Kansas State University Athletics
Sunday, January 2
Manhattan, Kan.
1 p.m.
Kansas State University
11-2,1-0Big 12
68
vs
59
Baylor
10-3,0-1Big 12
1
2
3
4
F
Baylor
7
14
17
21
59
Kansas St.
18
11
20
19
68
K-State Upsets 10th-Ranked Baylor on Sunday
Jan 02, 2022 | Women's Basketball
MANHATTAN, Kansas – K-State used a big first quarter and a 28-point second half from Ayoka Lee to upset (10/10) Baylor, 68-59, on Sunday afternoon. With the win, K-State snapped a 36-game losing streak to Baylor with the Wildcats' last win over the Bears coming on January 27, 2004, in Manhattan.
The win was also K-State's first win over an Associated Press top-10 opponent since downing 10th-ranked Texas Tech on January 14, 2012, in Lubbock, Texas.
"I think it's a big one," said K-State head coach Jeff Mittie about the win on Sunday. "Baylor has had such a hold on the league that you can do that stat with a lot. It's kind of been the way. They've dominated the league, right. So this is a huge win against a program that has dominated this league over the last decade. So, from that perspective. Yeah, it's a big one for us."
The Wildcats were led by Lee with a game-high 32 points, including 28 points in the second half. She did her damage on 11-of-16 shooting from the field and a 10-of-13 effort from the foul line, 10 rebounds, three steals, two blocks and two assists. This was Lee's fourth game this season with 30 or more points and 10 or more rebounds.
Lee's 28 second half points are the most in a half since Brittany Chambers set the school record of 29 against Texas Southern on March 21, 2013. Among her 28-point second half, Lee set the school record for points in a quarter with 19 in the third quarter, surpassing the previous record of 18 by Kayla Goth on February 27, 2019, against West Virginia. Lee would outscore Baylor, 19-17, on her own in the third quarter.
Joining Lee in double figures was freshman Serena Sundell with 10 points and a game-high six assists. This was Sundell's fourth game this season with 10 or more points and five or more assists.
Overall, the Wildcats shot 51.1 percent (23-of-45) from the field and carded a 75.0 percent (18-of-24) performance from the free throw line. This was the third time this season K-State has shot 50.0 percent or better from the field.
Defensively, K-State held Baylor to its season-low for points and the fewest points in a game since scoring 56 at Iowa State on March 8, 2020. The Wildcats held the Bears to their third-lowest shooting performance, 38.9 percent (21-of-54), this season.
"I'd like to think we had something to do with them not shooting the ball well," said Mittie about the team's defensive performance. "I think that what I was pleased with was that the pace of the game was where we wanted it. They weren't in transition, which we wanted to get them out of transition. And so we talked about getting them, they generally are in transition about 25% of the game. We wanted to get them below that number. I don't know what the number says but my eyes tell me that we were able to do that pretty successfully and that's what we wanted to do."
K-State (11-2, 1-0 Big 12) used a 10-0 run to build a 10-2 lead with 3:16 remaining in the first quarter. The Wildcats held Baylor without a field goal for over six minutes before a layup from NaLyssa Smith with 2:56 remaining ended the drought.
After the layup from the Bears, the Wildcats scored eight straight points to build an 18-4 lead and force a Baylor timeout with 1:22 remaining in the first quarter. Rebekah Dallinger started the burst with a 3-pointer and was followed by a 3-pointer from Serena Sundell. Laura Macke forced the timeout with a driving layup.
The Wildcats would end the first frame with an 18-7 lead. K-State shot 50.0 percent (6-of-12) from the field and held Baylor to 23.1 percent (3-of-13) including an 0-of-7 effort from beyond the arc.
K-State was able to extend its advantage to 15 points on two occasions, as Taylor Lauterbach finished an old-fashioned 3-point play in the lane. After a Baylor tip-in, Cymone Goodrich answered with a mid-range jumper to give K-State at 25-12 lead with 4:31 to play in the second quarter.
A jumper from Jada Moore with 3:19 in the second quarter gave K-State a 29-17 lead. Despite four late points from the Bears, the Wildcats would hold a 29-21 halftime lead.
K-State completed the first half shooting 50.0 percent (11-of-22) from the field including 3-of-6 from beyond the arc. Baylor shot 30.0 percent (9-of-30) from the field and was held to their second-lowest first half total this season.
