Women’s basketball has high hopes for tournament

Wednesday, February 20, 2008

At the beginning of this season, much of the talk about the women’s basketball team was how it was going to build off a strong finish last season.

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Team/Conference Record/Overall Record

Kansas State 10-1 18-6

Baylor 10-2 22-3

Oklahoma State 8-3 20-4

Oklahoma 8-3 18-5

Nebraska 6-5 17-8

Texas A&M 5-5 18-7

Iowa State 5-6 16-8

Texas 4-7 16-9

Kansas 4-7 15-9

Colorado 3-9 14-11

Texas Tech 2-9 14-11

Missouri 1-10 8-16

Last year, the Jayhawks won three out of four games for a stretch in February and were the victors in five of their last nine contests. That team started 1-9 in Big 12 play before turning on the jets, making it impossible to recover.

This time around, Kansas soared to an 11-2 nonconference record before stumbling out to a 1-6 start in Big 12 play. However, the recent flurry — three wins in its past four games — gives coach Bonnie Henrickson’s team a chance to finish in the upper half of the conference and push for a berth in the NCAA tournament.

“The difference between last year and this year is that emotionally for these kids, they expected so much more,” Henrickson said. “Nobody expected much last year because everybody told them how young they were. These kids in this program expected to have a lot more success this year.”

Unlike last year’s team, this season’s Jayhawks had an excellent nonconference record against some quality opponents. Kansas played and beat Hartford, Indiana and Xavier — all currently in the NCAA tournament according to ESPN’s bracketology — and lost in Berkeley to a Cal team that’s currently projected to get a No. 3 seed.

Photo by Jon Goering

Junior forward Marija Zinic, junior guard Katie Smith and freshman guard Chakeitha Weldon laugh after teammate Taylor Macintosh, senior forward, stuffed a shot attempt by a Nebraska guard during the first half of Sunday's game.

Also, unlike a year ago, the Jayhawks aren’t solely dependent on two players.

Especially late in the season, Henrickson noted that her team became too reliant offensively on senior guard Shaquina Mosley and defensively on senior guard Sharita Smith. This time around they have a balanced attack on both ends of the floor.

“I don’t know at the end of this that we’ll say there were just two people,” Henrickson said. “I really feel good that it’s going to be a handful of people, and if it’s a handful of people it will not only be a good finish like last year, but we’ll be going somewhere.”

Postseason play was a preseason goal for Kansas but started to fade away with the sluggish start. Now that the tournament is back in the picture, sophomore guard Danielle McCray thinks it’s time for Kansas to address its biggest issue.

“The biggest challenge for us is the road games, but we have a lot of momentum from our last two games,” McCray said. “On the road we just need to stay together and play like we’re at home.”

Road games are the last big hurdle for the Jayhawks to get past because they’re currently 0-5 in Big 12 games away from Allen Fieldhouse. Still, it wasn’t expected that after such a slow start this team would be in a position where it could think about the postseason. Some, though, swear that they always thought this was going to happen.

“Honestly, I did,” Henrickson said. “I know you’re going to think I’m crazy, but when you look at January and February, I thought it was possible to survive if we didn’t lose hope and didn’t throw in the towel.”

Kansas has a chance to cure its road game woes tonight when it tips off with Texas Tech at 7 p.m.

— Edited by Matt Hirschfeld

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