Senior Leadership: Kansas State Women Advance in Dance
By Stan Unruh
The Kansas State Wildcat women’s basketball team is one win away from the Sweet 16. They defeated Drake in Saturday NCAA tourney first round 67-54.
Jeff Mittie’s saw tough defense and a pair of seniors help his team end Drake’s 22-game win streak before a crowd of just over 4000 at Bramlage Coliseum.
This is the NCAA tournament. While the crowd was loud, I was surprised at the attendance.
The Wildcats have a nationally ranked team and fans in this part of the world don’t get to see the big dance in person every year.
As I recall, fans packed Bramlage for the UConn game back in December. Kansas State is among the nation’s leaders in average attendance and over 5,000 a game.
I suppose watching on line or ESPN hurt attendance.
If you stayed home, you missed the fun.
The Breanna Lewis and Kindred Wesemann show was great from start to finish.
Breanna recorded a double-double with 23 points and 11 big rebounds. She owned the paint on Saturday. Wesemann was especially strong, as usual, in the final quarter. The duo took over late in the contest.
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It was nervous time to begin the final period. Drake pulled to within 6 points of the ‘Cats with a score to begin the fourth quarter.
Lewis answered with three straight scores but the Bulldogs didn’t go away.
Wesemann hit a pair of big 3 pointers to put the game out of reach. She hit four shot from beyond the arc on Saturday. The team shot just under 50 percent for the game.
The Wildcats also forced 17 Drake turnovers and out rebounded the Bulldogs 41-26.
They’ll need all of this and more when they face Stanford on Monday night in the second round of the big dance. I hope Bramlage is sold out for this big second-round battle.