Cougars fall to Jayhawks in Big 12 Tournament
Cougars fall to Jayhawks in Big 12 Tournament
The BYU women’s basketball team hung around with Kansas until a Kailey Woolston knee injury in the first half. She did not return to the game and the Jayhawks went on to outscore the Cougars 42-20 in the second half en route to a dominating 77-53 victory in the Big 12 tournament in Kansas City.
This marks Kansas’ first win in the Big 12 Tournament since the 2018-2019 season while the Cougars finish the regular season 16-16.
Earlier this week, forward Lauren Gustin said on BYU Sports Nation that “it’s hard to beat a team three times”, however Kansas did exactly that.
Coincidentally, in their first matchup this season, Kansas held BYU to 53 points just as they did on Friday night.
Prior to her injury, Woolston knocked down 3 of 3 3-point attempts all in the first quarter. She then went to the bench with an ice pack on her knee for the remainder of the night.
Despite averaging 22 points on 42% FG shooting in the first two matchups with Kansas this season, Gustin only finished with ten points on an abysmal 4-16 shooting night.
Amari Whiting led the way for the Cougars with 13 points, including a shot just before the halftime buzzer.
Amari Whiting really said, "ope let me squeeze past ya here."@amari_whiting navigates some heavy traffic down low and scores at the halftime buzzer to put @byuwbb within one score of @KUWBball
— Big 12 Conference (@Big12Conference) March 9, 2024Big 12 Now on ESPN+ pic.twitter.com/CUYVXjTWFj
The Jayhawks on the other hand, had all five of their starters finish in double digits with Zakiyah Franklin leading the way with 20 points. That’s hard to beat.
The Cougars shooting took a drastic dip in the second half. In the first half they shot 50% from the field and 56% from three.
In the second half they shot 28% from the field and 11% from three. Compare that with Kansas’ 62% from the field and 57% from three in the 2nd half … that’s also hard to beat.
The Jayhawks did their work inside with 40 paint points and 17 free throw attempts. They’ll face the 27-4 Texas Longhorns on Saturday at 4:30 p.m. in the Big 12 tournament quarterfinals. In their last matchup two months ago, the Longhorns won by 35.
The 24-point loss and second round exit in the Big 12 tournament was certainly not the performance the Cougars wanted. With the Big Dance out of the picture, BYU will hope for a Women’s National Invitational Tournament (WNIT) bid which, ironically, Kansas won last season.
“Whether this is the last game or not, we’re really proud of this group of young ladies. They played hard and gave us their best. They’ve set a great foundation for what I believe will be a great run in the Big 12 for our women’s basketball program,” BYU assistant coach John Wardenburg said.