Huskers fall to KU in first round of Big 12 tourney
KANSAS CITY, Mo. — If the Nebraska women’s basketball team had to argue that it deserved a spot in the NCAA Tournament on the basis of its latest performance, the Huskers would be better off pleading the fifth.
Opening the Big 12 Tournament against an 11th-seeded Kansas team that had lost its final five regular-season games, NU came out with a puzzling lackluster performance en route to taking it on the chin a lot worse than the 73-67 final in Municipal Auditorium Tuesday night would indicate.
“I thought we played on our heels, more than anything,” Connie Yori said after the unexpected and somewhat embarrassing exit left her team with a 20-11 record, and probably a little more anxiety for Monday’s announcement of the NCAA field. “But Kansas was definitely sharp, focused and they executed well.”
The Huskers are still likely to make the NCAA field for a second straight year, based on their overall body of work and sixth-place finish in the top-ranked league in the country. But this was nowhere close to what they had in mind for mid-March.
Nebraska fell behind 5-0 in the first 2½ minutes and never managed to get even.
The Jayhawks would go on to hit 29-of-54 field goals — the best shooting night against NU by a Big 12 opponent this season — and nearly had five players score in double figures.
Even more mind boggling was the fact that Kansas committed seven more turnovers (24-17) and yet got 33 points from those situations — 20 more than the Huskers did.
“They shoot 53 percent and we shoot 33 percent. Well, there’s a reason for that,” Yori said. “They got to more loose balls, until the latter part.”
But that came far too late for NU.
Although sophomore guard Vonnie Turner gave her team a lift by dribbling the length of the court to hit a looping right-handed layup right before the halftime buzzer to pull the Huskers to 30-26, they began the second half going 0-for-4 with three turnovers on their first five possessions and never completely recovered.
The Huskers were down just six after Kaitlyn Burke hit a three-pointer with 15:50 to play, then got a turnover and a point-blank shot for Danielle Page. But the senior forward, who missed 9 of 12 attempts, couldn’t connect, and the Jayhawks took flight by scoring on their next seven possessions to go up 52-35.
“I remember missing a lot of point-blank layups, but yeah, the game was frustrating,” Page said. “We just weren’t doing enough little things right on both ends.”
The 17-point deficit made for an extreme test of character for NU over the final 11:26, but there wasn’t any consolation to be had over making things interesting for a couple of moments in the final two minutes.
The Huskers — who beat KU by 20 points in Lincoln in January only to drop a one-pointer to the Jayhawks in Lawrence, Kan., one month later — used a full-court press to scramble back and pull to 68-64 on Turner’s three-pointer with 1:27 to play.
After calling timeout, though, Kansas came back to get a driving basket from Sade Morris to punctuate its 16th win and advance to tonight’s quarterfinal against No. 3 seed and 19th-ranked Oklahoma State.
“I think we’ve just got tired of losing and how we’re losing,” explained forward Taylor McIntosh, who led Kansas with 13 points and a game-high 11 rebounds. “We’re better than what we’ve shown ... It’s not like we didn’t believe we could win.”
While the Huskers might have had a similar feeling, their appearance on the court was contrary, and the penalty for that will be a longer wait to put a bad night behind them.
“I don’t know if it’s necessarily anxiety raising,” said junior forward Kelsey Griffin, who posted a 21-point, 10-rebound effort. “We went into this hoping to raise our seeding (for the NCAA Tournament).
“We just know we’ve got to get back in the gym and work on some things, and whatever ends up happening, we’ll be ready for it.”
Reach Curt McKeever at 473-7441 or cmckeever@journalstar.com.
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