In the third quarter, Lee would score 19 of K-State's 20 points in the frame as the Wildcats built a 49-38 advantage. After Baylor (10-3, 0-1) cut the K-State lead to six, 31-25, with 8:21 remaining it was a heavy dose of Lee as she outscored the Bears 7-1 over the next two minutes to push K-State into a 38-26 lead with 6:20 remaining.
Baylor closed to within five, 38-33, with 3:50 to play but Lee went to work again pushed K-State into a 49-38 lead.
In the fourth quarter, K-State would build a 14-point advantage, 57-43, with 6:54 to play in the fourth quarter after a pair of Lee layups.
The Bears would cut into the Wildcat lead with an 11-2 run to pull within four, 63-59, with 49 seconds left. K-State would get a pair of defensive stops to halt the Baylor rally and then knocked down four free throws in the final 40 seconds to seal the win.
The Wildcats improve to 9-0 at home this season. The nine straight home wins ties for the longest home court winning streak in the Jeff Mittie era.
K-State will play three of its next four games away from Bramlage, as the Wildcats start a two-game road trip next week at Oklahoma State on Wednesday at 6:30 p.m. Wednesday's game can be seen on Big 12 Now on ESPN+ and also can be heard on the K-State Sports Network and for free at kstatesports.com and on the K-State Sports app.
What They Said
JEFF MITTIE, K-STATE HEAD COACH
Opening Statement…
"Well it was a good performance by us. I thought it was gritty. I thought defensively early in the game we were really locked in. Obviously, getting off to a good start for us was, I think, critical. I think coming out of the break, just the long break. I said this to somebody before, I think Matt was asking me, this break didn't feel as long to me as some others. Now that's really a credit to the team and that they've come in and practiced pretty well. They've come in and done things fairly well. When you're having to whip them constantly to do things, that's when you're like, 'Oh, geez, we got to get the games here.' We actually had an inter-squad scrimmage on Wednesday and while we weren't great in that, I did feel like our pace or tempo was pretty good. I felt like every player wants to play games. They really aren't that excited about inter-squad games quite honestly and yet we played fairly well and did some decent things. So I felt like our preparation leading up to this was pretty good and then I felt like our preparation as we got closer to the game was sharper, more engaged. We had a really good practice yesterday. Really good shoot around this morning so I felt pretty good coming in."
On how big this win is for the program…
"Well, I think it's a big one. Yeah, it's a big one. Baylor has had such a hold on the league that you can do that stat with a lot. It's kind of been the way. They've dominated the league, right? So this is a huge win against a program that has dominated this league over the last decade, you mentioned. So, from that perspective, yeah, it's a big one for us. Now, a lot of these weren't, we've got a lot of freshmen. They're coming in and they obviously know Baylor's reputation, but they needed to play Baylor's team today and they did. Not just them but everybody."
On Ayoka Lee's second half performance after only 4 points from her in the first…
"I'll tell you what, I felt really good about it. Yoki (Ayoka Lee) doesn't have to do it all for us. Every player but (Emilee) Ebert had scored at halftime okay, and so that was something we were thrilled with at halftime. We were thrilled by the fact that sometimes you go in and you've got like three players that have scored and you're like, 'Wow, we've got a whole team struggling.' But our team was engaged and I felt like Ebert was engaged. She gets one of the biggest shots of the game, that three at the top of the key. So, I really felt good about it. We knew that if we got Yoki touches in the second half, and we got her timely touches, we knew good things would happen. And they did and she really delivered. I thought that was one of the special second halves I've ever witnessed, 28 points in the second half. Just delivered in every area."
On the team's defensive performance…
"I'd like to think we had something to do with them not shooting the ball well. I think that what I was pleased with was that the pace of the game was where we wanted it. They weren't in transition, which we wanted to get them out of transition. And so we talked about getting them, they generally are in transition about 25% of the game. We wanted to get them below that number. I don't know what the number says but my eyes tell me that we were able to do that pretty successfully and that's what we wanted to do."
On how important the early lead was…
"I think probably just for our confidence and kind of getting our feet back in playing a game. You might ask them that question because from a coaching perspective, you always want to coach out front. But you also know that's not going to happen. So you're going to coach 40 minutes whether you get off to a rough start. It's a 40 minute game. The danger of starting off like that is sometimes young teams or teams in general think that 'Oh, we're playing great. We don't have to play the next 26 minutes.' I felt like our team knew that it was a 40 minute game. I don't feel like I ever sensed that mentality. But I thought it was, for our confidence coming out of the break, I thought it was a really really good start."
