There wasn't anything different about the K-State Women's Basketball team that showed up at Bramlage Coliseum on Saturday afternoon.
Same players that lost their last ten games, with two starters in Christianna Carr and Sydney Goodson watching in street clothes against Kansas.
Same coaching staff that had to shut down their program for a month due to COVID-19 precautions and keep the Wildcats together when less than five players could practice.
The Wildcats were so far behind the rest of the Big 12 in conditioning when they returned that there were games when Jeff Mittie told his team to simply dribble the shot clock down to ten seconds before running the offense. Anything to give his players a chance to catch their breath.
That team beat Kansas 77-66 in the 125th Dillons Sunflower Showdown and brought one of the most difficult two-month stretches in program history to a close.
🌻 Wildcat Victory 🌻
Game Highlights vs KU ⤵️#KStateWBB x Sunflower Showdown pic.twitter.com/3zqLTnoGqN
— K-State Women's Basketball (@KStateWBB) February 13, 2021
"Every day, you come in and give what you have," Ayoka Lee said. "It's what we've kind of been waiting for. It just feels really good to get one."
The Wildcats went wire-to-wire in their win over Kansas, jumping out to a 15-0 lead in the first quarter and holding the Jayhawks without a point for more than six minutes.
At their best this season, the Wildcats have a defense that can slow down anyone in the Big 12.
K-State is among the top three teams in the conference in terms of blocks, steals, field goal percentage against and three-point percentage against.
"It was a confidence builder for the entire group to be able to get off to a start like that in a rivalry game," Mittie said. "This stretch has [made it] really hard on our team to be confident."
College basketball is the kind of sport where something like "confidence" doesn't show up in the box score but can trickle into every part of a game. The Wildcats have one of stingiest defenses in the Big 12 and, before Saturday, it hadn't led to a single win in conference play.
Sure, the 'Cats would have taken a game where they caught every break and started hitting shots from Wamego, but it didn't happen against Kansas. That's never been this team's DNA.
K-State was the same college basketball team they've been all season against the Jayhawks: dominate on defense, get the ball to Lee and count on their playmakers to hit enough big shots to make up the difference.
The Wildcats finally made it happen for 40 minutes.
🌻 Showdown W#KStateWBB pic.twitter.com/wt0C2TqjJQ
— K-State Women's Basketball (@KStateWBB) February 14, 2021
"It's been a miserable three weeks in terms of just trying to help them and trying to play better. Some of the losses we've had, have been so close and so gut-wrenching, all those things," Mittie said. "I've been really proud of the group coming in each day and working hard."
Lee added another performance to her end-of-season award resume, with 28 points, 16 rebounds, seven blocks and three steals against the Jayhawks.
After missing a week in December with an ankle injury and sitting out a whole month with her team due to COVID-19 protocol, Lee is playing her best basketball of the season right now.
She's raised her scoring average in each of K-State's last seven games and a 28-point performance against the Jayhawks is certainly going to help that number keep climbing.
Give her 19.1 points per game and a 59.6 FG% that's the best in the Big 12.
Diving a little deeper, the difference between Lee's FG% and the next closest player in the conference – Oklahoma State's All-Big 12 center Natasha Mack – is greater than the difference between Mack and the seventh-closest player in the conference.
Lee is the most efficient scorer in the Big 12 and it's not close.
"I think our emphasis was to get the ball moving in transition, try to get easy buckets and to get it in from the top of the key," she said after the win on Saturday. "I think in some areas the guards did really well getting the ball into areas where [Kansas] couldn't get help as fast."
Lee's heroics haven't been enough to get K-State a conference win in 2021 – and it wouldn't have mattered against Kansas if Emilee Ebert didn't play the best game of her college career.
Offense ➡️ Defense
— K-State Women's Basketball (@KStateWBB) February 13, 2021
Frankfort ➡️ Manhattan @emileeebert6 and #KStateWBB up 23-9 after 1Q. pic.twitter.com/p5uEsq9LOj
Taking on some extra minutes with Carr on the sideline, Ebert was the key to breaking a Kansas press in the second half and getting to the free throw line to ice the game.
"Always feels good to get a win," she said. "We played really well as a team and we were all just in the flow of things. Everything was really fluid."
Ebert scored 15 points against the Jayhawks, while also doing work as a defensive stopper and grabbing a career-high three steals. That was crucial to the 15-0 start that would define the game.
"That was big," Ebert said. "We wanted to come out strong right away and we did that. To have that lead and keep our foot on the pedal was the main goal."
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