Hawking Points: Career-high from Nichols not enough as Jayhawks fall at Bears, 69-61

The Kansas freshman gave her team a chance, but Baylor held them off to split the season series.

Four days after getting a critical road win over BYU, the Kansas Jayhawks headed to Waco looking for their 6th straight win. But the Baylor Bears had revenge on their mind after the Jayhawks won convincingly in Lawrence early in the season.

The Jayhawks were not able to replicate their results on either side of the ball in this game, despite a huge night from S'mya Nichols, who matched her career high in scoring tonight with 23.

Key Plays

It looked like the Jayhawks were going to be able to employ the same gameplan that allowed them to get a dominant victory in the first meeting, as strong defense and some timely shooting gave the Jayhawks a 9-3 run heading into the first media timeout. Unfortunately, the great night ended there. A 6-0 run by Baylor after the timeout tied up the game. Then a four point run by Nichols was countered by a 5-0 run to end the quarter, including two free throws enabled by a poor decision on a foul by Holly Kersgieter.

The two teams traded the lead in the first minute of the second quarter before Baylor ripped off a 10-0 run over a 6 minute period. From there, the Bears matched everything that the Jayhawks could muster to head into the half up by 9.

The third quarter turned into the Nichols show, as the star freshman scored 13 of the 19 points in the quarter, including the last 9 points for the Jayhawks. She almost single-handedly brought Kansas all the way back before a Baylor run to end the quarter pushed the lead right back to 9.

Baylor scored the first 4 points of the final quarter, before Nichols broke the streak with a couple free throws. Franklin tried to help the comeback with a couple three pointers, but an 11-2 run from Kansas came too late in the game. The Jayhawks could only get it as close as six points before time ran out on the night.

Eye-Catching Stat Lines

S'mya Nichols led all scorers with 23 points, also adding 3 rebounds, 3 assists and 2 steals. She was somewhat limited in the first half by foul trouble, but she was 6-11 from the field and a perfect 10-10 from the free throw line.

Zakiyah Franklin shot 50% on her way to 15 points, including 2 threes in the final period to give Kansas a small chance of making a comeback. She added 2 rebounds, 2 assists and 2 steals.

Dre'un Edwards of Baylor was dominant in this game, scoring 20 points on 9-15 shooting.

Kansas led in points off of turnovers 17-7, but was thoroughly dominated on the glass (41-29), in assists (17-9) and in bench points (35-0).

Area of Improvement

It's probably unrealistic at this point, but the Jayhawks need to start getting scoring contributions from their bench. On a night where Taiyanna Jackson was taken away by Baylor's defense and Holly Kersgieter couldn't find her shot, Kansas had nowhere else to turn, and the combination of Nichols, Franklin and Mayberry just wasn't enough to pick up the slack.

Takeaways

While Kansas didn't absolutely have to get this one in order to punch a ticket to the NCAA Tournament, this was their most reasonable opportunity for a statement win to put them squarely in the field. Now they likely need a huge upset over either Kansas State with Ayoka Lee back or the conference-leading Oklahoma Sooners.

Foul trouble wasn't the problem in this one, as Kansas was stifled most of the night through defense and were unable to play long stretches of good defense and good offense at the same time for nearly the whole game. If the trade-offs keep happening like that, then it is hard to see how Kansas is going to be able to stay competitive against the better teams.

Up Next

With the loss, Kansas falls to 15-11 on the season and 8-7 in Big 12 play.

Kansas comes home this weekend for the second round of the Sunflower Showdown against a healthy Kansas State Wildcat team. Tipoff is scheduled for Sunday afternoon at 1pm and the game will be broadcast on ESPN2 or Big 12 NOW on ESPN+.

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