Kansas State women’s basketball got off to a rough start in Big 12 play, falling 77-55 to No. 9 TCU Saturday afternoon in a game that was close early, but eventually was put out of reach.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Wildcats, one of the youngest teams in the country, couldn\u2019t find a foothold against the Horned Frogs, the oldest and most experienced team in the nation, and K-State faded through the final three quarters while TCU soared.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“(TCU) is really good,” head coach Jeff Mittie said in a statement. “They’re very veteran. They play that way, and we don’t play that way right now. We’ve got to grow up quicker. We’ve got to play beyond our years right now, and we have not done that well enough, particularly against a team like them.\u201d<\/p>\n
How it happened<\/strong><\/p>\n K-State (7-7, 0-1 Big 12) came out strong early and led by as much as four at multiple points before six unanswered points to close the quarter, giving the Horned Frogs (13-0, 1-0) a 20-15 advantage heading into the second period.<\/p>\n A 9-2 spurt to start the quarter pushed TCU\u2019s lead to double-digits, 29-17, but a quick five points by the Wildcats cut the deficit to seven.<\/p>\n From there, the Wildcats went 4:37 without a bucket, while TCU\u2019s lead grew to as much as 15.<\/p>\n Freshman forward Brandie Harrod got a layup to go in at the buzzer, cutting the TCU lead to 13, 39-26, at the half.<\/p>\n Things did not improve in the third quarter as K-State was nearly outscored 2-to-1 while TCU\u2019s lead eclipsed 20.<\/p>\n K-State got as close as 17 in the fourth quarter, but no closer, as the Horned Frogs’ lead grew to as much as 24 down the stretch.<\/p>\n Junior Taryn Sides and sophomore Jenessa Cotton were the only two Wildcats in double-figures, scoring 10 points each.<\/p>\n “I thought Jenessa (Cotton) had really good moments in today’s game,” Mittie said. “I thought she battled in some stretches. I thought she really knocked that baseline jumper down that we spent some time on coming into this. I thought she had some really good moments.\u201d<\/p>\n Here are three takeaways from Saturday\u2019s loss:<\/p>\n Can\u2019t keep up<\/strong><\/p>\n K-State gave the Horned Frogs its best shot in the first quarter, shooting 41.2%.<\/p>\n But that would prove to be the anomaly, as the Wildcats ended the game shooting 33% from the field, including 4-of-23 (17%) from behind the arc.<\/p>\n TCU, meanwhile, shot 51% in the game and 38% (6-of-16) from 3.<\/p>\n Twin towers<\/strong><\/p>\n TCU\u2019s bigs wreaked havoc for the Wildcats down low on both offense and defense. Senior Marta Suarez (6-foot-3) and sophomore Clara Silva (6-foot-7) feasted on the smaller Wildcat lineup.<\/p>\n Suarez ended the night with 20 points and eight rebounds, while Silva had a 14 and 10 double-double with four blocks.<\/p>\n In total, the Wildcats were outrebounded 43 to 30 and were outscored in the paint by 18, 44 to 26.<\/p>\n Miles ahead<\/strong><\/p>\n Olivia Miles, the former Notre Dame star who transferred to TCU in the offseason, was as advertised for the Horned Frogs Saturday afternoon.<\/p>\n She ended the night with 29 points, one shy of her career-high, on 11-of-18 shooting with eight rebounds, four assists and two steals.<\/p>\n K-State struggled to eliminate driving lanes for Miles, and the senior had no problem getting to the hoop and finishing. She only hit 1-of-3 3-pointers, but was 6-of-8 from the free throw line.<\/p>\n Up next<\/strong><\/p>\n K-State will have some time off for the holidays before playing one final game in 2025. They\u2019ll host Cincinnati on Dec. 31 at 1 p.m. The game will be broadcast on ESPN+.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Kansas State women’s basketball got off to a rough start in Big 12 play, falling 77-55 to No.…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":461482,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5138],"tags":[5229,8019,1339,7371,7372,5976,11145,59475,27063,358,3187,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-461481","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-fort-worth","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-american-football","10":"tag-basketball","11":"tag-fort-worth","12":"tag-fortworth","13":"tag-men","14":"tag-ncaa-division-i-fbs-football-teams","15":"tag-tcu-horned-frogs-football","16":"tag-team-sports","17":"tag-texas","18":"tag-tx","19":"tag-united-states","20":"tag-united-states-of-america","21":"tag-unitedstates","22":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","23":"tag-us","24":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115755669594380814","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/461481","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=461481"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/461481\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/461482"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=461481"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=461481"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=461481"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}