ORLANDO, Fla. – Taiyanna Jackson scored a career-high 29 points along with 10 rebounds and four blocked shots to lead the Kansas Jayhawks to a 65-53 victory over UCF on Wednesday night at Addition Financial Arena.
The win is Kansas’ seventh in its past eight games and improves the Jayhawks to 17-11 on the year and 10-7 in Big 12 play with one game remaining in the regular season.
Jackson set a new career-high 29 points on 11-of-15 shooting while also connecting on 7-of-13 free throw attempts. Jackson also pulled down 10 rebounds for her 12th double-double of the season and blocked four shots, giving her 90 for the season. She now owns the top three single-season blocked shot totals in Kansas Women’s Basketball history.
Playing in her home state, Zakiyah Franklin added 16 points and four rebounds. In the process, Franklin surpassed Carolyn Davis for No. 6 on KU’s all-time scoring list with 1,855 career points. S’Mya Nichols battled foul trouble to finish with 14 points, which included perfect 5-for-5 shooting from the free throw line.
“I thought in the first half, we were exceptional and really consistent in every phase that we talked about wanting to be good in,” Kansas coach Brandon Schneider said. “This is a very important win against a very athletic team, so I’m proud of our bunch. You want your team to be playing their best basketball this time of year and in order to do that, your best players need to play their best, and we definitely got that from Taiyanna tonight.”
Jackson scored the first seven points for Kansas, who found themselves tied at 7-7 with 5:38 to play in the quarter. A 6-0 Jayhawk run featured baskets from Franklin, Nichols and Jackson as KU took a 13-7 lead. The Jayhawks would maintain a six-point advantage after one quarter of play, leading 17-11 following a pair of free throws by Nichols in the quarter’s final seconds.
KU’s advantage got to double digits on two occasions early in the second quarter but was back to six at 27-21 with 4:30 to play in the half. The Jayhawks held the Knights scoreless the rest of the half, however, and closed on an 8-0 run, taking a 35-21 lead into the locker room.
The Jayhawks lead never reached single digits in the third quarter, but a 6-0 run early in the fourth got the Knights within nine at 49-40 with 7:31 to play. UCF got to within nine on three occasions in the fourth quarter, but never any closer as KU had an answer to each run by the Knights.
Next Up
Kansas concludes the regular season on Saturday, March 2, with Senior Day at Allen Fieldhouse as the Jayhawks host No. 20 Oklahoma. Senior Day festivities will take place prior to tipoff, which is set for 4 p.m. CT, and the game will be broadcast in Big 12 NOW on ESPN+.
