KANSAN.COM / THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN / THURSDAY. MARCH 4. 2010 / **SPORTS**
OF
5B
WOMEN'S BASKETBALL REWIND
Game Ball
Annette Davis
It's hard to hand out a game ball to anyone in a game like this, but Davis quietly impressed. While most of her production took place late in the second half when the game was already decided, Davis connected on all four of her shot attempts. She also logged four rebounds and one block in 11 minutes played.
A. Davis
Reason to hope
Good shooting
Despite not reaching their average shooting percentage on the season, the Jayhawks still had a decent night shooting the ball. Kansas made 23-of-52 attempts from the field, which is good for a 44.2 shooting percentage. In the first half, the Jayhawks even shot better than 50 percent from the field. That still wasn't enough to get the Jayhawks close to another upset opportunity.
Reason to mope
Carolyn Davis
Davis played one of her more forgettable games last night as she finished with no points on two attempts. Her lack of production and effort, in some instances, earned her a spot on the bench for much of the game.She ended the game with only 20 minutes of playing time despite a lack of foul trouble.
C. Davis
What to watch out for
point guard parody
Junior guard Rhea Codio made her first start of the season and her career last night. She replaced senior guard LaChelda Jacobs who had started 12 straight games after freshman guard Angel Goodrich went down with injury. Codio earned the majority of the minutes in the game and finished with a 1:1 assist to turnover ratio, which topped Jacobs 2:3 turnover ratio.
Quote of the game
"Coming out of halftime in the game at Lawrence, they made a huge run. That was something all week that we talked about — not coming out of halftime and giving them the momentum.
— Nebraska junior Dominique Kelley
Kelley
Stat of the night
24-30
Nebraska hit 24-of-30 free throw attempts, an absurdly large number of attempts. Junior Dominique Kelley and senior Kelsey Griffin, the Cornhuskers' top two scorers, totaled 10 free throws between them. Kansas attempted just nine free throws as a team. By giving Nebraska so many looks at the charity stripe, Kansas allowed Nebraska to pile up easy and uncontested points. To give a numerical picture of its importance, Nebraska converted 24 free throws and Kansas lost the game by 25 points.
- Andrew Taylor
Kelley
Griffin
Numbers look bad in many ways
BY ANDREW TAYLOR
Jerry Wang/KANSAN
ataylor@kansan.com
Senior guard LaChelda Jacobs and junior center Krysten Boogaard pressure Nebraska forward Cory Montgomery. Jacobs was called for a foul on the play, and Montgomery sank both free throws.
LINCOLN, Neb. — The stat sheet from No. 3 Nebraska's 77-52 trashing of Kansas reveals a litany of ways Kansas lost the game.
There's the fact that no Kansas player scored more than 10 points while Nebraska had four players score in double figures.
No matter how the stats are broken down, they'll continually reveal a Jayhawk team that was simply outmatched in just about every way. Even the hope of avenging a close loss at home to the Cornhuskers earlier in the season was not enough to motivate the Jayhawks to victory.
"I thought, compared to the game down in Lawrence, we did a better job of taking them out of the things they wanted to do." Nebraska junior guard Dominique Kelly said.
There's also the 24 points the Cornhuskers scored on free throws, on 21 more free throws attempts than the lawvahs.
"We just didn't come ready to play," senior guard Sade Morris said. "There's no other way to put it."
The pittfalls the Jayhawks encountered in Lincoln Wednesday night aren't new by any means as many of the same struggles have typified the Jayhawks' last three road games, all of which they have lost by 17 points or more.
"We're just not doing a good job of staying together, and that's something we've been trying to work on." Morris said. "You could see it in the way we played. We tried to stay together, but we just kind of
fell apart."
Unfortunately for Kansas, the disparities between the scores of its current three game road-losing streak is just the first in a long list of similarities between the games.
For example, the lajahwaves have failed to surpass their season shooting percentage of 45.5 percent from the field. Although Kansas did come close to that last night, shooting 44.2 percent from the field, which actually beat Nebraska's 39.7 shooting percentage, it was not enough to overcome the Cornhuskers supreme free throw shooting.
"How do you manufacture points? You manufacture them at the free throw line," coach Bonnie Henrickson said. "You go in transition, you get the offensive board, and you drive it. They do those three things really, really well."
"It's just not us taking of the ball. It's not us making the right decisions." Morris said. "We did that to ourselves."
The Jayhawks have averaged 18.3 turnovers per game.
To top it off Kansas' two leading scorers since the injury to Danielle McCray, in freshmen Monica Engelman and Carolyn Davis, have struggled to produce. Against Nebraska, the duo managed only nine points, all scored by Engelman.
"We've got to keep fighting the frustration," Morris said. "We just need to keep fighting and fighting and know that we need to stick together."
Edited by Jesse Rangel
WOMEN'S (CONTINUED FROM 1B)
as the confirmation. Lethargic freshman forward Carolyn Davis was the child-ster.
Davis had anchored Kansas' offense since her first start in a 72-59 victory against Missouri on Jan. 17. Against Nebraska, she was held scoreless in 20 minutes of play.
"I can't play you if you're just going to jog up the floor and make it a layup drill," Henrickson said. "I thought a good place for her to sit was the bench if she didn't want to run. There's no running on the bench."
It was truly a tale of two opposites.
Nebraska out-rebounded Kansas 17-5 on the offensive glass. It sunk 24 of 30 free throws and moved its record to 28-0 overall, 15-0 in the Big 12.
Meanwhile, Kansas has been blown out by an average of 24 points in its last two games and dropped to 15-13 overall. It seems likely that even an upset against No. 15 Texas A&M Saturday will not be enough to salvage its NCAA tournament hopes.
"We've relied on Carolyn and Monica a lot, and those two might be driving the struggle bus right now," Henrickson said. "That's my biggest concern leaving here. They haven't been themselves."
— Edited by Anna Archibald