Kansas head coach Nate Lie felt some pressure to reach the Big 12 tournament at CPKC Stadium in his first year with the program.
“You don’t want to be the team that’s sort of the home team,” he said, “and then have to watch it from the sidelines.”
At the time of his arrival from Xavier, becoming one of the top 12 in a 16-team league seemed like a reasonable but still challenging goal — particularly as KU faced the obstacle of melding 15 returning players and 15 newcomers, coming off a lackluster showing in Mark Francis’ final year at the helm.
The Jayhawks got picked in a tie for 12th in the league’s preseason poll, further emphasizing their rather precarious status when it came to the tournament.
“We talked about it the first day it came out with the team,” Lie said of the ranking. “I wouldn’t be surprised if they’re still talking about it.”
Ultimately, KU made the tournament with room to spare. The Jayhawks (9-5-4, 6-4-1 Big 12) cruised in with four victories in a row, three of which came on the road, and earned the No. 6 seed in the 12-team field.
“Based off of the rankings that we were ranked before the season to now, we’re already proving that we’re a better team than what people think,” junior striker Lexi Watts said, “so I think we just need to continue that.”
They will play No. 11 seed Arizona State at the new purpose-built home of the KC Current on Wednesday at 5:15 p.m. (in a game moved earlier due to inclement weather).
“There was a moment where we’re going ‘Gosh, can Nate get this team in his first year … to a place to where we’re qualifying to play in Kansas City at home?'” KU athletic director Travis Goff said last week. “And forget about that. I won’t say this, but we’re all thinking about how do we make some noise in that tournament.
“That’s now a new opportunity, and to be able to do it at the home of the Current, beautiful stadium, incredible franchise, amazing leadership, doing awesome stuff in Kansas City and in women’s soccer is really cool, and I know this team is excited about it.”
The road to this early level of success for the Jayhawks was not a straightforward one. KU lost two of its three captains, Hallie Klanke and Avery Smith, to injuries at the start of the season. The Jayhawks dropped some matches on late goals despite drastically outshooting their opponents. When the Jayhawks fell in their Big 12 opener at home to Iowa State on an 85th-minute goal, Lie said, doubt started to creep in.
But KU’s 15 returners and 15 newcomers banded together over the course of the year, rallying around the core values of “unity, grit and gratitude,” goalkeeper Sophie Dawe, a two-time Big 12 freshman of the week, said.
“I feel like we’ve been united these past couple games,” redshirt sophomore defender Assa Kante said. “It’s obviously easy to stick together when you guys are doing well, but I think even before that, while we were having our ups and downs, we didn’t turn on each other, so I think that was very helpful to us being successful these (last) couple games.”
The captains have still found ways to contribute: “Honestly, it still feels like they’re on the field with us. They have so much support for this team and so much love for this team,” Dawe told the Journal-World.
Meanwhile, other players feel emboldened to become more vocal.
“You can see freshmen speaking up when you never knew that they would,” Watts said, “so I think that’s been the most inspirational thing about it.”
One on-field key to the Jayhawks’ recent upward trend has been what Kante calls their “relentless” press.
Lie’s stated goal to keep the ball in the opposing half as much as possible and force errors by opponents has been borne out time after time — UCF, for example, committed two early blunders at Rock Chalk Park and ended up losing 4-0 as a result.
“When we all press together, that’s how we’ve gotten many of our goals,” said Watts, a first-team all-conference selection, “and I think that’s what’s made us such a good team, and why other people don’t see us coming and they have no idea what the press feels like until you’re in the game, so I think it’s been one of the best things about our team.”
The Jayhawks will take that style into a Big 12 tournament bracket that requires four victories in 11 days.
First up is ASU. KU escaped the Sun Devils on the road on Oct. 20 in a match that featured “one of the more colorful conversations that we have had” at halftime, Lie said. The Jayhawks were coming off a 4-0 victory at Arizona in which everything had gone perfectly and it was “almost in some ways too easy.” Three days later, they conceded early at ASU and were lucky to find an equalizer before the break.
“When they see my urgency, and it doesn’t look the same as every halftime, (that) is important,” Lie said. “And we came out flying.”
Watts scored the game-winner midway through the second half and KU clinched its spot in the tournament.
“After the Arizona State game, the team was, I think, tired, but I told them I think we should celebrate this one more,” Lie said. “I’m not one for over-celebrating games, but that was a hard one, that was an important one, that one showed some grit and character.”
Now they play the Sun Devils (8-7-3, 3-7-1 Big 12) again with 10 days’ distance.
“I feel like we learned to not take them lightly,” Kante said. “They’re very tough competition and it’s also hard to beat a team twice.”
Added Watts: “We know we can do better than what we did last time.”
They’ll also be doing it vastly closer to home. A third of the roster is from the Kansas City area, and the Jayhawks are embracing the opportunity to play at the home of the Current.
“Getting to play at their facility, it doesn’t feel real,” said Watts, a Lenexa native, “so it’s super exciting for us, for our team, for the faculty, for everyone, honestly.”
If the Jayhawks beat ASU, they will advance to play a well-rested West Virginia squad on Saturday. That match would take place at 8 p.m.
“I honestly love night games,” Dawe said. “It lets you just sit in that feeling of playing. You’re not just waking up and you’re like, ‘All right, we have to play.’ It’s like sitting in that nervous feeling. I honestly feel like it helps me get ready for the game.”
The third-seeded Mountaineers beat KU 3-2 in Morgantown, West Virginia, on Sept. 22.
Sarah Buchanan/Special to the Journal-World
