West Virginia women coast past Kansas, 75-61

LAWRENCE, Kan. — Behind Naomi Davenport’s 19 points and eight rebounds, West Virginia earned its 20th win of the season by dominating Kansas 75-61 on Saturday in women’s college basketball. 

Tynice Martin added 13 points and seven rebounds for the Mountaineers (20-8, 11-6), who overcame 20 turnovers to complete a sweep of the home-and-home regular-season series.

Desperate to improve their NCAA at-large resume after back-to-back-losses, the Mountaineers led for the game’s final 37 minutes. The margin was 40-24 at half before stretching to 23 points in the third quarter.

Kylee Kopatich and Christalah Lyons scored 17 points each for the Jayhawks (12-16, 2-15), whose losing streak reached nine games.

Reserves Katrina Pardee and Kari Niblack scored 11 each, helping West Virginia to a 25-9 edge in bench scoring. Niblack added three blocks and seven boards in 20 minutes of action.

Theresa Ekhelar made all three of her shots from the floor and grabbed a team-high nine rebounds for West Virginia, which hosts No. 1 Baylor on Monday night.

The Mountaineers shot better from the floor (57 percent) than they did at the foul line (53 percent), but otherwise had no difficulty improving to 6-2 at Allen Fieldhouse and 12-2 against Kansas since joining the Big 12.