West Virginia
Kansas State women’s basketball comes up short against West Virginia in Big 12 quarterfinal
Kansas State women’s basketball coach Jeff Mittie on Ayoka Lee injury
Kansas State women’s basketball coach Jeff Mittie talks about Ayoka Lee’s foot injury after she missed Monday’s game against Baylor.
K-State Athletics
Now the wait begins.
The fifth-seeded Kansas State women’s basketball team jumped on No. 4 seed West Virginia with a torrid first half but couldn’t hold off the Mountaineers down the stretch Friday as they dropped a 73-69 Big 12 Tournament quarterfinal decision at T-Mobile Center in Kansas City.
With the loss, No. 19-ranked K-State fell to 26-7 and will have to wait for a week from Sunday to see if its resume is good enough to warrant a top 16 seed as host for the first two rounds of the NCAA Tournament.
No. 16 West Virginia, which swept two games from the Wildcats — the Mountaineers won 70-57 in Morgantown — moves to face TCU or Colorado on Saturday.
K-State was up 33-23 after one quarter, 44-36 at halftime and took a 58-56 advantage to the fourth period. The Wildcats led 69-67 when Kennedy Taylor scored the last of her team-high 21 points with 1:52 left but was shut out the rest of the way.
West Virginia took a 71-69 lead on JJ Quinerly’s basket with 43.4 seconds left and tacked on two Sydney Shaw free throws at 11.4 seconds to preserve the victory. Quinerly had 24 points, Jordan Harrison 19 and Shaw 13 to lead the Mountaineers.
In addition to Taylor, K-State got 16 points from Temira Poindexter and 10 with nine assists from Serena Sundell. K-State again was without center Ayoka Lee, who is recovering from a foot injury but is expected back for the NCAA Tournament.
Here are three takeaways from a disappointing loss for K-State:
Wildcats came out on fire
K-State made an incredible 13 of 15 shots in the first quarter, including 5 of 6 3-pointers, while only turning the ball over three times against West Virginia’s pressure defense.
Alas, the Wildcats shot just 38.8% and were 3-for-12 from 3-point range the rest of the way. The Wildcats did take better care of the ball against a swarming West Virginia defense with 15 turnovers after they had 21 in the regular season matchup.
In fact, K-State outscored West Virginia off turnovers, 20-15, though 19 of those points came in the first half.
Kennedy Taylor comes up big
Kennedy Taylor didn’t start at center for K-State, but she quickly made up for it. Taylor made all nine of her shots in 21 minutes of action coming off the bench for Eliza Maupin.
Maupin matched up better underneath against West Virginia starter Kylee Blacksten, but when the bigger Jordan Thomas entered the game, Taylor quickly came off the bench.
The Wildcats consistently found Taylor on the low block, where West Virginia could not stop her.
Mountaineers win the game at free-throw line
K-State fouled just 14 times to 19 for West Virginia, but the Mountaineers got to the foul line 21 times to just 10 for the Wildcats.
Shaw made all five of her foul shots and Quinerly 4 of 6 as the Mountaineers outscored K-State from the line, 16-7.
Arne Green is based in Salina and covers Kansas State University sports for the Gannett network. He can be reached at agreen@gannett.com or on X (formerly Twitter) at @arnegreen.