On if Baylor missing players changed their gameplan…
"No. We played with seven up at South Dakota State, we were missing two starters up at South Dakota State. But our mindset didn't change. Substitution was really easy, so you've got a group that knows they've got to stay out of foul trouble. Baylor was in that situation today and they had all their, certainly their top six that they've been playing. So really, I don't think that changed them much because they've been playing six most of the year. So that really doesn't change their rotation. Now for us, we've been playing 10 so when we have had that, that did change us a little bit, but I thought our group handled it well and we didn't change anything schematically against that. We didn't do anything differently than we'd already planned. But I felt like our group was focused on us playing well. I thought that we were focused on, it's probably a strength of our team to focus on what we've practiced and what we prepared. When we haven't been very good in stretches of a game, we've gotten away from that. But this team generally gets back to it pretty quick. And that's been a strength of our team."
AYOKA LEE, JUNIOR CENTER
On her second half performance…
"I think in the second half, it was just to stick to the game plan and stick to what we talked about at halftime. I wasn't really like, 'Oh, I've got to score.' We were playing well. And yeah, I think it's a big win. I think it just goes back to our team and trusting our preparation and then going out and executing."
On her mindset when closing the game out with free throws…
"Gotta make your free throws. I had confidence that our team could do it. We knew that we were in the bonus. We knew that they had to start fouling."
EMILEE EBERT, JUNIOR GUARD
On how the quick start helped their confidence…
"Yeah, I think it helped us a lot. Like coach said, we are a young team. So, a lot of our team hadn't played Baylor so they didn't really know anything different. For us though, to see the time we put in and our preparation, to watch that pay off, that really helped and to have a cushion like that built our confidence a lot."
NICKI COLLEN, BAYLOR HEAD COACH
On the slow start…
"I don't know. I won't give them that excuse. I think there are excuses in this game. I think we were short handed, but I think after Missouri took seven and beat South Carolina without their leading scorer in the game, I think it's hard for anyone in the country, quite frankly, to make excuses at this point about numbers. I think we certainly were open early and didn't make shots, and that's problematic, but we've certainly done that this season against opponents similar to Kansas State and fought back. I just felt like we were one run away from feeling good. We just had a hard time getting on that run. Every time we made a run and got it to six, we turn the basketball over. And so because of that, our turnovers hurt us to me more than our missed shots. If it's a missed shot, you have an opportunity to rebound, but a turnover you don't. I think we shot ourselves in the foot with our turnovers. I said going into the game on the radio, winning on the road comes down to taking care of the basketball and rebounding and we didn't take care of the basketball."
On Ayoka Lee…
"She's bigger. It's not a complicated game. She's bigger and there's a simplicity to her game. She doesn't try to do too much. She turns and she uses her size to get deep and then she uses her size to turn and score and she doesn't get cute. She doesn't try to do too much. With Queen (Egbo) in foul trouble, that impacted us greatly. I think that Queen has done a good job in the past of defending her. She's at least long enough and physical enough that she can play her different ways. We wanted to force her high. When she started in the mid post keep her there and if she was low we wanted to get on top of her and stay on top of her and I just think once Queen went out of the game I thought I thought Caitlin (Bickle) worked and then she got in foul trouble so we tried NaLyssa Smith a little bit. But there's a simplicity to her game and people don't realize that they just play differently than they did a year ago. A year ago, the guards were dribbling around while she was down there posting up and they missed her and they would go three or four possessions at a time without getting her touches. This year when they come down the court and she is in the game, they are going to try to give her a touch on every possession. There are no plays run for any other player on that team. Every action is to come down and overload and get her the ball so it becomes difficult when you have foul trouble against her. This was a game I wanted to play Cait (Bickle) at the three with Lys (Smith) and Queen (Egbo) and never could. I got to do it for about two minutes before Queen fouled out because I thought that could be a really good lineup against their zone for us offensively and I thought it would give us more size in the help side. But we just never got to do it because of foul trouble."
