The University of Texas at Austin Athletics
University of Texas
16-10,8-6Big 12
Kansas State
13-12,7-7Big 12
Women’s Basketball falls to K-State, 60-54
02.22.2020 | Women's Basketball
Last-minute comeback falls short for the Longhorns.
AUSTIN, Texas – A last-minute Texas comeback fell short, giving Kansas State a 60-54 win in a hard-fought Big 12 Conference game on Saturday afternoon at the Frank Erwin Center.
Charli Collier scored 17 and Joyner Holmes 14 to lead the Longhorns (16-10, 8-6). Lashann Higgs scored 11. Akoya Lee and Angela Harris scored 18 and 15, respectively, for the Wildcats (13-12, 7-7).
Collier scored 11 of Texas' points in a close, competitive first quarter that ended in a 19-19 deadlock. K-State took an early six-point lead, but the Longhorns battled back to grab a pair of two-point advantages later in the period. The game was tied on six occasions.
In the ensuing action, K-State again took a six-point lead, but Texas cut the halftime gap to 31-29 in favor of the Wildcats. Collier led all scorers with 13 points in the halftime stats.
Texas raced out of the locker room to score the first six points, and 10 of the first 12, to take a six-point lead during the first five minutes of the third quarter. The Wildcats closed the Longhorn lead to 47-45 at the end of the period.
UT established a five-point lead at the beginning of the fourth quarter, but K-State rallied to lead by one, 55-54, with less than two minutes left in the game. With 50 seconds left in the game and the Wildcats leading by three, Texas got a critical stop -- but a pair of missed UT jumpers gave KSU the ball with 28 seconds remaining. KSU ended the game with three free throws.
KEY STATISTICS
- The Longhorns started Holmes, Sutton, Collier, Jada Underwood and Celeste Taylor.
- In the 40th meeting between the two programs, Texas now leads, 23-17.
- The lead changed hands six times and the game was tied on 10 occasions.
- K-State hit 40 percent of its shots from the floor. Texas shot 36 percent.
- Texas scored 30 points in the paint, 10 second-chance points and had 13 points from the bench.
TEXAS HEAD COACH KAREN ASTON
"I thought that for about 90 percent of the game, our game plan was pretty spot-on. Defensively, maybe 10 percent [that] we lost in detail gave them some easy buckets that they would have struggled to get if we handled that better. But I really thought the game got away from us a little bit when we were in -- I don't want to say control because I don't know if anyone was ever in control of the game. But I thought we had really settled in and we talked in the timeout about getting some consecutive stops. We did that; we just didn't convert. We could have extended the lead and separated from them a little bit and I think when we didn't do that. We gave them some confidence and then I think we lost some detail on their guards. We had a game plan to drop off of certain ones but we got lost in detail with that. But give K-State some credit -- they hung in there and made some plays late in the game that they needed to."
K-STATE HEAD COACH JEFF MITTIE
"Hard fought game. That's life in the Big 12. We've been in a bunch of these this year and we certainly are familiar with one-possession games with four and a half minutes to go. I think this year in the Big 12, there was a stat that came out that our league: I don't have it exactly right but II think we have the lowest margin of victory of any Power Five league in the country. I believe without having those numbers in front of me, if just watching the scores and following the league, you're going to be in these types of games all the time. I thought that Harris had a great look to her down the stretch. I thought it was key for us to get some good possessions, to have her have that kind of look. One of the things about Peyton Williams: She has a really rough day but you can always trust her and we trust her. We can trust her at the end of games; we can trust her at any stretch that she's going to try to do everything the right way and make the right play for her team. That's an incredibly valuable thing to have as a coach. We're fortunate to be sitting here but I don't think it's an accident. I think this team grinded this win out."
UP NEXT
Texas returns to action on Wednesday when it travels to Fort Worth, Texas, to take on TCU. Tip-off at Schollmaier Arena is slated for 6:30 p.m. CT on Fox Sports Southwest Plus. It will be available on radio at 105.3 FM in Austin and online at TexasSports.com/audio.
