The K-State Women’s basketball team beat Washington State 50-40 in the first round of the women’s NCAA tournament today. K-State got off to a slow start and fell behind early, but kept plugging away and finally made some shots and got Ayoka Lee going to earn the 10 point victory.

Washington State is coached by Kamie Ethridge, who was an assistant coach at K-State for head coach Deb Patterson from 1996 to 2014. Oddly enough, Patterson sits on the bench and serves as the Director of Player Personnel and Program Analytics for Ethridge. Former K-State player Laurie Koehn has been an associate head coach for the Cougars since April of 2018, so there are a lot of familiar faces on the coaching staff for Washington State.

K-State will play number one seed North Carolina State on Monday at a time to be determined. This will be a difficult game for the Wildcats, but they are at least somewhat familiar with NC State….

“Well, if we get North Carolina State that was a lifetime ago in basketball terms. I mean, I think it
was our fourth game of the year, maybe fifth game of the year. You have some familiarity because you have seen them live in terms of personnel. But in terms of what they are doing now, where they have evolved to, I haven’t seen them play much. I will dive into that as soon as I’m done with you fine folks, and dive into that as quickly as I can.”…Jeff Mitte, 3/19/2022

JM: NC State beat K-State 90-69 on November 19th. Ayoka Lee had 19 points and 11 rebounds in that game and Serena Sundell added 21 points. NC State has a couple of 6’5″ centers to battle with Ayoka Lee. One of them, senior Elissa Cunane, is their leading scorer and rebounder, averaging 13.8 points per game and 7.7 rebounds per game. This might be a fun matchup to watch.

“It’s a tough matchup down there on the block. [Lee] scored 61 against Oklahoma, that’s scary. If they are hitting 3s around her, it’s really tough. … She’s a great player, I’ll tell you. And it’s going to be a big challenge for us. They are kind of young on the perimeter, but they got a lot of kids that can really shoot the three. That’s what worries you, is when they have the inside out combination. That’s the way we try to be. That’s the way we want to be. They are built similar to us, and [Lee]’s a tough matchup.”…North Carolina State head coach Wes Moore, 3/19/22

JM: The key to K-State keeping this game close is for a couple of K-State players to get hot from the outside to help Lee. Most teams are double or even triple-teaming her down on the block and daring K-State to hit shots from the outside. If K-State has trouble hitting shots, this one could get ugly. If they make some shots, they can keep it close.

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