Big 12 Tournament - Kansas State vs West Virginia: WBB Open Game Thread

Well, we have one more game of Kansas State basketball before this season of Wildcats basketball comes to an end.

Closing out action today is the MittieCats in Big 12 Tournament quarterfinal action against the lady ballers from Morgantown. The Wildcats, a 10-seed thanks to finishing 6 spots below their projected 4th-place finish, beat Texas Tech 75-65 last night to advance out of the first round of the tournament. It was a bit of a turn from many K-State games this season, as the Wildcats came from behind to take a lead, then managed to hold that lead after a Tech comeback, finally to pull away and win.

For example, against WVU in Morgantown back in January in K-State’s first game back from their extended COVID break, the Wildcats held a load against the ‘Eers, but gave up a big late run and let it slip away. In the return game in Manhattan, WVU held a 9-point halftime lead, but K-State fought back in the third but couldn’t quite make it and fell at home. And just about every other loss was one of those two scenarios (except the Baylor games, which, much like the men, were pretty much no-contests from the start).

So while technically this is a winnable game, this season’s trajectory strongly suggests this will be where the women’s 2020-21 season journey ends.

Today’s game from Kansas City’s iconic Municipal Auditorium tips at 5:30pm CT and can be seen on Big 12 Now on ESPN+ with Chuckie Kempf (play-by-play) and Brenda VanLengen (analyst) on the call.

If you haven’t subscribed to ESPN+ (and you can do so right here) or just don’t want to, you can listen to Brian Smoller (play-by-play) and Kristin Waller (analyst) call the game on select stations of the K-State Sports Radio Network, and also available online via the TuneIn App and at K-StateSports.com.

PROJECTED STARTING LINEUP

Kansas State Wildcats (9-17)

G: #2 Cymone Goodrich
G: #24 Emilee Ebert
F: #43 Christianna Carr
F: #13 Laura Macke
C: #50 Ayoka Lee

West Virginia Mountaineers (19-5)

G: #2 Kysre Gondrezick
G: #00 Jayla Hemingway
G: #3 Kirsten Deans
F: #12 Esmery Martinez
F: #14 Kari Niblack

Go Cats!

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