BYU throttled by Kansas 77-53 in Big 12 women's tournament opener

KANSAS CITY — The third time was hardly charming for BYU women's basketball in the Cougars' Big 12 Tournament opener, but it may have been for Kansas.

Zakiyah Franklin had 20 points to lead five Jayhawks in double figures, and Kansas held BYU to 28% shooting in the second half to pull away for a 77-53 win in the Big 12 Tournament at the T-Mobile Center in Kansas City.

Wyvette Mayberry added 14 points and teammate S'Mya Nichols had 13 points with five assists for the Jayhawks (20-11), who swept the season series before beating the Cougars for a third time in a postseason opener for both teams.

Amari Whiting led BYU with 13 points, four rebounds, three assists and two steals, and the program's all-time leading rebounder Lauren Gustin added 10 points and 17 rebounds for the Cougars (16-16).

Kailey Woolston, who has already received a church mission call to Baltimore, finished with 9 points, including 3-of-3 from 3-point range for BYU, but did not play in the second half after exiting the game on the final play of the first half and emerging from the locker room with an ice bag on her knee.

"When Woolston went down in the second quarter, it kind of changed our game plan," BYU coach Amber Whiting said after the game. "That was really hard to recover from. But at the end of the day, I'm really proud of my women for fighting the whole 40 minutes and doing what they do."

Kansas opened on a 7-0 run, but BYU responded with an 8-0 stretch, and Woolston drained three 3-pointers en route to the Cougars' 19-17 first-quarter edge.

But Franklin scored 14 points on 6-of-8 shooting in the first half, and the Jayhawks scored 5 points on six turnovers to take a 35-33 halftime edge after Woolston went to the locker room and emerged with an ice pack on her knee after exiting the game in the final minute of the half.

Whiting had 11 points on 5-of-6 shooting to BYU before the break, adding two assists for a team that assisted on just five of 13 made field goals.

But with their second-leading scorer sidelined with a knee injury, the Cougars could only do so much against a Kansas squad that already found multiple ways to beat the Big 12 newcomers twice during the regular season.

Whiting took on more of a scoring load, shooting 6-of-10 from the field in 37 minutes. But the Cougars got just 21 points from players outside their "Big 3," including 8 points from Lauren Davenport in a second half that saw BYU go just 1-for-9 from the perimeter.

"I'm proud of us for fighting. Things didn't quite go our way; we weren't making baskets, and Wooly going out took a big hit on the team," Gustin said. "But I'm proud of us for fighting and competing, even though we had a lot of adjustments we had to make."

The Jayhawks — a projected No. 9-seeded in the NCAA Tournament by ESPN that will play No. 6 Texas in Saturday's quarterfinals — opened the second half on an 11-3 run, holding BYU to just 1-of-5 from the field to open a double-digit lead on Holly Kersgieter's jumper midway through the third quarter.

After starting 5-of-7 from 3-point range, the Cougars missed their next seven attempts from beyond the arc as Kansas took a 56-45 lead into the final period.

The Jayhawks opened the fourth quarter on an 11-0 run to lead by as much as 22, holding Gustin to 8 points on 3-of-14 shooting before the nation's leading rebounder finished the game with her 30th double-double in 32 games.

The Cougars will head home after a short stay in their first trip to Kansas City, and hope for an invitation to postseason play, likely from the newly created Women's Basketball Invitation Tournament — the 32-team invitational backed by the NCAA and televised by ESPN that runs March 21 through April 1-3 at Butler's historic Hinkle Fieldhouse in Indianapolis.

The independent postseason WNIT, which runs March 20 through an April 6 championship game operated by Triple Crown Sports, is also an option.

"We didn't want to be done yet, so we didn't have much to say (after the game)," Gustin said. "We're hoping to be able to keep playing. We don't want that to be our last game, and that's our expectation for this team."

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