This is the second and final part of Kansan writer B.J. Rains’ behind-the-scenes look at the Kansas women’s basketball team’s trip to Waco, Texas.

WEDNESDAY, 8:55 A.M. — Kelly Kohn was the first player to stroll into the room for breakfast, followed shortly by Chakeitha Weldon and the rest of the team. The buffet was filled with eggs, bacon, sausage, French toast sticks and pancakes. Plus, there was a chef making omelettes in the corner of the room.

10:45 A.M. — The team pulled into the parking lot of the Ferrell Center and walked straight onto the court for the shootaround. The arena was empty, and the noise of basketballs bouncing on the floor and the players and coaches talking echoed throughout the building. They used the morning shootaround on game day to get used to shooting in the arena and to have one last walk-through of the opposing team’s offensive and defensive sets.

Because the game would be on CSTV, the announcers were at the practice. Play-by-play broadcaster Ann Schatz was asked what she thought of Henrickson and the job she had done at KU.

“She really has these kids thinking championship basketball in arguably the best conference in America,” Schatz said. “People have to be careful to not expect everything at once. Look at the players and there’s only one senior that gets minutes. The rest of them are underclassmen. And now they are her recruits, and they are getting to know the system. They will make big strides this year, tangible strides, because they already have. But next year, I think they could just be unbelievable.”

1:45 P.M. — After arriving back at the hotel, the team gathered again in the meeting room to watch the DVD scout tape that the coaches had given each player about Baylor. This was the third time that the players had watched the film, counting the one they were supposed to watch on their own and the time the players watched it in Lawrence before practice. Assistant coach Karen Lange was assigned to scouting Baylor, so she talked the team through their plays and players as Henrickson and others added their comments.

After the short film session ended, it was clear that Henrickson and her staff had done everything possible to get their team ready for the game.

The buffet was filled after the film session for the pregame meal. The buffet again consisted of a big salad and fruit, along with strips of steak, chicken, mashed potatoes, vegetables and spaghetti with meat sauce.

4:15 P.M. — The team checked out of the hotel, loaded the bus and made the eight-minute drive to the Ferrell Center for the big game. The players changed and headed out to the court to stretch and warm up, while Henrickson stayed behind in the locker room to write some final notes on the board.

5:20 P.M. — The team went into the locker room for its pregame talk with about 43 minutes remaining on the clock. Coaches Henrickson and Lange broke down the keys to the game one final time. Some players munched on oranges to get some last-minute nourishment while others just sat and listened. After the coaches were done talking about what the team needed to do to win the game, they joined hands with the players in a circle for a moment of silence. After days of preparation and hours upon hours of watching film and reading scouting reports, the moment they had been preparing for had finally arrived. It was game time.

6:05 P.M. — As Henrickson correctly predicted, Baylor’s Jessica Morrow did not start, but she did enter early in the game as a substitute. It looked as if the Jayhawks’ scouting and preparation had paid off when they forced two early Baylor turnovers by anticipating passes. After a short shot by Jacobs, the Jayhawks trailed the No. 6 team in the nation by only six points, 15-9.

Things went downhill quickly when KU’s leading scorer, McCray, went to the bench with two fouls just a few seconds later. The Bears put the game away with a 16-4 run with McCray on the bench to lead 33-13 at halftime. Even when McCray was in the game, she struggled to find a rhythm and made only three of the 15 shots she attempted.

The Jayhawks tried to mount a comeback early in the second half. They cut the lead to 14, but Baylor’s balanced offense and a 21-of-24 performance from the free-throw line put the game out of reach. The Jayhawks fell 59-35 to the Bears, struggling to get anything going offensively, despite the added screens to their offensive plays installed at Tuesday’s practice.

“I’m not advocating playing anybody one-on-one because that’s not how you beat Baylor, but when you have an offense that has six to eight different screens and at the end of that we still can’t get a shot,” Henrickson said. “We’ve got to be able to get in a seam, make a pass and take a shot. We never got inside of their man-defense.”

She also said, “We never took advantage of them trying to switch some screens.”

A key Henrickson had stressed multiple times during the trip was rebounding, and that turned out to indeed be a big difference in the game. Baylor had 25 offensive rebounds to the Jayhawks’ 20 defensive rebounds. Counting the three misses at the free-throw line, Baylor rebounded more than half of its missed shots, a stat that didn’t sit well with Kansas coaches on the trip back to Lawrence.

“It was offensive rebounding and transition opportunities for them,” Henrickson said. “We made it easy for them. They were good, but we made them look real good defensively. We just stayed outside and didn’t penetrate the three.”

9:05 P.M. — As a disappointed team boarded the plane for the flight home, a bag with a sandwich, chips and fruit was waiting. The food was the only way for some players to take their minds off the game.

Once the plane was airborne, most players slept or listened to their iPods. McCray, however, looked over the final stat sheet. She could only put her head down after the stat sheet confirmed the poor offensive outing.

“It’s real frustrating,” McCray said. “Our shots just didn’t fall. I don’t know why, but the offense just wasn’t in sync. They were switching every screen, and we just couldn’t find the right opportunities to score. We just couldn’t knock down the open shot when we had it.”

10:45 P.M. — As the plane approached Topeka, the captain announced that the weather conditions had changed and that it was snowing at the airport. As the plane started its descent, the ride started to get a little bumpy.

As the plane dipped below the clouds, players could barely see the ground because of the thick snow that surrounded them in the air. As the team began their final approach, they were told that the runway needed to be cleared and that they were being held up because of the snow. As the plane circled amidst the snow and wind, the pilot came back on and said that people were bringing de-icing equipment onto the runway and that it would take an extra 15 minutes or so.

Finally, after circling above the airport in the storm for more than 45 minutes, the team was able to land safely.

12:55 A.M. — Back in Lawrence, players slowly walked back to their apartments at the Jayhawker Towers as coaches and team personnel got in their cars to drive home.

Teams spend hour after hour preparing for each team they play. Whether it’s the No. 6 team in the country or a 2-11 nonconference foe, coaches and players work tirelessly to make sure they are as prepared as possible to win each game. The game itself is made of days of preparation and practice that led up to that point. So the next time you see a team take the field or court, take a second to think about what they did to get there. Or what it took just to get home.

—Edited by Samuel Lamb