March 12, 2003

Box Score?|? Quotes?|? Notes

By JOEL ANDERSON
Associated Press Writer

DALLAS - Laurie Koehn handled the offense and Nicole Ohlde took care the defense. Together, the Kansas State duo created a night's worth of frustration for overmatched Baylor.

Koehn scored 22 points and shot 6-of-12 from 3-point range as the seventh-ranked Wildcats defeated Baylor 77-60 Wednesday night in the quarterfinals of the Big 12 Conference women's tournament.

Kansas State (28-3) had little trouble against an undersized Baylor team (20-10) that struggled to beat a mediocre Texas A&M team the night before.

The Wildcats held the Big 12's highest-scoring team to 18 first-half points - Baylor's lowest point total in a half this season - and continued to build on their halftime lead by firing away from 3-point range. The Wildcats had leads as large as 25 points on the way to their 11th victory in the past 12 games.

"Our concept was to work hard to defend the first shot and limit some of the touches for their post players," Kansas State coach Deb Patterson said. "It's amazing our team found a way to make enough stops."

Steffanie Blackmon had 21 points and 15 rebounds to lead the Bears, and in the opening minutes it looked as if the 6-2 sophomore might outplay Ohlde, the Big 12 player of the year.

Blackmon, trying to make amends for her four-point, six-rebound performance in a 65-53 loss to the Wildcats on Feb. 8, had eight points and seven rebounds in the first half. But she picked up her second foul with 4:50 left and sat on the bench for the rest of the half.

The Bears were outscored 11-3 over that stretch, and Kansas State went into halftime with a 34-18 lead. Baylor shot 20 percent in the half.

"When you have a presence like Ohlde, you get your shot blocked and that changes things," Baylor coach Kim Mulkey-Robertson said. "We couldn't play north-south, we had to play sideline-to-sideline.

"They're very difficult for us to match up with. We couldn't score and we couldn't keep up with them on offense."

Blackmon and Ohlde resumed their battle under the basket in the second half. The players scored their teams' first four points of the half, but Blackmon didn't have enough offensive help to prevent the game from turning into a rout.

The Bears pulled down a tournament-record 34 offensive rebounds, 55 overall, but couldn't overcome a 25-percent shooting performance.

"We dug ourselves a hole and we couldn't respond," said Baylor's Sophia Young, who had 13 points and 14 rebounds.

"It started off really physical and it kept that way through the game," Ohlde said. "It was a matter of getting to our spots and letting the game come to us."

Led by Koehn, Kansas State shot 10-of-22 from 3-point range.

Ohlde had 14 points and six rebounds, Megan Mahoney added 15 points and seven rebounds, and Kendra Wecker also scored 15. .