Game Story
Free throws, free throws, free throws. That was the difference today as the 5-seed, Western Illinois, defeated the 4-seed, Kansas City, 60-59. The Leathernecks move on to play 8-seeded Omaha tomorrow at 11:45am.
The energy that both teams came to play with today was high, knowing that their chance to get to the Summit League championship was, different, to say the least after Omaha’s historic defeat of SDSU yesterday. Fittingly, Western’s Grace Gilmore scored the first five of seven points for Western to start the game. Kansas City attacked the rim early on. Their first 14 points were all in the paint. The Roos led Western 19-16 after the first quarter.
Western’s Alissa Dins scored right away to start the second to trim the deficit to 19-18. Kansas City then went on an 8-0 run thanks to a three-point play and two free throws from Taylor Larson, and a deep three-pointer from Naomie Alnatas. Grace Gilmore ended a nearly 2 minute scoring drought for WIU after she buried one of her four threes on the day. She followed that with two free throws and the lead for KC was down to 27-23. Teams would exchange buckets, but Kansas City built their lead to ten, leading 38-28 at halftime. Western Illinois was out-rebounded 21-11 in the first half and was outscored in the paint 18-8. Grace Gilmore led the Leathernecks at the break with 16 points; Kansas City’s Paige Bradford had eight points and five boards in the first half.
Western Illinois came out of the break on fire! They started the quarter on an 14-4 run to tie the game in the first few minutes. Coach JD Gravina had his team fired up and ready to change the outcome of this game. The Leatherneck’s defense dialed it up a notch, or three, and suddenly you couldn’t tell that they hadn’t played a game in 22 days. I asked JD about that and how his team prepared after such a long layoff. He said that “If we had one advantage going into today, it was that we were the freshest team in the League. To keep things fresh the past couple of weeks we shortened up practices, but kept it as game-like as we could. I didn’t think we looked totally out of sync today.” He was right. Kansas City was held to 6 points in the third quarter and the Roos held a narrow 44-42 lead after three.
Most of the fourth quarter was pretty back and forth. Both teams shot under 40% from the field. The biggest difference in the quarter was free-throws. Western Illinois went 10-13 from the line, while Kansas City went 0-2. The game was either tied or a 2-point game during the final two minutes of the game. Western Illinois trailed 59-58 with 5.7 seconds left. Elizabeth Lutz drove to the hoop and was fouled with only 1.6 seconds to go. She would bury both of them to give her team the lead and eventually the win. Kansas City had a shot at the end, but a heavily contested layup at the buzzer did not go down. Lutz was asked about how she felt going to the free-throw line in that situation. She said, “I just embraced the moment. I had been in those situations before, like in practice so I just had to be confident.” Well, her ability to nail clutch free-throws has put her team just one win away from going back to the Summit League Championship game on Tuesday.
Although Kansas City had an early exit in this year’s Tournament, Head Coach Jacie Hoyt was extremely proud of the way her team handled this season. “I’m just so fortunate to coach an amazing, resilient group of young women” Hoyt said. She went on to say that her roster was constantly changing this year due to protocols that needed to be followed when a player was positive for COVID or was a close contact. “Chemistry took a bit longer this year because of COVID. We had an odd season of battling COVID because we had several players individually taken out due to COVID…we had to adjust with different rosters throughout the year.” Congratulations on a great season, Kansas City.
How’d I do in my prediction?
The refs let the student-athletes play today. No one really got into any kind of foul trouble today as I said would happen; I am happy to have been wrong about KC getting into foul trouble early. Western did get hot from the three-point line in the second half, shooting 46%; and they also went to the line a lot at the end of the game, ultimately being the way they won the game. I had Western Illinois winning by 5-10 though, So I was wrong there. I guess I should get fired, Todd.
Player Notes
Kansas City
Three players ended in double figures for the Roos: Paige Bradford finished with 12 points, 8 rebounds, 6 assists; Naomie Alnatas ended with 17 points, 5 rebounds, 6 assists; Mandy Willems ended with 11 points, 5 rebounds.
Western Illinois
Grace Gilmore led all scorers with 22 points, 3 rebounds, 3 assists. Danni Nichols scored 11 points and secured 7 rebounds. Evan Zars had a nice game as well with 7 points and 11 rebounds.
Some Stats before you go
Western Illinois shots 78.9% from the FT line (15-19); Kansas City shot 57.1% (4-7).
Kansas City out-rebounded Western Illinois 42-32.
Kansas City led for over 34 minutes today.
Western Illinois had 20 points off turnover; Kansas City 7.
Kansas City dominated points in the paint. Outsourcing Western Illinois 36-12