this quarter, and 3 of them were from Evans. Their first bench basket came with 5:50 in the third, from Carla Osma which was the only other field goal made in the quarter.
At the end of the day, it came down to which team had better execution. Tonight, Kansas was that team, outscoring the Shockers 24-11 in the final 10 minutes of play, led behind a balanced scoring effort from the entire team.
The final score was Kansas 70, Wichita State 60, as the game was close until the final 3 minutes. S’Mya Nichols and Elle Evans were the two highest scorers for Kansas, while Princess Anderson had 16 for the Shockers. The Jayhawks proved today that even without their best scorer, they can still get the job done. Kansas looks to continue their unbeaten home streak against the UMKC Kangaroos next Wednesday, back home at Allen Fieldhouse.
Photo: Trevor Burns, KJHK Sports Photography