🏀 K-State Women's Basketball unable to finish rally against Texas

MANHATTAN, Kansas – K-State was on the hunt for a second straight win over an Associated Press top-25 opponent on Monday night, but (20/22) Texas held back the Wildcats furious comeback with a 62-52 win at Bramlage Coliseum.

K-State (5-4, 0-2 Big 12) trailed by 22 points, 49-27, with 2:42 remaining in the third quarter as Charli Collier finished a pair of layups. Collier led Texas with a game-high 27 points. 

The Wildcats did not quit, but instead closed the quarter on a 10-0 run to pull within 12, 49-37. Christianna Carr started the rally with a pull-up jumper and was quickly followed by a three-pointer from Emilee Ebert. 

Carr finished the night with a team-high 13 points and pulled in six rebounds. This was Carr's seventh game in double figures this season and her fourth game with five or more rebounds.

A pair of free throws from Cymone Goodrich and then Rachel Ranke ended the quarter with a 3-pointer to cap the run.

K-State was able to pull within eight, 51-43, early in the fourth quarter as Ranke knocked down her second 3-pointer of the night and Carr finished a layup to force a Texas timeout with 7:52 remaining.

Ranke tallied 10 points on 4-of-6 shooting and hauled in a team-high seven rebounds. The redshirt junior from Burnsville, Minnesota, also pocketed a season-high four steals. This was Ranke's third game in double figures this season and her third straight with five or more rebounds.

Goodrich then converted layups on two straight possessions to close the gap to five, 52-47, with 5:54 to play. Goodrich came off the bench to record six points, a rebound, an assist and a block in 15 minutes of action.

Texas (6-1, 1-0) would clamp down defensively by holding the Wildcats scoreless for a five-minute stretch and used a 10-0 run to go in front by 15, 62-47.

A late three-pointer from Carr and a steal and layup from Ranke provided the final margin. 

K-State ended the night shooting 47.2 percent (17-of-36) from the field, while Texas shot 33.9 percent (21-of-62). The Longhorns tallied a 38-13 advantage in points off turnovers, as the Wildcats were forced into a season-high 34 turnovers.

"Obviously the turnovers were our biggest issue tonight," said K-State head coach Jeff Mittie. "We just did not handle their pressure well at all. It didn't really matter if it was full court or half court. Either area of the floor was a struggle for us. It was everybody. When you look at the numbers, they are just awful. You look at the possession numbers, we only get 36 shots. We're like a soccer team, shots on goal. 36, I don't know that I've ever seen a number like that. When you have the turnovers that we had in those situations, it's going to be a rough night."

Following a break for the holidays, K-State returns to action on Saturday, January 2, as the Wildcats travel to Norman, Oklahoma, to face Oklahoma at 7 p.m.

Saturday's game will be broadcast on FS Oklahoma and FS Kansas City. The game will also be available on the K-State Sports Network and for free at kstatesports.com.


WHAT THEY SAID

JEFF MITTIE, HEAD COACH
Opening Statement…
"Obviously the turnovers were our biggest issue tonight. We just did not handle their pressure well at all. It didn't really matter if it was full court or half court. Either area of the floor was a struggle for us. It was everybody. When you look at the numbers, they're just awful. You look at the possession numbers, we only get 36 shots. We're like a soccer team, shots on goal. 36, I don't know that I've ever seen a number like that. When you have the turnovers that we had in those situations, it's going to be a rough night."  

On the turnovers...
"Our players have to be better than that. They have to cut harder. They have to be more physical and get better in that area. Certainly, we spent time on this. It wasn't as if we didn't spend any time on it. Collectively as a group, it wasn't very good." 

On Texas' physical defense...
"I feel like when it's a game like this, when it's a 94-foot game, officials tend to not want to call that bump 78 feet away, but then they do call the bump 22 feet away. The bump is impactful regardless. If you're going to call it at 22, it ought to be a foul 78 feet away from the basket. That sometimes is not the way it goes. You've gotta be able to play through that, and you've gotta be able to still run offense. I can go down the list of stuff. I'm not going to air that with you guys. I'll leave it at what I just said." 

On Ayoka Lee fouling out...
"She's certainly a big part of our offense, and to not have her on the floor is impactful. She's going to be a target, and she's going to be a target for another team to attack. We've gotta handle that as a team better, and she's gotta handle that as an individual player better. The fourth foul was one where she gets her hand in the back a little bit on a high pass. There's not much contact there, but that generally gets called because officials see that player move. I'm not sure. I've gotta look at the fifth foul, because they felt like the drive came outside the lower box. We thought it came inside, so I'll just have to take a look at the film on that one." 

RACHEL RANKE, JUNIOR GUARD
On the team's turnovers …
"I feel like a lot of it was just us being a little bit careless at times. I think we just needed to be more poised. Obviously they applied pressure the whole game. They pressed the entire game and we knew that was going to happen. I think a lot of it was on us for sure, and just not being fundamentally strong with it. The turnovers definitely killed us tonight."

