K-State Faces Texas Tech in 2021 Phillips 66 Big 12 Championship

2021 Phillips 66 Big 12 Championship - First Round

GAME #26
(10) Kansas State (8-17, 3-15 Big 12) at (7) Texas Tech (10-14, 5-13 Big 12)
Thursday, March 11, 2021 | 8 p.m. | Municipal Auditorium | Kansas City, Missouri

TELEVISION
Big 12 Now on ESPN+
Play-by-Play: Chuckie Kempf
Analyst: Brenda VanLengen

RADIO
K-State Sports Network
Online: kstatesports.com
Play-by-Play: Brian Smoller
Analyst: Kristin Waller

LIVE STATS
www.big12sports.com

COACHES
Kansas State: Jeff Mittie (Missouri Western '89)
Overall: 578-331/29th season | At K-State: 124-96/7th season

Texas Tech: Krista Gerlich (Texas Tech '93)
Overall: 299-161/15th season | At Texas Tech: 10-14/1st season

PROJECTED STARTING LINEUP (based on previous game)
Kansas State (8-17, 3-15 Big 12)
G: #2 Cymone Goodrich | F: #13 Laura Macke | G: #24 Emilee Ebert | F: #43 Christianna Carr | C: #50 Ayoka Lee

Texas Tech (10-14, 5-13 Big 12)
G: #3 Maka Jackson | G: #10 Naje Murray | G: #12 Vivian Gray | C: #23 Khadija Faye | G: #34 Lexi Gordon

SERIES HISTORY
Overall: K-State leads, 26-14
In Big 12 Championships: 2-2
Last Meeting: Feb. 24, 2021; K-State won 86-79 (Manhattan)
Head Coach Jeff Mittie vs. Texas Tech: 16-5

MANHATTAN, Kansas - For the first time since 2012 and the 12th time overall, K-State will compete in the Phillips 66 Big 12 Women's Basketball Championships in Kansas City at Municipal Auditorium. K-State, the number 10 seed, will face Texas Tech at 8 p.m., on Thursday.

• Thursday's game will be broadcast on Big 12 Now on ESPN+, as Chuckie Kempf (play-by-play) and Brenda VanLengen (analyst) will have the call.
• The Wildcats have been led this season by All-Big 12 honorees: sophomore Ayoka Lee and junior Christianna Carr.
• Lee, a 2021 All-Big 12 First Team selection, leads K-State in scoring (19.4 ppg), field goal percentage (.625), rebounds (8.5 rpg) and blocks (1.7). In the last three games, Lee is averaging 29.3 points on 73.5 percent shooting and 12.0 rebounds.
• Carr, a 2021 All-Big 12 Honorable Mention recipient, is second on the team in scoring at 15.0 points per game. She leads the team with 52 connections from beyond the arc. In the last three games, Carr is averaging 20.0 points and 5.7 rebounds.

Starting 5
Five names, numbers or storylines about K-State women's basketball
1. Wildcats in the Big 12 Championships
• K-State is 20-23 in the Big 12 Women's Basketball Championships and have advanced at least one round in 17 of the previous 23 championships.
2. Lee in 60.0/80.0 Club
• Ayoka Lee leads the Big 12 and ranks third in the nation in field goal percentage (.625) and ranks eighth in the Big 12 in free throw percentage (.803). She is the only player in NCAA Division I this season to shoot 60.0 percent or better from the field and 80.0 percent of better from the line. Her field goal percentage this season ranks eighth in Big 12 history.
3. Lee Big 12 PER Leader
• Ayoka Lee leads the Big 12 and ranks fourth in the nation, according to HerHoopStats.com, for PER (40.7) which is a measure of a player's value based on their box score stats.
4. High Efficiency Dishes
• The Wildcats have 392 assists (15.7 apg) and an assisted shot rate of 70.9 percent this season. According to HerHoopStats.com, K-State ranks fifth in the nation in assisted shot rate and are the highest ranked Power 5 member in the category.
5. Mittie Nears Win 125
• With a win, K-State head coach Jeff Mittie will secure his 125th victory as the K-State women's basketball head coach. He will become the fourth head coach in program history to reach the number and tie Lynn Hickey (1979-84) for third on the K-State career wins list.

