K-State women fight back but fall 82-70 against top-seeded Baylor

Down by 24 to the Big 12’s top seed and the nation’s No. 6 team, even hope seemed a reach for the Kansas State Wildcats.

But the Wildcats kept reaching, grinding, pushing, chipping away, turning what looked like an ugly rout-in-the-making into a tight finish and an encouraging afternoon for the eighth-seeded Wildcats. Oh, it was still a loss — Baylor hung on for an 82-70 victory in Saturday’s Big 12 women’s basketball tournament quarterfinal at American Airlines Center — but it sure stung a lot less after K-State made the Bears sweat down the stretch.

“I mean, when you’re down by 20, I know for a lot of teams it’s easy to just kind of fade out of the game and get a little bit funked up in the head,” said K-State guard Haley Tejada, whose three-point shooting and aggressiveness powered the comeback. “But you’ve just got to keep playing hard, and that’s why we were able to come back in and close that gap.”

The senior from nearby Frisco, Texas, scored 15 of her 25 points in the second half, when the Wildcats (18-13) outscored the Bears (28-3) 43-39. Among them was a long three from the right wing that cut the Baylor lead to 12 at 69-57 with 5:56 left and seemed to make everyone — including the Wildcats themselves — realize the game wasn’t quite over yet.

In fact, it wasn’t even close to over. Texada’s long shot was part of a 15-4 run that trimmed K-State’s deficit from 17 to six in a span of 3:41. When Breanna Lewis hit a follow shot that made it 73-67 with 2:53 to go, the Lady Bears were on their heels, and it seemed anything was possible.

Not surprisingly, order was eventually restored. Just 15 seconds later, Big 12 Player of the Year Nina Davis put her head down and bulled into the lane for a power layup that extended the lead to eight. With 1:54 on the clock, Baylor’s Imani Wright got the basket for a score and drew a foul, essentially putting an end to K-State’s upset hopes.

That Davis had a starring role in closing out the game was hardly a surprise. The 5-11 sophomore was a dominant force all day, scoring 30 points on 10-of-13 shooting, getting to the foul line 15 times and recording six of Baylor’s 15 steals.

“She’s very quick with her moves and very decisive,” K-State center Jessica Sheble said. “She’s crafty in how she gets in there and their guards to a great job of getting it to her. We had a hard time keeping her out of the middle.”

Davis’ presence inside put K-State’s post players, Lewis and Sheble, in foul trouble for most of the game, which only opened the lane for Davis even more. Still, when Lewis picked up her third foul with 6:01 left in the first half, Sheble provided a quick spark that kept the Wildcats in the game, scoring six points in her first two minutes.

Still, the Wildcats wilted in the face of the Baylor’s pressure in the first half, committing 12 of their 19 turnovers before halftime — the Lady Bears finished with 15 steals — and rushing into quick three-pointers. At halftime, they had hit only three of 12 threes and trailed 43-27.

“Our problems were the turnovers,” K-State coach Jeff Mittie said. “The pace of play was problematic for us in our decision-making, and I thought we were stagnant with the ball at times. We took a lot of 3s in the first half that were one-on-one type threes, just bad threes. In the second half we were able to move the ball better and make better decisions and consequently we got better looks at the basket.

“I thought our group played well together in the second half. I thought our group played at a championship level, a postseason level, and that’s what we’ve been striving for all year.”

Big 12 women’s tournament schedule

At Dallas

Friday’s first round

(8) Kansas State 57, (9) Kansas 49

(7) West Virginia 59, (10) Texas Tech 40

Saturday’s quarterfinals

(4) Oklahoma State 67, (5) Iowa State 58

(1) Baylor 82, (9) Kansas State 70

(2) Oklahoma vs. (7) West Virginia, 6 p.m. (Fox Sports KC)

(3) TCU vs. (6) Texas, 8:30 p.m. (Fox Sports KC)

Sunday’s semifinals

(4) Oklahoma State vs. (1) Baylor, 1:30 (Fox Sports 1)

Oklahoma-West Virginia winner vs. TCU-Texas winner, 4 p.m. (Fox Sports 1)

Monday’s championship

Semifinal winners, 8 p.m. (Fox Sports 1)

This story was originally published March 7, 2015 at 6:44 PM with the headline "K-State women fight back but fall 82-70 against top-seeded Baylor."