On Queen Egbo's early foul trouble…
"It affected our rotations all day. Even the fact that she got her third foul on an illegal screen hurt us because now I'm not starting her in the third quarter. So yeah, it affected us for sure. Cait (Bickle) battles and was frustrated at times. I thought they let her (Lee) live in the lane. We only got one three second call all night. If you're going to let that kid live in the lane and not ever have to get out of the lane then you're gonna have problems. I'm gonna be honest, if you were going to tell me that she was gonna have 32 points and 10 rebounds and we had to foul on the last couple possessions, that's okay. I think you can single her and give her 32 and I think you can guard everybody else. It was us fouling people on drives like some of the late missed plays where they flashed from the weak side and we were ball watching and they hit a little jumper at the foul line. We had an athletic advantage at every other position. Part of being in foul trouble and part of being down numbers, this is a team that you need to pressure. You need to pressure them. You need to make them uncomfortable. We turn them over 23 times like we did, and they average 16 a game or no actually, under 12 they average so we doubled up their turnovers today. But a lot of them were dead ball, and so it wasn't like we were getting in transition off of their turnovers. When we got live ball turnovers, we did pretty good things with them. But I think we could give up 32 to her and still win, but we needed to shoot the basketball better and we didn't."
On the team's slow starts…
"You know, I wish there was a magic answer to that. Sometimes people have asked me what halftime speech I gave so that they came out and competed at a different level? I think it's about are you ready? Isn't it different if Ja'Mee (Asberry) hits two open threes like she hits in the fourth quarter. If she hits them in the first quarter, I mean, Jordan (Lewis) got wide open threes and missed them. To me it wasn't that we didn't get good shots. We just didn't put them in the basket. My challenge as a coach, what I have to be better at is I've got to make sure that we challenge them all the time. Just because your shot isn't dropping doesn't mean you should make defensive mistakes. We have a game plan. If we know that the five is going to go left, we can't give her a driving layup or drive into her left when you know that's what we just talked about. I think we let the officiating and some of that bother us. We just can't. We just have to have poise and a presence and if they're frustrated with the officials, they need to let me be frustrated with the officials and get on the officials and they need to play. Maybe they miss some calls and they're going to every game. They're human just like our players are human. I didn't love a lot of what was going on. I thought they left Lee in the lane all night long and I thought they missed some three second calls, but that's just part of it. It's part of the game. You got to battle. If she's in there for 12 seconds, you gotta battle for 12 seconds. If she's in there for two, you gotta battle for two. I think we can control our attitude and effort even when our shot isn't falling and I thought we allowed the fact that we were down players and we had players not feel well that were playing but had all tested negative. We didn't have anyone out there, but people have colds. People are under the weather. I think we let some things that weren't on the court affect our ability today."
JORDAN LEWIS, BAYLOR GRADUATE TRANSFER GUARD
On the slow start being too much to overcome...
"I think it's not an excuse. Going into the season, we knew that COVID and other things or sicknesses and illnesses were gonna be coming around. I think at the end of the day, we just didn't shoot the ball well at the beginning of the game and I think it kind of affected us on the defensive end and we just have to learn from it. We can't let it happen again."
On Ayoka Lee…
"She's a good player. She's 6'7". She has a nice turnaround. She buried our post players. I think she's somebody who's hard to guard but I also think that the foul trouble kind of threw us off what we wanted to do and so we had to make adjustments and she was able to just continue to score, so we have to take that into the next game."
On starting games with a better sense of urgency...
"I think we can't let our offense dictate our defense. I think in all our losses, missed shots have led to other teams getting open looks or things where we have game slippage and forget to guard somebody a certain way. So I think we just can't let our offense or missed shots affect our defense early in the game like we did in our losses."
The win was also K-State's first win over an Associated Press top-10 opponent since downing 10th-ranked Texas Tech on January 14, 2012, in Lubbock, Texas.
"I think it's a big one," said K-State head coach Jeff Mittie about the win on Sunday. "Baylor has had such a hold on the league that you can do that stat with a lot. It's kind of been the way. They've dominated the league, right. So this is a huge win against a program that has dominated this league over the last decade. So, from that perspective. Yeah, it's a big one for us."
The Wildcats were led by Lee with a game-high 32 points, including 28 points in the second half. She did her damage on 11-of-16 shooting from the field and a 10-of-13 effort from the foul line, 10 rebounds, three steals, two blocks and two assists. This was Lee's fourth game this season with 30 or more points and 10 or more rebounds.
