FEBRUARY, 2006: Sometimes young teams do this to you. Kansas State’s freshman Shalee Lehning stood at the free-throw line with 7.5 seconds remaining in regulation and the score tied against Texas. Lehning, who came into the game shooting just 55.3 percent from the line, missed both free throws. The Wildcats got another chance when the rebound resulted in a held ball. But Claire Coggins couldn’t connect on a baseline jumper and the game went to overtime.
Texas owned a three-point lead with a few seconds left in the overtime when freshman JoAnn Hamlin shot from just inside the three-point line. The ball went in, but the buzzer signified the end of the game.
“It was just-you don’t know where you are on the court sometimes,” Hamlin said. “That was my bad. I wish I would have stepped back and hit that (3-point shot).”
Head coach Deb Patterson was upbeat after the game, even with the loss.
“It was a great Big 12 basketball game by both teams,” she said. “It’s really impressive to me that our team stepped into this environment and put ourselves in a position to extend the game into overtime and literally fought to the last basket. I’m just so proud of how everyone competed today, in spite of the fact that we came up short.”
There will be more days like this for Patterson and her young squad-both from a positive standpoint and a negative one. They’ll lose some close games when they have a chance to win. They’ll also win games they have no business winning.
There will be more days like this for Patterson and her young squad-both from a positive standpoint and a negative one. They’ll lose some close games when they have a chance to win. They’ll also win games they have no business winning.
“I am thrilled with where we find ourselves right now,” Patterson said. “We’re so early in the season. We were picked by some very brilliant minds in the game to finish eighth in the conference, and that is an understanding of where the talent in this league is. Anywhere from eighth to 11th is reasonable. But if this team continues, through the many, many challenges ahead, to compete as well and hard as they have, then possibly we’ll finish above that expectation.”
Kansas State is in the first year of the “post” era. Kendra Wecker, maybe the best player ever to play at Kansas State, is in the WNBA (as the fourth overall pick). So is Laurie Koehn. So is Megan Mahoney. All three were in their rookie season last year after four stellar years careers in Manhattan. (Actually, Mahoney didn’t play because of a torn Achilles tendon suffered in the Big 12 championship game last March, but the Connecticut Sun thought enough of her talent to take her in the third round.)
The year before that trio finished their careers for Patterson; Nicole Ohlde capped a storied collegiate career and ended up as the sixth pick in the WNBA draft by the Minnesota Lynx. So how are the Wildcats doing in the transition?
“It’s been a really positive and fun transition, because we brought in a freshman class that is just extraordinary with respect to their intensity and their work ethic and the passion they bring to the gym every day,” Patterson said. “The fact that they’re as directed and committed and energized as they are has made the transition less stressful. While you may not have that all-American-caliber talent in them, you have that passion and intensity that every coach really desires.”
The freshman class is built around Lehning and Danielle Zanotti.
“Quite frankly, I have two freshmen who are probably the best leaders in the program with respect to their work ethic and their approach day in and day out,” Patterson said. “Shalee and Danielle have brought a real natural leadership to the floor, a lot of verbal communication and a work ethic that challenges everyone in the gym and elevates the level of play around them.
“They’re both verbal and they’re both run-through-the-wall competitors every second they’re on the court. Those are two players you never catch taking a break. You never catch them cheating or resting. If they’re on the floor, in practice or the game, you don’t blink an eye wondering if they’re giving 110 percent. That is rare. You can coach a lot of years without having one player like that and we have two right now.”
Patterson really needs her upperclassmen to step up now as well. Jessica McFarland is the only senior on the squad. Juniors Twiggy McIntyre and Coggins are in new roles this year-starters upon whom much depend.
“We are a team in evolution,” Patterson said. “We are becoming something and learning every single game we play. We’ve got players who have never experienced what they’re seeing. Our returners have never experienced the responsibility of carrying the load. They’ve never experienced the part of having the primary defenders from the opposition guarding them. In the past, those players were guarding Wecker or Ohlde or Koehn.”
The Wildcats have been up and down, no doubt because of their inexperience. They opened the conference season with a 53-51 victory over Texas Tech in Manhattan. That was followed with two straight hammerings at Missouri and Texas A&M. They followed that with wins at home against Colorado and at Oklahoma State before the loss to Texas. They ended January with a 73-64 road victory at Iowa State.
“(Those two big losses were) the reality of who we were at that time,” Patterson said. “We went to Missouri a very young basketball team for our first Big 12 road game. And they had no concept of what was about to hit them. I don’t think they responded very well to not making shots and to the level of athleticism that these young people had never seen before early on in the game.
“The next game, we went on the road to Texas A&M and played one of the most athletic and aggressive defenses in our league, short of probably Baylor and Texas. I expect that we will grow through those kinds of experiences. We’re going to be the type of team that gets hit from time to time with big challenges.
“What I like about our team is that they step into the gym the very next day after disappointment or a performance where they feel they could have competed better and they work and they’re hungry. They want to learn. They watch film and say, ‘Oh, we were close.’ They’re beginning to understand the mental aspect of competing. That’s a process as well.”
Where that process ends, nobody knows, including Patterson.
“I have no clue, and I am completely honest,” she said. “But I would like to think we have a great chance for finishing in the upper half and being one of the great surprises in this league. It’s something we’re aspiring to do. Whether when it’s all said and done we have the ability and the consistency and the leadership from our returners to make that happen remains to be seen. Right now our greatest lead has been from our freshmen. If we can get our returners to establish a strong sense of presence and consistency, game in and game out, I think we could be an upper-half finisher.”
And maybe next time, those free throws will go in..
David Smale is the author of 13 books on sports history, including four on
K-State.
Texas owned a three-point lead with a few seconds left in the overtime when freshman JoAnn Hamlin shot from just inside the three-point line. The ball went in, but the buzzer signified the end of the game.
