6B
/ SPORTS / THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 11, 2010 / THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN / KANSAN.COM
NEBRASKA 67, KANSAS 60
WOMEN'S BASKETBALL REWIND
Game ball
Carolyn Davis
Davis
Carolyn Davis scored nine of Kansas' measly 20 points in the first half. She finished with a team-high 17 points and 11 rebounds on her way to her third career double-double. She was the focal point of Kansas' offense, scoring in bunches by getting to the free-throw line where she sunk 7-0 attempts. Davis is the team's true low post option, because Aishah Sutherland is more of a jump shooter and Krysten Boogaard has struggled in minimal time.
Stat of the night
After shooting just 6-of-23 in the first half and missing 9-of-10 of its final attempts leading into half time, Kansas
69.2%
came out of the locker room ready to right its wrongs. The Jayhawks converted their first 11 field goals in the second half and wound up shooting 69.2 percent in the second half. Sutherland made all six of her shot attempts in the game and Davis and Engelman combined to shoot 7-of-13 in the second half.
push it through my left hand."
RECAP (CONTINUED FROM 1B)
The layhawks will walk out of this game a far more confident team, having given the now 22-0 Cornhuskers one of their toughest tests of the season. However, after Kansas took the lead, Nebraska snagged seven of its 10 steals in the final eight minutes of the game.
After an exhausting game, Henrickson said in her press conference that she could not help but feel like her team let an upset slip away.
"Nebraska kept fighting, and we coasted," Davis said.
Edited by Jesse Rangel
"It's gut-wrenching," Henrickson said. "It's a missed opportunity where I thought we beat ourselves."
Henrickson said the team played tired at the wrong time.
Junior center Krysten Boogaard is blocked by Nebraska center Catheryn Redmon. Boogaard played for six minutes against Nebraska and pulled down one rebound.
Guards struggle,fail against Cornhuskers
BY ANDREW TAYLOR ataylor@kansan.com
Jerry Wang/KANSAN
With senior guard Danielle McCray and freshman guard Angel Goodrich permanently residing on the bench because of untimely injuries, the Jayhawks lack key players at the guard position.
That seemed to make a big difference in Kansas' 67-60 loss to No. 3 Nebraska Wednesday night.
After the Jayhawks opened up the second half with sizzling shooting from the field, making all of their first 11 shot attempts, they seemed to hit a wall. It's possible that this was a direct result of Nebraska's pressure defense and the trouble it caused for the guards.
"They have to work hard to get the ball up the court," freshman forward Carolyn Davis said of the guards, "and then they have to run the offense and go back on defense. It wears on you."
The layhawks' guards were the ones primarily dealing with the Cornhuskers' full-court press, and they were the ones showing the effects of it. On Wednesday night, Kansas' guards turned the ball over 13 times, and seven of those occurred down the stretch as Kansas fought to hang on in a losing effort.
On top of having to fight through the press on nearly every possession, the guards didn't get much time to rest on the bench. Kansas' three starting guards missed only a combined 14 minutes of action in the game, and senior guard Sade Morris played the full 40 minutes.
"We talked about playing through some fatigue, and we did at times," coach Bonnie Henrickson said. "Then we kind of let it get to us and played a little bit soft there at times."
In addition to the turnovers, the fatigue factor also seemed to cause a few mental missteps in some the jayhawks, especially the younger ones.
With less than eight minutes to play, freshman guard Monica Engelman had an open guard behind the arc from the wing. Instead of shooting the ball, Engelman passed it into traffic and the ball wound up in Nebraska's hands.
excuse."
Despite the unraveling toward the end of the game, Kansas' guards still found a way to produce on offense for the second straight game. They accounted for 29 of the layhawks' 60 points after scoring 37 combined points in a victory against Kansas State last Sunday.
"I was wide open," Engelman said. "I don't know why I didn't shoot the shot."
That was just one in a series of three consecutive turnovers that allowed the Cornhuskers to recover from a five-point deficit to steal the lead from the lajawhacks.
The Kansas guards, as well as the rest of the team, will need to find a way to maintain energy and composure for a full 40 minutes when No. 14 Texas visits Allen Fieldhouse on Saturday.
"There's no excuse to be tired in a game of this magnitude," Henrickson said. "There's no
"We want to compete and prove that we're good enough to win," Henrickson said. "We tried to do that tonight. We just didn't play long enough to get it done."
- Edited by Allyson Shaw
COLUMN (CONTINUED FROM 1B)
After building a four-point lead with 7:56 left in the game, Kansas made careless mistakes. The Jayhawks committed seven of their 19 turnovers in the final eight minutes, and many of those miscues resulted in points for the Cornhuskers.
But that Kansas even held a lead late against a veteran-heavy Nebraska team is surprising.
Behind another strong inside performance from freshman Carolyn Davis — and with help outside from freshman Monica Engelman
— the Jayhays made their first 11 shots of the second half.
In their last two games, the layhawks have hardly displayed a
They threw a counterpunch that even some of the Big 12's elite teams couldn't produce when playing the Cornhuskers. And they did this with two inexperienced freshmen leading the way.
hangover effect after the season- ending injury to McCray. Actually, the injury has seemingly inspired the remaining players.
Kansas knocked off Kansas State last Sunday and followed that performance with another solid outing against Nebraska Wednesday.
"I watched their K-State game and thought, 'Boy I don't know what they would do with McCray, but they looked really good in that game.' Nebraska coach Connie Yori said. "I think that maybe comes with not having to run everything for McCray, and now they're getting some other people involved. No, this doesn't surprise me at all."
Kansas certainly isn't better off without McCray. That point would be hard to argue.
But the layhawks displayed an ability to scrap and fight, even against one of the nation's most dominant teams.
More than anything, that's the most important lesson to take moving forward.
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