Lee's 28 second half points are the most in a half since Brittany Chambers set the school record of 29 against Texas Southern on March 21, 2013. Among her 28-point second half, Lee set the school record for points in a quarter with 19 in the third quarter, surpassing the previous record of 18 by Kayla Goth on February 27, 2019, against West Virginia. Lee would outscore Baylor, 19-17, on her own in the third quarter.
Joining Lee in double figures was freshman Serena Sundell with 10 points and a game-high six assists. This was Sundell's fourth game this season with 10 or more points and five or more assists.
Overall, the Wildcats shot 51.1 percent (23-of-45) from the field and carded a 75.0 percent (18-of-24) performance from the free throw line. This was the third time this season K-State has shot 50.0 percent or better from the field.
Defensively, K-State held Baylor to its season-low for points and the fewest points in a game since scoring 56 at Iowa State on March 8, 2020. The Wildcats held the Bears to their third-lowest shooting performance, 38.9 percent (21-of-54), this season.
"I'd like to think we had something to do with them not shooting the ball well," said Mittie about the team's defensive performance. "I think that what I was pleased with was that the pace of the game was where we wanted it. They weren't in transition, which we wanted to get them out of transition. And so we talked about getting them, they generally are in transition about 25% of the game. We wanted to get them below that number. I don't know what the number says but my eyes tell me that we were able to do that pretty successfully and that's what we wanted to do."
K-State (11-2, 1-0 Big 12) used a 10-0 run to build a 10-2 lead with 3:16 remaining in the first quarter. The Wildcats held Baylor without a field goal for over six minutes before a layup from NaLyssa Smith with 2:56 remaining ended the drought.
After the layup from the Bears, the Wildcats scored eight straight points to build an 18-4 lead and force a Baylor timeout with 1:22 remaining in the first quarter. Rebekah Dallinger started the burst with a 3-pointer and was followed by a 3-pointer from Serena Sundell. Laura Macke forced the timeout with a driving layup.
The Wildcats would end the first frame with an 18-7 lead. K-State shot 50.0 percent (6-of-12) from the field and held Baylor to 23.1 percent (3-of-13) including an 0-of-7 effort from beyond the arc.
K-State was able to extend its advantage to 15 points on two occasions, as Taylor Lauterbach finished an old-fashioned 3-point play in the lane. After a Baylor tip-in, Cymone Goodrich answered with a mid-range jumper to give K-State at 25-12 lead with 4:31 to play in the second quarter.
A jumper from Jada Moore with 3:19 in the second quarter gave K-State a 29-17 lead. Despite four late points from the Bears, the Wildcats would hold a 29-21 halftime lead.
K-State completed the first half shooting 50.0 percent (11-of-22) from the field including 3-of-6 from beyond the arc. Baylor shot 30.0 percent (9-of-30) from the field and was held to their second-lowest first half total this season.
In the third quarter, Lee would score 19 of K-State's 20 points in the frame as the Wildcats built a 49-38 advantage. After Baylor (10-3, 0-1) cut the K-State lead to six, 31-25, with 8:21 remaining it was a heavy dose of Lee as she outscored the Bears 7-1 over the next two minutes to push K-State into a 38-26 lead with 6:20 remaining.
Baylor closed to within five, 38-33, with 3:50 to play but Lee went to work again pushed K-State into a 49-38 lead.
In the fourth quarter, K-State would build a 14-point advantage, 57-43, with 6:54 to play in the fourth quarter after a pair of Lee layups.
The Bears would cut into the Wildcat lead with an 11-2 run to pull within four, 63-59, with 49 seconds left. K-State would get a pair of defensive stops to halt the Baylor rally and then knocked down four free throws in the final 40 seconds to seal the win.
The Wildcats improve to 9-0 at home this season. The nine straight home wins ties for the longest home court winning streak in the Jeff Mittie era.
K-State will play three of its next four games away from Bramlage, as the Wildcats start a two-game road trip next week at Oklahoma State on Wednesday at 6:30 p.m. Wednesday's game can be seen on Big 12 Now on ESPN+ and also can be heard on the K-State Sports Network and for free at kstatesports.com and on the K-State Sports app.
