It took a little bit to get going, but once it did, the Kansas State women easily ran past Lamar Monday night in an 89-61 win.
“We’ve got a lot of new pieces in there, so the chemistry of working together, everybody connecting, is just going to take some time,” head coach Jeff Mittie said. “We’re seeing better things every game, but it’s not going to be a straight line of improvement. … I think there were stretches of this game where it looked really bad, and there were stretches game where you saw it look really good.”
Both teams were even through the first quarter as K-State (3-0) struggled to get a stop. Lamar (6-of-12) and the Wildcats (8-of-16) both shot 50%, but the Cardinals (0-2) made up the difference by going 7-of-8 from the free-throw line.
That continued into the second quarter until an 11-1 K-State run opened the game up. The Wildcats held Lamar without a field goal over the last 3:49 of the half, and outscored the Cardinals 17-3 in that span to take a 48-32 lead at the half.
“I think the main thing was we stopped fouling as much as we did in the first quarter,” junior Taryn Sides said. “Coach Mittie said they went to the line 12 or 14 times in the (first half), and it’s hard to get going when you have to stop every other possession. So I think we just locked in better defensively, and we were able to push in transition and get into a little bit of a flow.”
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