MANHATTAN, KANSAS – K-State used a big third quarter to rally past a pesky Houston squad on Wednesday night at Bramlage Coliseum, 69-65. This marks the first time K-State has won consecutive games since opening the season with a three-game winning streak.
K-State (11-9, 3-3 Big 12) was paced by junior Nastja Claessens with 16 points, including nine in the fourth quarter to secure the win. She shot 7-of-12 from the floor and pulled down six rebounds.
Joining Claessens in double figures was senior guard Tess Heal with 15 points, four rebounds and tied her career-high with four steals. Junior guard Taryn Sides carded 14 points, six rebounds, three assists and two steals. Freshman guard Gina Garcia notched 11 points, three rebounds, three steals and two assists.
HOW IT HAPPENED
- Houston (6-13, 0-8) held a two-point edge at halftime, 24-22, as the Wildcats shot just 37.0 percent (10-of-27) from the field in the opening half.
- With the aid of an 8-0 run midway through the third quarter, K-State captured a 36-31 lead with 5:02 remaining. Garcia started the rally with an old fashioned three-point play with 6:22 left and was followed by a transition 3-pointer from Heal with 6:01 remaining. Sides finished a driving layup with 5:26 to play.
- After the Cougars squared the game at 36, Aniya Foy scored four straight points to start a 7-0 run for K-State to go in front, 43-36, with 2:11 to play. The Wildcats would end the third with a 47-41 advantage. K-State would outscore Houston, 25-17, in the third stanza by shooting 61.5 percent (8-of-13) from the field including the Wildcats’ first four 3-pointers of the night.
- The final quarter would feature three ties, as Houston squared the game at 51 apiece and then 53 each with 6:44 left. Garcia would put K-State back in front with a layup at 6:27. Heal would add a 3-pointer with 5:32 to play for a five-point margin, 58-53.
- The Cougars would rally to tie the game at 62 on a Kyndall Hunter layup and free throw with 1:39 left. Hunter would lead all scorers with 20 points.
- K-State answered with a Claessens three-point play with 1:19 remaining for a 65-62 Wildcat lead. The product of Waregem, Belgium, would finish another layup with 33 seconds to play to for a 67-63 lead. Two free throws from Jordan Speiser with 13 seconds left gave the Wildcats enough of a margin to capture the season series.
- K-State shot 48.1 percent (26-of-54) from the field, including 59.3 percent (16-of-27) in the second half. The Wildcats tallied a 38-30 advantage in points in the paint.
QUICK FACTS
- K-State leads the series with Houston, 6-0. The Wildcats are 3-0 in games played in Manhattan. Head coach Jeff Mittie is 15-6 in his career against Houston, including a 5-0 record at K-State.
- K-State head coach Jeff Mittie owns a career record of 683-387 (.638), including a mark of 229-152 (.601).
- In its 30th season of play in the Big 12, K-State owns a record of 249-250 (.499) in Big 12 action.
- K-State is 418-162 (.721) in its 38th-season inside Bramlage Coliseum, including a 148-54 (.733) record under Mittie.
- The Wildcats are 268-197 (.576) in games played in the month of January. Under head coach Jeff Mittie, K-State is 49-45 (.521) in games during the 1st month.
TEAM NOTES
- Wednesday’s win marked the first time K-State has won consecutive games since a three-game winning streak from November 3 to November 13.
- K-State's starting five consisted of guards Gina Garcia, Tess Heal and Taryn Sides and forwards Nastja Claessens and Jenessa Cotton. This was the third time this lineup has started together this season. This was the 19th career start for Sides. This was the 18th career start for Garcia. Claessens made her 16th career start. This was the 15th start this season for Cotton. This was the 10th start at K-State for Heal and the 84th of her collegiate career.
- This season, K-State owns 29 quarters with an effort of 50.0 percent or better shooting from the field, including the third (61.5) and fourth (57.1) quarters on Wednesday.
- Since the start of the quarter-system in women’s college basketball in the 2015-16 season, K-State is 169-70 (.707) when scoring 20 or more points in any quarter in a game, including a 9-5 mark this season. The Wildcats have 27 quarters this season with 20 or more points scored.
PLAYER NOTES
- Claessens reached double figures in points for the 11th time this season. She has paced K-State in scoring in four games. She has reached double figures in points in five Big 12 games.
- Claessens hauled in six rebounds on Wednesday. This was her sixth game this season with five or more boards. This was her fourth game this season leading K-State on the boards.
- Heal reached double figures for the 84th time in her career, including her 10th time this season. Heal’s collegiate career point total now stands at 1,670 points.
- Heal pocketed four steals on Wednesday. Heal has three career games with four or more steals, including two this season. This was her 21st career game, including her seventh this season with two or more steals.
- Sides tallied 10 or more points for the 30th time in her career and 12th time this season.
- Sides buried two 3-pointers on Wednesday. This was her 15th game this season and the 46th of her career with two or more connections from 3-point range. With her two connections, Sides remains in 13th in program history for career 3-pointers (158).
- Sides pocketed two steals. This was 22nd career game, including her 10th this season, with two or more steals.
- Sides collected six rebounds on Wednesday. This was her 26th career game with five or more rebounds.
- Garcia reached double figures for the fourth time this season.
