TCU women prepare for high-scoring game against Kansas

It is less than three weeks until the Big 12 women’s tournament which means TCU still has time to shake out of a funk that’s seen it lose six of its past nine games.

Their first, and perhaps best, opportunity to get on the right foot comes Tuesday night at home against the Kansas Jayhawks, a team TCU jumped on early and beat 80-63 in Lawrence, Kan., five weeks ago.

With three teams at 6-7 in conference — including TCU — and four at 5-8, everyone is jockeying for position behind Baylor (13-0) and Oklahoma (10-3).

Kansas (13-13, 4-9) stumbles to town having lost three in a row and four of its last five. But the Jayhawks have scoring potential in senior forward Chelsea Gardner of DeSoto, who leads the team in scoring (16.3) and blocks (2.2) and averages better than eight rebounds a game. Gardner, an All-Big 12 first-teamer a year ago, had 18 points and 12 rebounds at West Virginia followed by 16 points and seven rebounds against Texas in games last week.

Gardner and senior guard Natalie Knight each surpassed 1,000 career points this season, a milestone reached by only 28 Jayhawks women.

TCU is led in scoring by junior Zahna Medley (15.3 points) but also gets double-figure contributions from Veja Hamilton (11.5), Chelsea Prince (11.1) and Natalie Ventress (10.2). Ventress has scored in double figures five consecutive games.

This story was originally published February 16, 2015 at 8:35 PM with the headline "TCU women prepare for high-scoring game against Kansas."