SE: Wesemann Shines One Last Time in K-State Uniform at 3-Point Competition
Apr 04, 2017 | Women's Basketball, Sports Extra
About 10 minutes after Stanford and Notre Dame finished playing in the Elite Eight of the women's NCAA Tournament, K-State's Kindred Wesemann was shooting 3-pointers on a concrete court.
Again and again, Wesemann pulled basketballs off of a computer cart — the closest thing she had to a ball rack at the time — and fired up her favorite shot. Her 264 career treys at K-State ranks fifth in school history and 13th all-time in the Big 12 Conference, and while her playing career was over, she was preparing to display her shooting prowess one last time in a K-State uniform.
Her preparation paid off, but she did need some help first.
Stanford senior Karlie Samuelson was slotted to compete in the Marines Women's 3-point Contest last Thursday night in Phoenix, Arizona, but would be unable to do so if her team was playing in the Final Four, held in Dallas, Texas.
Wesemann was the first alternate on the list, a fact she was aware of before Stanford and Notre Dame played, which left her in a conundrum. Root for Stanford, the team that ended her senior season? Or root for Notre Dame, and consequently against her chances to compete in the 3-point contest?
"I wanted to go," said Wesemann, a First Team All-Big 12 pick whose wish was made possible by Stanford's comeback win. "I was really excited that I got the chance to go."
Little did she know, the excitement had only just begun.
Wesemann, 18th in K-State history in career points (1,295), outshot all of her competitors at the 29th Annual State Farm College Slam Dunk Contest and 3-point Championships at GCU Arena.
Her performance, televised nationally on ESPN, played out as such. She made 17 of 25 shots in the opening round, a scorching 22 of 25 in the semifinals, 14 of 25 to win the women's side and 14 of 25 in her Shoe Carnival Battle of the Champions with Iowa's Peter Jok, the men's champion who matched her point total but lost in a tiebreaker (most shots made).
"It was amazing," she said. "I was very blessed to get to go. It was a lot of great players to be surrounded by. I was just really excited to be down there."
Before flying down to Phoenix, Wesemann worked with Chris Carr, Director of Student-Athlete Development for the K-State women's team and a former NBA player familiar with the ins and outs of these types of competitions.
"I was pretty accustomed to it," Wesemann said of the 3-point competition style of shooting off of a rack, which she practiced with Carr. "Some of the other competitors didn't really practice it, but I was just out there to have fun and I was just very well prepared for it, too."
Her numbers would agree on both counts.
Wesemann had the highest point total in each round of the women's competition. She capped a 19-point first round with a perfect final rack. She caught fire in the second round, tallying 26 points that included making 11 in a row at one point and hitting all five money balls. In the championship round against Oregon's State's Sydney Wiese, Wesemann overcame a 0-for-4 start by hitting 10 of her next 11 attempts.
When the night was over, Wesemann had converted 67 of her 100 long-range attempts. Additionally, she tallied four perfect racks, made 4-of-5 on seven racks and hit 13 of 20 money ball shots.
"I was just making sure that I slowed down. That was really the biggest part of it, to slow down, and as soon as you let it go, you can't do anything about it, so you have to just reach for the next ball," Wesemann said. "I was getting jittery, so I had to tell myself to just have fun because that was the only reason I was down there. I wanted to win it all but that wasn't what was going through my head. I wasn't worried about winning or losing. I just wanted to have fun."
In between rounds of burying shots and, subsequently, the competition, Wesemann cheered on the very people she was trying to beat. The natural competitor in Wesemann wanted higher scores to shoot for.
"It's more fun whenever the scores are high and you have to compete your best to get up there, too," she said. "They're all great shooters. They wouldn't be there if they weren't. It was just an honor to be on the same court as all of those shooters. They're all really great players, they're all really great people. I just wanted them to do their best and I know they wanted me to do my best."
Wesemann, who went to Arizona by herself, found out early in the competition that hundreds of family members, friends and fans were also rooting for her to do her best.
In the Be the Match Team Shootout, which challenged teams mixed with men's and women's competitors to make four shots — from the wing, free throw line, 3-point line and half court — Wesemann knocked in her second attempt from the wing before draining her second half court heave to seal the victory.
After high fives, hugs and some cheers from the enthusiastic crowd, Wesemann went to her cell phone, which she said was "blowing up."
"It was awesome to know that everyone was watching," she said. "It was a great experience just to be able to be there. Even watching my phone blow up was awesome."
Wesemann was interviewed twice on national television and awarded a sizable trophy each time. She even became a fan favorite with the Grand Canyon University student section, which chanted "Kin-dred!" during the competition.
"Their crowd was crazy. They were absolutely phenomenal," she said. "It was crazy, but it was such a great experience."
Wesemann's shining performance elevated not only her social media presence — she had to unlock her Twitter profile because of a flood of follow requests — but it also put K-State's program on a national pedestal. Even with an injured elbow, Wesemann felt she owed it to K-State and herself to take advantage of that chance.
"I felt like it was an opportunity to just put K-State out there again and to show what K-State is all about. I didn't want to miss out on that chance. It's once-in-a-lifetime — you don't get to do that again — and I was very excited that I got to go. I'm very glad that I went," she said. "I'm very blessed to have all the support that I've had from my teammates, my coaches, Kansas State and my family. It's just been overwhelming. I appreciate all of the support so much and can't thank them enough."
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