What They Said
JEFF MITTIE, K-STATE HEAD COACH
Opening Statement…
"Well it was a good performance by us. I thought it was gritty. I thought defensively early in the game we were really locked in. Obviously, getting off to a good start for us was, I think, critical. I think coming out of the break, just the long break. I said this to somebody before, I think Matt was asking me, this break didn't feel as long to me as some others. Now that's really a credit to the team and that they've come in and practiced pretty well. They've come in and done things fairly well. When you're having to whip them constantly to do things, that's when you're like, 'Oh, geez, we got to get the games here.' We actually had an inter-squad scrimmage on Wednesday and while we weren't great in that, I did feel like our pace or tempo was pretty good. I felt like every player wants to play games. They really aren't that excited about inter-squad games quite honestly and yet we played fairly well and did some decent things. So I felt like our preparation leading up to this was pretty good and then I felt like our preparation as we got closer to the game was sharper, more engaged. We had a really good practice yesterday. Really good shoot around this morning so I felt pretty good coming in."
On how big this win is for the program…
"Well, I think it's a big one. Yeah, it's a big one. Baylor has had such a hold on the league that you can do that stat with a lot. It's kind of been the way. They've dominated the league, right? So this is a huge win against a program that has dominated this league over the last decade, you mentioned. So, from that perspective, yeah, it's a big one for us. Now, a lot of these weren't, we've got a lot of freshmen. They're coming in and they obviously know Baylor's reputation, but they needed to play Baylor's team today and they did. Not just them but everybody."
On Ayoka Lee's second half performance after only 4 points from her in the first…
"I'll tell you what, I felt really good about it. Yoki (Ayoka Lee) doesn't have to do it all for us. Every player but (Emilee) Ebert had scored at halftime okay, and so that was something we were thrilled with at halftime. We were thrilled by the fact that sometimes you go in and you've got like three players that have scored and you're like, 'Wow, we've got a whole team struggling.' But our team was engaged and I felt like Ebert was engaged. She gets one of the biggest shots of the game, that three at the top of the key. So, I really felt good about it. We knew that if we got Yoki touches in the second half, and we got her timely touches, we knew good things would happen. And they did and she really delivered. I thought that was one of the special second halves I've ever witnessed, 28 points in the second half. Just delivered in every area."
On the team's defensive performance…
"I'd like to think we had something to do with them not shooting the ball well. I think that what I was pleased with was that the pace of the game was where we wanted it. They weren't in transition, which we wanted to get them out of transition. And so we talked about getting them, they generally are in transition about 25% of the game. We wanted to get them below that number. I don't know what the number says but my eyes tell me that we were able to do that pretty successfully and that's what we wanted to do."
On how important the early lead was…
"I think probably just for our confidence and kind of getting our feet back in playing a game. You might ask them that question because from a coaching perspective, you always want to coach out front. But you also know that's not going to happen. So you're going to coach 40 minutes whether you get off to a rough start. It's a 40 minute game. The danger of starting off like that is sometimes young teams or teams in general think that 'Oh, we're playing great. We don't have to play the next 26 minutes.' I felt like our team knew that it was a 40 minute game. I don't feel like I ever sensed that mentality. But I thought it was, for our confidence coming out of the break, I thought it was a really really good start."
On if Baylor missing players changed their gameplan…
"No. We played with seven up at South Dakota State, we were missing two starters up at South Dakota State. But our mindset didn't change. Substitution was really easy, so you've got a group that knows they've got to stay out of foul trouble. Baylor was in that situation today and they had all their, certainly their top six that they've been playing. So really, I don't think that changed them much because they've been playing six most of the year. So that really doesn't change their rotation. Now for us, we've been playing 10 so when we have had that, that did change us a little bit, but I thought our group handled it well and we didn't change anything schematically against that. We didn't do anything differently than we'd already planned. But I felt like our group was focused on us playing well. I thought that we were focused on, it's probably a strength of our team to focus on what we've practiced and what we prepared. When we haven't been very good in stretches of a game, we've gotten away from that. But this team generally gets back to it pretty quick. And that's been a strength of our team."
AYOKA LEE, JUNIOR CENTER
On her second half performance…
"I think in the second half, it was just to stick to the game plan and stick to what we talked about at halftime. I wasn't really like, 'Oh, I've got to score.' We were playing well. And yeah, I think it's a big win. I think it just goes back to our team and trusting our preparation and then going out and executing."
