photo by: Mike Gunnoe/Special to the Journal-World

Kansas guard Brittany Harshaw makes a 3-pointer against Iowa State Saturday, Feb. 15, 2025 in Allen Fieldhouse.

The Kansas women’s basketball team couldn’t overcome Iowa State’s all-around offensive display in a shootout at Allen Fieldhouse, losing 93-80 on Saturday night, as the Jayhawks dropped their fourth game in a row.

After scoring a combined 107 points across two games against West Virginia and Kansas State, the KU offense came alive in a 78-74 overtime loss against Cincinnati before topping that mark with 80 points tonight for its highest-scoring game of the season.

“It’s the third game of this season that we’ve shot over 50% and lost,” head coach Brandon Schneider said. “And that’s never happened to me in 27 years, so it’s very identifiable where we need to continue to get better and grow.”

While the loss was largely one to forget for the Jayhawks, who trailed by 20 twice, sophomore guard S’Mya Nichols hit two important milestones in her career. She became Kansas’ single-season free-throw leader with 196 through 25 games and recorded her 1,000th career point with her 19th point in the fourth quarter. She also recorded her first career double-double with 20 points and 12 assists.

Her teammate, Brittany Harshaw, finally found her stroke after an up-and-down season following her injury in late November, tying a single-game Kansas record with eight made 3-pointers and scoring a season-high 26 points — her previous high was 14 against Sam Houston State.

“It’s been a lot of ups and downs, so I knew this would come at some point,” Harshaw said. “I’m just grateful that it finally came today.”

“She was really confident, and I’d say she was very much demanding of the ball. Just had the confidence within herself to shoot it, and it was her day,” Nichols added. “And then I’m hoping next game’s her day too, and it just keeps coming.”

The Cyclones started out hot from the outside as the Jayhawks shut down entry situations to center Audi Crooks inside. But after Iowa State shot 11-for-22 in the first half on lots of backside kick-out threes, Kansas let up on the pressure on Crooks in the third and she scored eight points in less than four minutes.

The Cyclones were able to beat the Jayhawks in both situations, creating lots of open lanes for Crooks while also shooting 50% from deep in the second half, leading to the double-digit win. Crooks dropped 25 points after scoring only seven in the first half as Addy Brown landed one rebound short of a triple-double with 17 points, 10 assists and nine rebounds.

“I think that’s the mark of a really good team,” Schneider said of Iowa State’s balance. “They’ve got one of the best point guards in the league and in the history of their school in Emily Ryan and they have one of the best front lines in the country.”

Schneider made a couple of changes to the starting lineup, looking to get some size in against Crooks down low as he slotted Harshaw and Nadira Eltayeb in with the openers.

“We felt that Regan (Williams) and (Sania) Copeland might give us a little boost off the bench,” Schneider said. “We hadn’t got the kind of production off the bench that we needed, so in some regards, that worked out the way that we hoped.”

With the changes, Kansas got off to a hot start, as Harshaw and sophomore Laia Conesa matched Ryan from the three-point line. Ryan scored 12 of Iowa State’s first 14 points to make it 14-13. Eltayeb had some success against Crooks down low, scoring twice early as Crooks didn’t connect on a field goal until almost eight minutes into the game. A nine-point Iowa State run was the difference in the first. Nichols ended a two-and-a-half-minute scoring drought, but a 3-pointer by Addy Brown put the Cyclones up 26-17 after the first 10 minutes.

Iowa State continued its barrage in the second, continuously beating Kansas’ sunken zone with ball reversals resulting in open shots. The Cyclones’ bench got in on the action, while Harshaw kept the Jayhawks in an offensively competitive game as her fourth triple of the night made it 36-29.

“Whenever the ball was, like, sent into Audi Crooks, we sunk in too far, and it was just a kick-out 3,” Nichols said. “And they are a really good three-point team, so we had to really fix our backside from sinking in.”

It was then Nichols’ turn to lead the offense with some aggressive drives to make it a six-point game. The Cyclones scored five straight and KU’s Elle Evans beat the clock with a 3-pointer to put Kansas down 46-38 heading into halftime.

After KU held Crooks to seven points in the first half, she came alive in the opening minutes of the third quarter to give the Cyclones a 56-43 lead. While Iowa State relied on ball-reversal 3s for the bulk of its scoring in the first half, the Cyclones sang a different tune in the third, scoring 10 of their first 17 points from the paint.

Then their game plan from the first half returned, as weak-side 3s against a slow-moving Kansas press brought them to a 69-54 lead. Evans kept the Jayhawks in the game, sinking back-to-back 3s, before a layup by Ryan put the Cyclones up 73-57 heading into the final period.

Crooks got Iowa State its largest lead of the night with back-to-back layups to start the fourth, making it a 20-point game. Harshaw and Nichols kept the Jayhawks in contention, scoring 10 of Kansas’ 12 first points of the quarter. A 3-pointer by Sydney Harris that got her to 17 points off the bench put the Cyclones up 20 once again, before Harshaw and Conesa grabbed three triples to make the final score more palatable at 93-80.

“Our offense really isn’t the problem right now,” Nichols said postgame. “It’s our defense, and we just have to keep working on that side of things to come up with the dub.”

The Jayhawks, who fell to 14-11 overall and 4-10 in Big 12 play, will look to improve their defense in Monday’s practice before taking on UCF on Tuesday at 6:30 p.m. in a quick turnaround at Allen Fieldhouse.

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