Number to Know
.625

• This season, Ayoka Lee is shooting a career-high .625 (172-of-275) from the field
• She leads the Big 12 and ranks third in the nation for field goal percentage. Nationally, Lee ranks second among centers and leads all sophomores in field goal percentage.
• Lee's field goal percentage ranks eighth in the Big 12 record books for a single-season. It is the highest field goal percentage by a Big 12 player since Baylor's Kalani Brown shot .650 from the field in 2018.
• In league-only games, Lee registered a Big 12-leading field goal percentage of .629 (139-of-221).

At a Glance: Texas Tech
• Texas Tech (10-14, 5-13 Big 12) enters Thursday's game with losses in five of their last six games to end the 2020-21 regular season.
• Texas Tech is guided on the sideline by first year head coach Krista Gerlich. The 1993 graduate of Texas Tech owns a career record of 299-161 (.650) which included the last seven seasons at UT Arlington.
• The Lady Raiders feature two players averaging double figures in scoring and are led by seniors Vivian Gray and Lexi Gordon.
• Gray departed Oklahoma State in late July and joined the Lady Raiders in mid-August. This season, she is pacing Texas Tech with 20.0 points, 8.2 rebounds and 3.0 assists. At Oklahoma, she registered 22 points, five rebounds, three steals and three assists.
• Gordon is second on the team in scoring with 15.5 per game and leads the Lady Raiders with 45 connections from beyond the arc. Against the Sooners, she tallied 23 points on 10-of-19 shooting.

Last Time Out
at Oklahoma 90, K-State 81 (March 7, 2021; Norman, Okla.)
• The Wildcats and Sooners were tied at 58 entering the fourth quarter. Oklahoma registered 32 points in the fourth quarter on 13-of-15 shooting to hold off Kansas State.
• K-State finished the 2020-21 season with a 1-9 record in road games, including a nine-game losing streak.
• Ayoka Lee led the Wildcats with a double-double of 33 points and 13 rebounds. Sydney Goodson set a new career-high with 22 points including a career-best six connections from beyond the arc. Christianna Carr chipped in with 14 points.

K-State Among Top-20 in NCAA History for Wins
• K-State women's basketball is in its 53rd season of action and ranks among the top programs in NCAA history for all-time wins.
• K-State's all-time record stands at 977-625 (.610) and the Wildcats entered the 2020-21 season ranked 19th in NCAA Division I women's basketball history for program wins. The Wildcats are the 19th program in NCAA Division I history to reach 975 or more wins as a program and the third among the Big 12 (Texas, Baylor). K-State is averaging 18.6 wins per season.
• The Wildcats have accumulated 25 20-win seasons and have secured 351 victories inside Bramlage Coliseum.
• K-State has 205 wins in the Big 12 Conference.
• Kansas State has registered 220 victories when they were ranked in the Associated Press top-25 poll and achieved 83 wins against teams ranked in the AP poll.

Sky-High Field Goal Percentage
• When K-State shoots 50.0 percent or better in the Jeff Mittie era, Kansas State has been victorious. Since the 2014-15 season, the Wildcats are 21-3 (.875) when shooting 50.0 percent or better.
• K-State shot a 2020-21 season-high of 50.0 percent from the field against Oklahoma on January 31 and on March 7. The Wildcats made a season-high 34 field goals at Oklahoma on March 7.
• The Wildcats own a field goal percentage of 40.9 percent this season and in league play, shooting 42.0 percent.
• The top field goal percentage by K-State under Mittie is 64.9 percent in an 85-41 win over UIW on December 3, 2019.
• The field goal percentage of 64.9 percent set the K-State Bramlage Coliseum record and the highest for K-State in any game since February 25, 1987, when the Wildcats carded a 65.4 percent (34-of-52) effort against Missouri.

Tandem Sets Record
• K-State's top scoring duo of Ayoka Lee and Christianna Carr paired up to set the school record for combined points by two teammates in a single-game, as they tallied 60 points in K-State 79-76 win over TCU on March 1. Carr notched a career-high 31 points, while Lee finished with 29.
• Carr and Lee are the only teammates in the Big 12 this season to score a combined 60 or more points in a conference game this season. This was the 10th time nationally this season in which two teammates scored a combined 60 or more points in a game.
• Earlier this season, Lee (37) and Carr (17) combined for 54 points against Oklahoma on January 31.
• The 54 points are tied for the eighth-most in program history by two teammates in a game.
• This season, Lee and Carr are responsible for 49.4 percent of K-State's scoring output this season (776 points). The duo ranks third in the Big 12 for percent of a team's overall point total. The pair have scored in double figures in the same game 13 times this season.
• Lee combined with two other teammates to score 50 or more points in a game this season.
• Lee (33) joined forces with Sydney Goodson (22) to score a combined 55 points at Oklahoma on March 7.
• Lee (37) also combined with Rachel Ranke (14) to score a combined 51 points against Oklahoma on January 31.
• K-State has seen a tandem score 50 or more points in a game 29 times and the Wildcats own a record of 25-3 all-time when a tandem scores a combined 50 or more points in a game.