On playing without Ayoka Lee …
"You've just got to learn to make adjustments during the game. There's nothing we can do about foul calls, so you just have to put that in the rearview mirror and move on. We just had to come together to play harder inside. We knew the test that we had inside, and we knew we didn't have Yokie, so we just needed to work harder together inside."

On how successful the team's zone defense was…
"I felt at times it was really successful, and I felt at times we were just a little bit late on plays. There's only so much that you can give up in a zone. I felt like we did better as the game went on. We plugged inside more and had more pressure onto their posts. For the most part, I felt like zone was pretty good for us honestly."

On if Texas' defense is the toughest the team has faced this season…
"In terms of the full-court pressure the entire game, yeah. The pressure they have on the offensive end, they're on you on the arc, they didn't make anything easy for us tonight.I would say so far, they definitely gave us the most pressure."

CHRISSY CARR, JUNIOR GUARD
On how the team can improve on inbounding the ball …
"One thing we were definitely talking about was composure. Composure got the best of us in a lot of situations. We let them speed us up in the backcourt a lot, including myself. I think we can do a better job of that and settling down, seeing the court a little bit better, that will open things up for us. That's our struggle with having a freshman point guard. I remember when I was a freshman and I got sped up. I still get sped up to this day, so I don't blame her. We've got to practice that, practice handling pressure better, because we're going to see more teams that are going to pressure like that. Going forward, that's probably what we need to work on."

On the game's physicality and foul calls …
"I'm the kind of person that never thinks it's a foul. I think I played a little bit too much pickup growing up. I think there's some fouls that we could have negated if we'd just stayed in front of the ball and did our job. I definitely think we kind of got fleeced on some fouls there in the third and fourth quarter. We're not going to tone down our physicality. We definitely have to change around and adapt to the refs, but we can't tone down our physicality because we're scared to get fouls. When Yokie steps out with five and we've got posts coming in that are freshmen, we've got to help them mature and grow up in that area; teach them through that and walk them through that."

On how freshman Taylor Lauterbach performed against Texas' post players…
"I think she did a good job of staying tall and staying composed. That's the biggest thing, playing against a good post, or playing against a good player at all when you're a freshman. What's going through your head is like, 'Oh my gosh, I don't want to mess up, I don't want to mess up.'  Our job is to just keep uplifting her and reminding her to do the right things, playing hard, and keep the main thing the main thing. I feel for her, because my freshman year I was going up against better guards, guards that were going to the WNBA, guards that were quick,  that were a lot older than me, and it's scary, so I completely understand it. I was blessed enough to have Kayla Goth walk me through that, so I want to be that helping hand for Taylor as well. I hope that our team is on the same page with helping. I feel like we've done a good job of helping her in those areas and to stay composed. We'll just keep doing that until she gets it." 


VIC SCHAEFER, HEAD COACH
Opening statement  …
"I'm just so proud of my team. They're my kind of team, my kind of kids. They just  showed tremendous grit and toughness tonight, coming on the road. I just thought they played so hard. I thought our guard play was really special, defensively. I thought Kyra (Lambert) was really good in the first half, she got into foul trouble, and I am sure that affected her a little bit. Ashley (Chevalier) comes off the bench and picks up where Kya left off. We had really good point guard play from both those kids.

"It's my kind of team. We missed a layup to go up 24 and the next thing you know it's a six-point game and you're fighting for your life and we didn't flinch. I look in Jo's (Allen-Taylor) eyes and, I mean, she's got it. She wants the moment. Charli (Collier) has 27 and six tonight and 9 for 11 from the free-throw line, and was really special. When we made our run and got it, she was doing a good job of finishing and getting to the line. It was just a great team victory. Our team is coming together, they're coming. We are nowhere close to being finished, but we are getting better and I think that's what we all see."

On what led to Collier's maturation in becoming a player-of-the-year candidate…
"She's really a unique kid, very special, multiple skills and hard to deal with. Drake put two kids on her and she had two points at halftime and we had 59 at half. That's going to happen some nights. I think for her right now, she's enjoying winning. She's enjoying being on a really good team. We had to have her tonight, she had to answer for us tonight. I told her, 'hey, great players play great in the big games.'"

CHARLI COLLIER, JUNIOR, FORWARD/CENTER
On what led to her maturation in becoming a player-of-the-year candidate…
"I would say it has a lot to do with this coaching staff. I wasn't really big on defense in my prior seasons. I've definitely grown a lot in a lot of areas, especially playing and defending the floor when we have a smaller lineup and I am at the four and Lauren (Ebo) is at the five. A lot of credit to the coaching staff helping me develop that side of my game. As everyone knows, I can score offensively but what I do on the defensive side definitely helps our team more. It really is good to see that is paying off and I'm getting better at defending more.

On Joanne Allen-Taylor's growth over the past year…
"I feel like Jo is more confident now. I feel like last year was a role player but now she knows she has to have the ball in her hand. And she has the ball in her hand, she can get to her spot every time. That's stuff we work on in practice and she knows she can get to her spot any time that she can. It makes her hard to guard especially when she's playing defense. She's like a gnat."