Kansas State University

The projections were out there. They were impossible to ignore. No. 5 seed Kansas State was deemed to be one of the biggest first-round upset victims of the NCAA Tournament. No. 12 seed Fairfield was projected to end the Wildcats’ season on Friday.

 

And K-State took that personally.

 

“I know we think we’re a good team,” All-American K-State senior guard Serena Sundell said. “We were confident coming in. I think we all knew we were capable.”

 

Led by Sundell and All-American senior center Ayoka Lee, K-State staged its most-lopsided victory in its NCAA Tournament history and recorded one of the most convincing first-round wins with an 85-41 thrashing of Fairfield at Memorial Coliseum in Lexington, Kentucky.

 

Sundell had 18 points and nine assists in 36 minutes and Lee had a 17-point, 10-rebound effort in just 15 minutes as the Wildcats, 27-7, advance to face No. 4 seed Kentucky, 23-7, on Sunday for the right to advance to the Sweet 16.

 

“What I was pleased with today is just simply that you play the game you’re in,” K-State head coach Jeff Mittie said. “You do the things necessary to win the game you’re in, and now we’ve got to flip that switch to Sunday, and we’ve got to put together a game plan against Kentucky, and that’ll be very difficult.

 

“Kentucky is an outstanding team, and they’ve got a lot of really, really good pieces.”

 

K-State has pretty good pieces of its own. The Wildcats made things easy by outscoring the Stags 21-9 in the first quarter and 29-6 in the third quarter, platooning lineups and saving Lee’s legs for a battle against Kentucky. Sophomore guard Taryn Sides came off the bench for 14 points and drained 4-of-8 3-pointers, and senior guard Jaelyn Glenn added 10 points and sank a pair of 3-pointers of her own.
 
Fairfield, 28-5, had won 22 of its last 23 games, and seemingly seethed with momentum coming off its second straight MAAC Championship only to end its season suffering its worst loss while producing its lowest point total in a game this season.
 
“Hats off to Kansas State,” Fairfield head coach Carly Thibault-Dudonis said. “That’s a really, really good team. Obviously, they played a lot of their season without their All-American post, and we had the honor of playing against her today. She’s a great player, but they’re a great team, with and without her on the floor.
 
“I think that’s a team that’s capable of making a run.”
 

K-State thoroughly dominated in outshooting Fairfield 51.3% (34-of-64) to 29.4 (15-of-51) and owned the glass 44-19. As for the Stags’ highly-touted dangerous up-tempo offense? It could never reach full gear due to a bevy of missed shot attempts and 19 turnovers.
 
The first and third quarters were huge for K-State as it widened the gap and then widened it some more.
 
“It was just good to get all 10 that played today in early, have some success, get a little bit of sweat going,” Mittie said. “Certainly, we talked about the start earlier, us having some early offensive success. I think that slowed their offensive push down and that was critical.
 
“But I expected Fairfield to fight back. That’s a team that’s won a bunch of games this year. They’ve gone on the road and won some Power 4 games. It’s a team that just ran right through their league. They made a push back at us in the second quarter, and I was pleased with our answer right before the half. Then coming out of halftime, we wanted to get some things reestablished and I thought we did that in the third quarter.”
 

Meanwhile, from the outset, all eyes were on K-State’s 6-6 force inside the paint. Lee made her 134^th career start and saw her first double-digit minutes since playing 13 against Arizona State on January 19. Lee missed 11 of the last 12 games (she played five minutes against Kansas on February 22) with a fractured foot heading into her final NCAA Tournament.
 
Lee instantly erased any doubts Friday by scoring eight points in the first quarter while applying a solid defensive presence against the shorter Stags.
 
“It felt great, yeah,” Lee said. “It’s been a minute.”
 
Lee, the school’s all-time leader in points, rebounds and blocks, scored her 2,500^th career point on a free throw in the second half.
 
“Our support staff, our strength and conditioning coach, did a great job just keeping everything where it needed to be while I was out because it’s been a long time, and it’s not fun going through that many rehabs,” she said. “They’re great, and they just did everything that we needed to do and put me through everything I needed to go through to make sure I was ready for this.”
 
Lee added, “I think I could’ve played more. There wasn’t, I mean, I don’t think any stretches where I came out and I was just, like, dying. I think I could’ve played more, yeah.”
 

Lee and the Wildcats will get their chance to play at least one more time as they prepare to battle a tall and physical Kentucky team that outlasted No. 13 seed Liberty 79-78 earlier on Friday.
 
“Obviously, the first-round opponent, you get that under your belt, it’s good,” Kentucky head coach Kenny Brooks said. “(Our Kentucky players) will have a different mindset, different emotional level when it comes to Sunday. So that’s the good part about this.
 
“That’s why you hear coaches right now say survive and advance. When I walk out of here, you guys probably won’t talk about this game forever. You know, we’ll be onto the next one. That’s what the tournament is all about. It wouldn’t be madness without stuff like this.”
 
And it wouldn’t be March without perceived slights.
 
Fairfield entered Friday as the popular media darling.
 
K-State responded emphatically.
 
Now K-State gets a second-round showdown against Kentucky for a berth in the Sweet 16.