Sharing is Caring
• K-State has opened the 2020-21 season with 392 assists (15.7 apg) on 553 made field goals which is an assist percentage of 70.9. The Wildcats rank fourth in the Big 12 for all games and third in the league for Big 12-only games (16.0 apg). The Wildcats rank 18th in the nation for total assists.
• According to HerHoopStats.com, K-State ranks fifth in the nation in assist percentage and are the top Power 5 program in the category. Since assists became an officially tracked stat in 1981-82, Kansas State has registered an assisted shot rate of 60.0 percent or higher at the end of a season 20 times in its history.
• The Wildcats feature seven players this season with 20 or more assists and are led by Emilee Ebert (81), Cymone Goodrich (62) and Sydney Goodson (58).
• K-State has seven games this season with 20 or more assists.
• The Wildcats had a season-high 24 assists against Oklahoma on January 31. Of the eight players that saw the floor against the Sooners, seven handed out three or more assists.
• The Wildcats are 70-6 when handing out 20 or more assists over the last 14 years.
• K-State handed out 20 or more assists in consecutive games for the first time this season with 21 at TCU on February 10 and 22 against Kansas on February 13.
• K-State tallied a season-high assist percentage of 88.9 percent with 24 assists on 27 made field goals against Oklahoma on January 31.

Ebert is a Helper
• Sophomore Emilee Ebert has handed out a career-high 81 assists this season.
• Ebert leads K-State with a career-best 3.2 assists per game and owns an assist-turnover ratio of 1.59.
• Of her 97 career assists, 83.5 percent have come in the 2020-21 season. Her improvement of +65 in assists is the fifth-highest from one season to the next in program history.
• She has nine games this season with five or more assists, including a career-high seven against West Virginia on March 3.

Carr on the Line
• Christianna Carr has boosted her career-best scoring average this season from the free throw line.
• Carr is third on the team with a career-high free throw percentage of .781 (50-of-64). Carr is second on the team in free throws made and attempted.
• In the last six games, Carr is 29-of-33 (.879) from the free throw line including two games with 10 or more free throws made.
• Against Texas Tech on February 24, Carr tallied a 10-of-11 effort from the foul line.
• Against TCU on March 1, Carr surpassed her career-best with an 11-of-12 effort from the free throw line.
• For her career, Carr is 141-of-191 (.738) from the free throw line. She has four career games with five or more connections from the charity stripe.

Lee Efficient from the Field
• Ayoka Lee continues to put the ball in the hoop at a high rate and is among the top-five on the K-State career field goal percentage list.
• In her career, Lee has a field goal percentage of .594 (356-of-599) and ranks second in program history for career field goal percentage. Among active NCAA career leaders for field goal percentage, Lee ranks ninth among all players and is second among sophomores. Her career field goal percentage ranks sixth in Big 12 history.
• This season, Lee is shooting a career-high .625 (172-of-275) from the field and leads the Big 12 and ranks third in the nation for field goal percentage. Among centers, Lee ranks second in the nation in field goal percentage and leads all sophomores.
• Lee is the only player in NCAA Division I this season to shoot 60.0 percent or better from the field (min. 5 FGs made/game) and 80.0 percent or better from the foul line (min. 2.5 FTs made/game).
• Lee has 37 career games with a field goal percentage of .500 or better. She has made 10 or more field goals in a game 12 times in her career.
• At Oklahoma on March 7, Lee was 16-of-18 (.889) from the floor. This was the highest field goal percentage in a game (min. 15 FGs attempted) in school history. It was the third-highest field goal percentage in a game in NCAA Division I this season (min. 15 FGs attempted).
• With her 16 made field goals at Oklahoma, Lee set the school record for field goals made in a conference game and the fourth-most field goals made in a game in program history.

K-State Faces Texas Tech in 2021 Phillips 66 Big 12 Championship

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Players Mentioned

Christianna Carr

Emilee Ebert

Cymone Goodrich

Sydney Goodson

Ayoka Lee

Laura Macke

Rachel Ranke

Kansas State University Athletics