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

The Kansas bench celebrates a 3-pointer by guard Elle Evans against Kansas State in Allen Fieldhouse on Sunday, Jan. 25, 2026 in Lawrence.

After starting conference play 1-6, Kansas women’s basketball has stacked consecutive conference wins.

KU blew out rival Kansas State 83-61 on Sunday afternoon in Allen Fieldhouse. The victory was the largest for the Jayhawks over the Wildcats since Jan. 30, 1994, when Kansas defeated K-State 77-50 in Lawrence.

“It obviously means a lot to our players and our staff and our program,” KU head coach Brandon Schneider said. “We recognize that it means a lot to a lot of other people as well, our community and our school and our alumni base, so it’s important that you play to the best of your ability and compete really hard, not only for your program, but for a lot of other folks.”

Kansas finished with four players in double-digit scoring, with freshman forward Jaliya Davis leading the way with 22 points and eight rebounds, her eighth 20-point game in her first 11 games at the collegiate level.

Davis, a Kansas native, said that she watched the game growing up and it was cool for her to make an impact in the game as a player. When asked if Davis prepared for this game differently than others this season, Schneider responded with a firm “Yes.”

Junior guard S’Mya Nichols was limited with a recent left ankle injury. She played 19 minutes and finished with one point. She exited early in the fourth quarter after aggravating her ankle while moving around a defender and had to be helped off the floor postgame.

Senior guard Elle Evans and senior forward Lilly Meister scored 14 points and 12 points respectively, and sophomore forward Regan Williams added 12 of her own. All three Jayhawk forwards with over 10 minutes played finished the game in double figures.

“I think we’re a really tight-knit group,” Davis said of the forwards. “We work out really well with each other, we’re always looking for each other on different plays, so just being able to work through each other and get to our spots. It’s really cool.”

Kansas State was led in scoring by junior guard Taryn Sides, who finished the afternoon with 26 points for the Wildcats. Fourteen of those points came during the first five minutes of the game.

“I thought she was in a good rhythm early in this game,” Kansas State head coach Jeff Mittie said of Sides. “It seemed like the basket was big for both teams early. Taryn certainly had a really good look, getting the ball in rhythm, I thought our team in that stretch was playing pretty good. We just didn’t have anybody else really ever look like they were comfortable offensively.”

Davis tallied the first points on the opening possession and Meister added on with a pair of free throws to give the Jayhawks an early 4-0 lead. Davis added to that total with another layup before Sides caught fire and score 11 straight points for the Wildcats to put K-State up by five.

Sides’ run was broken by Evans’ first 3-pointer of the game, but Sides responded with another 3-point bucket of her own, her fourth in the opening five minutes of play. Evans added a jumper in response and junior guard Brittany Harshaw collected her first points of the matchup with a make from beyond the arc to knot the game at 14-14.

The Jayhawks and Wildcats went back and forth, with the game tied at 21-21 with just over a minute left in the first quarter. Davis added a free throw to retake the lead for Kansas, only for K-State to reclaim it with two of its own. A layup from Davis with 18 seconds to go put the Jayhawks up one and they took a 24-23 lead into the second.

Meister opened the second quarter with a layup and Davis followed it up with a layup of her own off a turnover to extend the Kansas lead to 28-23. She then recorded two blocks in the same K-State possession, with Meister getting a jumper to fall on the other end and Mittie calling his first timeout of the afternoon with the Wildcats trailing 30-23.

Sides added another bucket to bring K-State closer, but a miscue on a rebound ended up costing the Wildcats as Kansas regained possession and Evans cashed in her second 3 of the day. She added onto that total with another a few possessions later on the fastbreak and brought Allen Fieldhouse to life. Back-to-back layups by Williams forced Mittie to use another timeout with the Wildcats trailing 40-27 with 4:48 to play in the second quarter.

K-State couldn’t find tempo out of the timeout, with the Jayhawks extending their lead to 45-27. The squads exchanged a pair of free throws before freshman guard Jordan Speiser added a 3-pointer and layup for the Wildcats to send them into halftime down 49-34.

K-State opened the second half playing a hard press on Nichols but she was able to escape and find freshman guard Libby Fandel in the corner for a 3-pointer to start the third quarter.

Kansas was able to answer every bucket from the Wildcats and the Jayhawks maintained their lead through the third quarter. Three consecutive drawn fouls by Williams added six points to the Kansas edge midway through the period and the Jayhawks were able to send the game into the final quarter leading 70-52.

Harshaw opened the final period with another bucket for Kansas. Later, just over three minutes into the quarter, Harshaw collected her second 3-point basket to push the lead to 77-54, and the teams traded misses for the next minute before K-State used its final timeout with 5:32 left. Davis brought her point total to 22 with another layup and the Wildcats couldn’t find any rhythm, as the Jayhawks piled the points on.

K-State tried in vain to mount a comeback in the final minutes, but the Kansas defense was on top of it, and the Jayhawks walked away with a 83-61 win.

Kansas (13-8, 3-6 Big 12) now heads down to Fort Worth to take on No. 9 TCU (18-1, 7-1). That game is scheduled for Thursday at 5 p.m.

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