On her mindset when closing the game out with free throws…
"Gotta make your free throws. I had confidence that our team could do it. We knew that we were in the bonus. We knew that they had to start fouling."
EMILEE EBERT, JUNIOR GUARD
On how the quick start helped their confidence…
"Yeah, I think it helped us a lot. Like coach said, we are a young team. So, a lot of our team hadn't played Baylor so they didn't really know anything different. For us though, to see the time we put in and our preparation, to watch that pay off, that really helped and to have a cushion like that built our confidence a lot."
NICKI COLLEN, BAYLOR HEAD COACH
On the slow start…
"I don't know. I won't give them that excuse. I think there are excuses in this game. I think we were short handed, but I think after Missouri took seven and beat South Carolina without their leading scorer in the game, I think it's hard for anyone in the country, quite frankly, to make excuses at this point about numbers. I think we certainly were open early and didn't make shots, and that's problematic, but we've certainly done that this season against opponents similar to Kansas State and fought back. I just felt like we were one run away from feeling good. We just had a hard time getting on that run. Every time we made a run and got it to six, we turn the basketball over. And so because of that, our turnovers hurt us to me more than our missed shots. If it's a missed shot, you have an opportunity to rebound, but a turnover you don't. I think we shot ourselves in the foot with our turnovers. I said going into the game on the radio, winning on the road comes down to taking care of the basketball and rebounding and we didn't take care of the basketball."
On Ayoka Lee…
"She's bigger. It's not a complicated game. She's bigger and there's a simplicity to her game. She doesn't try to do too much. She turns and she uses her size to get deep and then she uses her size to turn and score and she doesn't get cute. She doesn't try to do too much. With Queen (Egbo) in foul trouble, that impacted us greatly. I think that Queen has done a good job in the past of defending her. She's at least long enough and physical enough that she can play her different ways. We wanted to force her high. When she started in the mid post keep her there and if she was low we wanted to get on top of her and stay on top of her and I just think once Queen went out of the game I thought I thought Caitlin (Bickle) worked and then she got in foul trouble so we tried NaLyssa Smith a little bit. But there's a simplicity to her game and people don't realize that they just play differently than they did a year ago. A year ago, the guards were dribbling around while she was down there posting up and they missed her and they would go three or four possessions at a time without getting her touches. This year when they come down the court and she is in the game, they are going to try to give her a touch on every possession. There are no plays run for any other player on that team. Every action is to come down and overload and get her the ball so it becomes difficult when you have foul trouble against her. This was a game I wanted to play Cait (Bickle) at the three with Lys (Smith) and Queen (Egbo) and never could. I got to do it for about two minutes before Queen fouled out because I thought that could be a really good lineup against their zone for us offensively and I thought it would give us more size in the help side. But we just never got to do it because of foul trouble."
On Queen Egbo's early foul trouble…
"It affected our rotations all day. Even the fact that she got her third foul on an illegal screen hurt us because now I'm not starting her in the third quarter. So yeah, it affected us for sure. Cait (Bickle) battles and was frustrated at times. I thought they let her (Lee) live in the lane. We only got one three second call all night. If you're going to let that kid live in the lane and not ever have to get out of the lane then you're gonna have problems. I'm gonna be honest, if you were going to tell me that she was gonna have 32 points and 10 rebounds and we had to foul on the last couple possessions, that's okay. I think you can single her and give her 32 and I think you can guard everybody else. It was us fouling people on drives like some of the late missed plays where they flashed from the weak side and we were ball watching and they hit a little jumper at the foul line. We had an athletic advantage at every other position. Part of being in foul trouble and part of being down numbers, this is a team that you need to pressure. You need to pressure them. You need to make them uncomfortable. We turn them over 23 times like we did, and they average 16 a game or no actually, under 12 they average so we doubled up their turnovers today. But a lot of them were dead ball, and so it wasn't like we were getting in transition off of their turnovers. When we got live ball turnovers, we did pretty good things with them. But I think we could give up 32 to her and still win, but we needed to shoot the basketball better and we didn't."
