The Kansas State women’s basketball team struggled against No. 1 Baylor on Wednesday night. The Lady Bears played like the No. 1 team in the nation should, dominating K-State 71-48 and nearly all other factions of the game. The height difference showed in the matchup.
Six-foot-seven senior center Kalani Brown and six-foot-four junior forward Lauren Cox dominated the post all night long for Baylor. The duo would combine for 24 points, Brown with ten and Cox with 14. The pair also combined for 21 of the 40 total rebounds for Baylor.
Brown entered the game leading the team, and fifth in the Big 12 in scoring with 16.6 points per game. The Wildcats managed to stop Kalani Brown in the first half with three points in the first half.
Brown did manage to get seven points in the second half, but the Wildcats still held her to below her average, a slim win for K-State.
The Bears used the length to out-rebound the Wildcats defensively 33 to 17. K-State did have more offensive rebounds with 12 compared to Baylor’s seven.
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K-State women can't contain top-ranked Bears
K-State attempted to shut down Brown by double-teaming her with senior guard Kayla Goth as the help defender, which created plenty of open shots that Baylor hit all night. This left the Bear’s point guards with plenty of opportunities.
“We were really trying to get a lot of help to the post,” said head coach Jeff Mittie after the game.
Senior guard Chloe Jackson led all scorers with 16 points the majority of which came wide open shots.
“You pick your poison a little bit with them in that we don’t have the size to rebound with them and nobody in the county does really so you’ve got to get extra help in there which allowed Jackson to walk into her 15-footer probably way too many times,” Mittie said.
Shooting 27 percent in the game did not help K-State against the number one team in the nation.
“We have shown that when we don’t shoot the ball very well, we are going to struggle to score and tonight it was a matter of there weren’t many good shots available,” Mittie said after the game.
K-State went 16-60 from the floor tonight and shot 17 percent from three.
K-State will go on the road to face Texas, a team that they upset earlier in the season, on Sunday at 4 p.m.
