The Kansas City women’s basketball team played its second Power Five opponent in a row in Kansas State on Saturday, faltering in the final minutes as the Wildcats escaped with 74-67 victory.
“Kansas State was relentless, and they have two of the best post players in the country,” Head Coach Jacie Hoyt said. “They obviously prevailed, but I did appreciate the fight and the grit that our team showed. I thought our bigs did a great job of finding our guards in the zone but I still want to finish through contact and not back down from size like that.”
Kansas City got off to a hot start offensively, putting up 20 points in the first quarter as six different Roos found their way into the scoring column.
Kansas State came alive with their post play in the second quarter, however, outscoring the Roos 23-15 and taking a six-point lead into the half
Kansas City went on a series of short runs to maintain a small lead over the Wildcats in the second half, with sophomore guard Emily Ivory hitting a pair of threes the quarter. Defense played a big factor, as both teams shot under 45% from the field and from beyond the arc. The biggest difference in this game was rebounding, and the Wildcats’ height advantage helped them secure 13+ rebounding differential over the Roos.
After the Roos took a six-point lead with five minutes to go in the game, the Wildcats went on a 13-0 run to ultimately win, 74-67.
It’s a great experience because we are not going to see size like that throughout the rest of our schedule,” Hoyt said. “I told our players to keep trusting the process, keep buying into what we are doing and focus on rebounding.”
“We played hard, but we came up short on some things,” said sophomore guard Jonaie Johnson. “But overall, we played hard, we fought together and we bought into the coach’s plan. It was a variety of things; it wasn’t just one thing that lost us the game. I felt like we could have made more shots and that would have made a difference.”
Kansas City drops to 5-6 on the season and will play next in the Roo Holiday Classic, beginning on Dec. 20th.