FROM THE HEAD COACH
K-State Head Coach Jeff Mittie
On the win…
“I thought tonight was a struggle, but I was more pleased with our team play in the second half than I was in the first half. There was a better collective competitive spirit about them in the second half than there was in the first half. I think Houston does some things that give us problems, and they play a style that isn't our best basketball. We have fallen into that trap a couple times now in the second quarter of where we have fallen into their style of basketball, and that has been too tempting for us to not get into. So give them credit for that.”
On the advantages and disadvantages of playing a team twice within a month…
“The teams aren’t different, unless there's injuries or something. You know, it's not like they've put more stuff in. There wasn't much that they hadn't done that we hadn't seen. But vice versa, there wasn't much we did that they hadn't seen either. So there were very few adjustments. I felt like we wanted to control the ball better than we did in Houston. We did that a little bit better. We obviously shot the ball better in the second half tonight, but yeah, I think the two-week gap between the teams are pretty similar right now.”
On big plays down the stretch…
“I thought there was just enough team play in that stretch. I thought our spacing was better. I thought our dribble use was more efficient than it was in the first half. And then I thought when we got downhill, we were stronger than we were in the first half. They, once again, I want to get back to they get you in a style that we're not necessarily good at. We're not great one-on-one players, but they put you in that style. And we made enough plays, one-on-one in that stretch. Taryn [Sides] made some good plays. Gina [Garcia] made some good plays. I thought Nastja [Claessens] had a really good second half. Tess [Heal] had a stretch there where she was good. So we didn't play great tonight, but we played just good enough.”
On what he is like about his team at this point…
“I like the fact that we're getting different contributions from different players. You look back during this week, we've had Ramiya White play a really prominent role. We've had Tess Heal have good games. We had Taryn [Sides] step up and have a good second half. She did not play well against Houston, the first time. Gina Garcia has had back-to-back good games coming off of the week off. So I feel like she's refreshed. So I think that we're seeing a better balance than we saw maybe before Christmas.”
Houston Head Coach Matthew Mitchell
Opening Statement…
“Well, great basketball game tonight, and you have to give Kansas State a lot of credit. They made some plays down the stretch that were really strong, but I’m just proud of our group. We are competing hard, and I thought we came into a tough place to played against a really good team and and really competed tonight and we're building this program each and every day into something that's going to be real special. And I just know we're going to have a breakthrough soon, but the players continue to work hard, continue to get better, and as disappointing as the result is tonight, we know that we are on the right track here, and tonight was another step forward for us. And we just have to keep going.”
On what's been the toughest thing about playing K-State…
“Well, the toughest thing about playing Kansas State is they're really well coached, and they have really good players, and they play with tremendous discipline and toughness, and so they're just a quality team. And I think probably playing them close together is probably more beneficial than challenging, just because you're familiar with it. And even in our preparation, your players are pretty fresh on our players' minds. So the quality team really did some impressive things down the stretch, but I thought our, you know, energy in the fourth quarter was going to allow us to get over the hump, but they just made a couple more plays than we did.”
On being the biggest challenge after halftime….
“Well, I think the biggest thing that really hurt us was transition threes. They were able to get hot from the three, if we could just have a couple of possessions back where we could have gotten matched up a little bit better. And we've been improving in that, you know, and we did a good job for most of the game. But I think that, I don't know if it was a seven zero run or eight zero run, I think that's kind of the difference in the game, that one short little period where they were able to make some transition threes to get up on us.”
FROM THE FLOOR
K-State Senior Guard Tess Heal
On the first 2026 home win…
“We're really appreciative of all the fans that come out and support us every night. We always get great crowds, and, you know, we go all the places and they don't have the same support. So shout out to all our supporters. We're really happy to have them, and we're really grateful for them.”
On being focused on staying grounded against Houston…
“We've talked about a number of times as a team, the Big 12 is a great league, and it really doesn't matter if you're ranked, if you're zero and five, if you're 10 and one, it really doesn't matter it's whatever team shows up on the night. That's the team that's going to get the win. So whether it's Texas Tech, whether it's Iowa State, whether it's Houston, whether it's Baylor, it doesn't matter. We have to show up as the best versions of ourselves, and we want to keep that momentum from Texas Tech. But we were ultimately focused on us being a better basketball team and continuing to improve.”
On being the biggest change in the second half…
“I agree with Taryn. I think before small turnovers, we got up and at them, and it really worked for us. And I think we moved the ball a little better as well. I think it moved to different people. Different people got hot, and that was really good.”
K-State Junior Guard Taryn Sides
On the win…
“It felt good. We've talked a lot this week about going on a win streak here, and we have a good opportunity to do that, and it started tonight, and I'm just glad to be back in Bram and get a win.”
On being the biggest change in the second half…
“I think our energy has picked up. We went into a harder and more intense press. And I think when we do that, we all kind of get amped up, and we tend to play better.”
On continuing to improve as the season goes along…
“ think it's just a boost of confidence when you can stack wins together. And we know we've been capable of it, we just haven't quite finished games. And so getting a win today hopefully will lead to this weekend, and then hopefully we go on a long winning streak now.”
K-State Junior Forward Nastja Claessens
On being focused and staying grounded against Houston…
“I think we just kept the same energy, and we were really dedicated to getting that winning streak. We wanted to continue to play great together and get a win.”
UP NEXT
K-State stays in the state of Kansas on Sunday, as the Wildcats travel to Lawrence for the Dillons Sunflower Showdown at 12 p.m.