On the team's slow starts…
"You know, I wish there was a magic answer to that. Sometimes people have asked me what halftime speech I gave so that they came out and competed at a different level? I think it's about are you ready? Isn't it different if Ja'Mee (Asberry) hits two open threes like she hits in the fourth quarter. If she hits them in the first quarter, I mean, Jordan (Lewis) got wide open threes and missed them. To me it wasn't that we didn't get good shots. We just didn't put them in the basket. My challenge as a coach, what I have to be better at is I've got to make sure that we challenge them all the time. Just because your shot isn't dropping doesn't mean you should make defensive mistakes. We have a game plan. If we know that the five is going to go left, we can't give her a driving layup or drive into her left when you know that's what we just talked about. I think we let the officiating and some of that bother us. We just can't. We just have to have poise and a presence and if they're frustrated with the officials, they need to let me be frustrated with the officials and get on the officials and they need to play. Maybe they miss some calls and they're going to every game. They're human just like our players are human. I didn't love a lot of what was going on. I thought they left Lee in the lane all night long and I thought they missed some three second calls, but that's just part of it. It's part of the game. You got to battle. If she's in there for 12 seconds, you gotta battle for 12 seconds. If she's in there for two, you gotta battle for two. I think we can control our attitude and effort even when our shot isn't falling and I thought we allowed the fact that we were down players and we had players not feel well that were playing but had all tested negative. We didn't have anyone out there, but people have colds. People are under the weather. I think we let some things that weren't on the court affect our ability today."
JORDAN LEWIS, BAYLOR GRADUATE TRANSFER GUARD
On the slow start being too much to overcome...
"I think it's not an excuse. Going into the season, we knew that COVID and other things or sicknesses and illnesses were gonna be coming around. I think at the end of the day, we just didn't shoot the ball well at the beginning of the game and I think it kind of affected us on the defensive end and we just have to learn from it. We can't let it happen again."
On Ayoka Lee…
"She's a good player. She's 6'7". She has a nice turnaround. She buried our post players. I think she's somebody who's hard to guard but I also think that the foul trouble kind of threw us off what we wanted to do and so we had to make adjustments and she was able to just continue to score, so we have to take that into the next game."
On starting games with a better sense of urgency...
"I think we can't let our offense dictate our defense. I think in all our losses, missed shots have led to other teams getting open looks or things where we have game slippage and forget to guard somebody a certain way. So I think we just can't let our offense or missed shots affect our defense early in the game like we did in our losses."
CATS WIN!
— K-State Women's Basketball (@KStateWBB) January 2, 2022
Wildcats take down #10 Baylor #KStateWBB x @NCAAWBB pic.twitter.com/WMi6wVTRFG
👏WAY TO GO WILDCATS 👏@kstatewbb UPSETS No. 10 Baylor, 68-59#ncaaW pic.twitter.com/p38kxZyipm
— NCAA Women's Basketball (@NCAAWBB) January 2, 2022
That Just Happened
— K-State Women's Basketball (@KStateWBB) January 2, 2022
📄 🎥 📊 from the Wildcats statement win over #10 Baylor > https://t.co/KuT48bwbzX#KStateWBB x #BeKStateGr8 pic.twitter.com/w5SXuDOaLZ
Simply The Best
— K-State Women's Basketball (@KStateWBB) January 2, 2022
✍️ Ayoka Lee #KStateWBB x @NaismithTrophy pic.twitter.com/AtUqnnvnvZ
Got the W #KStateWBB x #BeKStateGr8 pic.twitter.com/YCoB9wlI8g
— K-State Women's Basketball (@KStateWBB) January 2, 2022
Team Stats
Baylor
KState
FG%
.389
.511
3FG%
.300
.308
FT%
.647
.750
RB
27
30
TO
22
23
STL
10
7
Game Leaders
Scoring
Pts
10
FGM
3
3FGM
1
FTM
3
Pts
7
FGM
2
3FGM
1
FTM
2
Pts
4
FGM
1
3FGM
0
FTM
2
Players Mentioned
G
/ Women's Basketball
G
/ Women's Basketball
C
/ Women's Basketball
F
/ Women's Basketball
G
/ Women's BasketballG
/ Women's BasketballK-State WBB | Feeding the Band
Wednesday, September 10
K-State WBB | Postgame Press Conference vs USC (NCAA Tournament Sweet Sixteen)
Saturday, March 29
K-State WBB | Postgame Highlights vs USC (NCAA Tournament Sweet Sixteen)
Saturday, March 29
K-State WBB | Player Press Conference (NCAA Tournament Sweet Sixteen - USC Preview)
Friday, March 28