Manhattan — Kendra Wecker missed her first three shots Wednesday night. After that, she was perfect.
The resilient freshman was 8-of-11 from the floor, including 3-of-3 from behind the arc, and scored 23 points and grabbed nine rebounds to lead No. 11 Kansas State to a 72-59 victory over Kansas.
"When you get open looks, you're going to take them, and some nights the shots are falling," Wecker said. "Sometimes they're not. I got a couple of easy looks on backdoor plays. I was just open and able to knock them down."
Fellow freshman Laurie Koehn added 21 as the Wildcats fought off two Kansas rallies and held the Jayhawks to just two field goals during a nine-minute stretch in the second half.
The Wildcats (18-2, 6-1 Big 12) have won 14 of their last 15 games. Kansas (5-15, 0-7) is 0-4 against ranked opponents this season and has lost seven straight.
Twice the Wildcats led by more than 10 points and each time the Jayhawks got within two.
"I think our defense broke down a little bit," Kansas coach Marian Washington said. "But we had some opportunities and we didn't knock them down."
After the Jayhawks cut an 11-point lead to three at halftime, Kansas State went on a 10-0 run to start the second half. But the Jayhawks scored 11 straight to cut the lead to two with 13:22 remaining.
Wecker answered with eight straight points in two minutes to fuel a 14-0 run that put Kansas State up for good. She also scored 10 straight during a 10-2 run in the first half.
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