The Kansas Women\u2019s Basketball team won a hard fought game 57-50 over the Texas Tech Red Raiders Wednesday night at Allen Fieldhouse behind the play of sophomore guards Laia Conesa and S\u2019Mya Nichols.<\/span><\/p>\n Turning into the back half of conference play, the Kansas Jayhawks welcomed Texas Tech into town. Although both teams were 3-6 in Big XII play and boasted similar records coming in, no one would have predicted the absolute brawl of a game that ensued over the next two hours.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cWe knew that it was going to be a very physical game,\u201d Coach Schneider said. \u201cWhen you look at their foul rate and how many free throws their opponents shoot. We knew it was going to be difficult to get many threes despite the nature of how they play.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n That prediction in his game plan proved to be spot on and then some. The Jayhawks would be fouled 31 times throughout the course of the game, tied for the most that Texas Tech had committed in a game and a Kansas record for BIG XII play. The team would also go scoreless from deep going 0\/7 on the game, despite shooting just over 19 threes a game coming into this contest.<\/span><\/p>\n This win was decided by the star of each half. Two players stood out for the Jayhawks above the rest. Laia Conesa swung the game for Kansas in the first half, then S\u2019Mya Nichols closed the door on the Red Raiders for good.<\/span><\/p>\n During the first quarter each team had their run: 8-0 for Texas Tech over the first four minutes of the game, then a 12-0 run for Kansas that extended through the first made basket of the second quarter. The teams were playing themselves even. Kansas was not able to break the hounding press of Texas Tech, and the Red Raiders were not able to put the ball in the basket.<\/span><\/p>\n A whistle at the 5:22 mark would give S\u2019Mya Nichols her second foul, and send her to the bench for the half. That\u2019s when the first star of the game would begin to shine through the crowd. Fellow sophomore guard Laia Conesa would step into the primary ball handler, scorer and communicator on the floor for the rest of the half. Whether she was dishing to the bigs so they could draw a foul, or just taking it for herself, Conesa took the reins of the offense with composure and swung the game from a two-point deficit to a four point lead by the end of the half.<\/span><\/p>\n The second half, or more specifically, the fourth quarter saw a familiar star return to the night sky of Lawrence. S\u2019Mya Nichols came back to this game with a vengeance. After not getting many of the calls she is accustomed to in the first half, she kept attacking the lane right into the heart of the Texas Tech defense. And shatter their hearts she did. A perfect quarter, going 4\/4 from the field on top of making all seven of the free throws she attempted in the quarter would put the game away. When Tech reclaimed the lead with 4:21 left Nichols would go on to outscore their entire team in the remaining time 13-9, not even counting the buckets she assisted for.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cLate in the game she obviously took over,\u201d Texas Tech Coach Krista Gerlich said. \u201cThat\u2019s what great players do.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Nichols indeed added another great game to her sophomore campaign, totalling 20 points for the 14th time this season to go with four rebounds and six assists. Conesa would end the game with 10 points, five rebounds, and a steal.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n The next game for the Jayhawks will be a big one as Kansas will host their rival and 11th ranked Kansas State in the Dillons Sunflower Showdown. That game will be Sunday Feb. 2 at 2 p.m. in Allen Fieldhouse. If you are unable to make it in person, tune in to 90.7 FM KJHK Lawrence to get play-by-play action from Ben Hooke and Grady Johnson.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Written by Attacai Margrave | Cover Image by Chris Stone The Kansas Women\u2019s Basketball team won a hard fought game 57-50 over the Texas Tech Red Raiders Wednesday night at Allen Fieldhouse behind the play of sophomore guards Laia Conesa and S\u2019Mya Nichols. Turning into the back half of conference play, the Kansas Jayhawks welcomed Texas Tech into town. Although both teams were 3-6 in Big XII play and boasted similar records coming in, no one would have predicted the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":82095,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3262,610],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-82094","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports","category-sports-articles"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/IMG_7133.jpeg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82094","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=82094"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82094\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":82105,"href":"https:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82094\/revisions\/82105"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/82095"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=82094"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=82094"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=82094"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}