University of Missouri
Kansas State
Missouri Falls To No. 8 Kansas State, 79-58
3/10/2004 12:00:00 AM | Women's Basketball
March 10, 2004
DALLAS - Kendra Wecker led all scorers with 25 points to lead eighth-ranked and No. 2-seed Kansas State to a 79-58 win over Missouri in Big 12 Tournament quarterfinal action Wednesday night at Reunion Arena.
With Missouri (17-12) eliminated from the Big 12 Tournament, the Tigers will turn their attention to Sunday's announcement of the NCAA Women's Basketball Championship Tournament Bracket. The 64-team field will be released during a 4 p.m. ESPN telecast. Kansas State (24-4) will advance to Thursday's 8:30 p.m. second semifinal against the winner of No. 3 seed Colorado and No. 6 Oklahoma.
Senior All-America candidate Evan Unrau (Fort Collins, Colo. / Rocky Mountain HS) posted her league-leading 14th double-double with 17 points and a game-high 10 rebounds, while senior forward Stretch James (Columbus, Ohio / Northland HS / Tyler [Texas] JC) nearly duplicated the feat with a team-high 18 points and nine rebounds.
Cold shooting plagued the Tigers, as Missouri made just 9-of-31 shots (29 percent) in the opening 20 minutes. Wecker had eight baskets by herself at the break, as Kansas State shot a blistering 20-of-30 (66.7 percent) to evoke memories of Mizzou's first-half shooting performance the previous night in its first-round win over Oklahoma State. Laurie Koehn hit five 3-pointers on the way to 15 points, and Nicole Ohlde added 14 for the Wildcats.
"Obviously, we're disappointed in the way we played, but we faced a great team that can compete for the national championship," Head Coach Cindy Stein said. "Early on, when we made mistakes, they scored, and when we played great defense, they found a way to score. Our hats off to them; they played great."
After James got the Tigers on board first with a turnaround jumper, Kansas State reeled off 14 straight points over the next 5 minutes - beginning with a pair of Laurie Koehn 3-pointers - to take a commanding 14-2 lead with 13:51 left.
Sophomore center Christelle N'Garsanet (Abidjan, Ivory Coast / Illinois Central College) broke the string with a jumper in the lane, then James hit a bucket the next time down. Yet K-State came back with a 11-0 run a few minutes later to push the Wildcat lead to 37-15. Unrau made a personal 6-0 run, yet Kansas State got three straight baskets from Kendra Wecker down the stretch to take a 48-25 lead into the locker room.
The Wildcats took it to Missouri to begin the second, starting with Koehn's fifth 3-pointer of the evening. In all, Kansas State used an 18-6 run to start the first 6:06 of the second half and take a 65-31 lead. Despite not scoring for a nearly nine-minute stretch toward the end of the game, the Wildcats held on through a 17-0 Mizzou run.
