Houston guard Gigi Cooke (3) dribbles the ball down the court as Kansas State moves in to surround her during the first half of an NCAA college WomH
Houston women’s basketball fell to the No. 12 Kansas State Wildcats 74-55 on Wednesday at the Fertitta Center.
The teams entered the fourth quarter tied 51-51, but the Wildcats went on a 23-4 run to close the game.
“For 34 minutes, I thought we did everything we could to win the game until we started to go downhill,” coach Ronald Hughey said.
In the first quarter, both offenses started hot out the gate, as the Wildcats led 6-5 within the first two minutes of play.
Kansas State would then go on an 11-4 run to take a 17-9 lead with 3:40 left; however, Houston kept it close to trail only by six at the end of the quarter.
To begin the second quarter, the two teams went right at each other, with the Wildcats taking a 25-20 lead early on.
Kansas State would then score 10 straight points to take a 35-20 lead midway through the quarter.
The Cougars answered back with back-to-back jumpers from graduate guard Eylia Love and scored seven straight points to cut the score to 37-27 at halftime.
Houston found themselves down by 10 with 4:20 left in the third quarter. UH would then go on a 12-2 run the rest of the quarter to tie the game 51-51.
Houston went just 1-16 from the field in the fourth and went scoreless for seven straight minutes.
“Everyone wanted to play hero ball,” Hughey said. “We got away from what we were doing.”
Three Wildcats players scored 15 points, including graduate center Ayoka Lee, senior forward Temir Poindexter, and senior guard Jaelyn Glenn.
Senior guard Serena Sundell was one assist away from a triple-double finishing with 11 points, 11 rebounds, and nine assists.
The Cougars had two players reach double-digit points in the game. Love had 16 points, six rebounds and three blocks and graduate guard Laila Blair had 12 points, three assists and three steals.
With the loss, UH falls to 4-9 overall and 0-2 in conference play.
Houston’s next game is Saturday against the Arizona State Sun Devils at 6 p.m. inside the Fertitta Center.
