Kansas State women’s basketball advances to 9-1 after a sizable victory over UMKC, with 20 steals in an impressive defensive performance.
Throughout the first quarter, both teams settled into play, ending the first quarter with a 15-13 K-State lead. The second quarter was a different story, with K-State pushing out to a 15-point lead and never looking back.
The Wildcats had an impressive defensive performance scoring 32 points off turnovers, thanks in part to UMKC turning the ball over 33 times. K-State caused 20 steals of the 33 turnovers, the most by the program in over seven years.
The Wildcats had a quiet night offensively, shooting 36.4%. Both teams struggled to shoot from beyond the arch with only five made three-pointers all night.
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“Not a very good night offensively for us but I thought the defense picked us up,” head coach Jeff Mittie said. Got a lot of steals, got a lot of free plays, but yeah, certainly I think that things I talked to them about is, you know, we’ve got to play more consistent, be a little sharper. We just seemed a little out of sync but I loved our energy in the third quarter. That needs to be something that we’re not turning on and off like a faucet. We need to have that energy for longer stretches. But the energy in the third was really big and really stretched the lead out.”
Despite the low shooting percentages, four Wildcats scored double-digit points with freshman forward Eliza Maupin and sophomore guard Brylee Glenn putting up points.
“We knew going in that we really wanted to play aggressive defense,” Glenn said. “We knew that we could take advantage of some of the things that we did. I’m proud of my teammates for going out there and getting steals and then especially taking advantage of them like running the floor and being able to make plays off of that.”
K-State will look to advance to 10-1 as they play South Dakota State at 1:00 p.m. on Saturday, Dec. 10, in Bramlage Coliseum.
