Kansas State dominates Fairfield in NCAA Tournament as Ayoka Lee returns from injury
Things couldn’t have gone much better for the Kansas State women’s basketball team in the opening round of the NCAA Tournament on Friday at Memorial Coliseum in Lexington, Kentucky.
Not only did the Wildcats beat Fairfield 85-41 to advance to the Round of 32 without exerting much energy, they got star center Ayoka Lee back from foot injuries ... and she played like an All-American.
Lee scored 17 points and grabbed 10 rebounds in just 15 minutes of action. She looked healthy after missing 12 of K-State’s past 13 games.
“It felt great,” Lee said. “It’s been a minute. I think our support staff, our strength and training coach did a great job just keeping everything where it needed to be while I was out because it’s a long time, and it’s not fun going through that many rehabs. They’re great, and they just did everything that we needed to do and put me through everything I needed to go through to make sure I was ready for this.”
The 6-foot-6 senior was confident while she was on the court, and that showed from the opening tip when point guard Serena Sundell found her with a pass under the basket; Lee scored the first bucket of the day on an easy layup.
It was a sign of good things to come for her and her team.
“I think I could have played more,” Lee said. “I don’t think there were any stretches where I came out and I was just dying.”
No. 5 seed K-State limped to the end of the regular season as it lost four of its final six games. But Lee was only on the floor for five minutes in one of those contests. The Wildcats are a different team with Lee in the lineup, and they reminded everyone of that against No. 12 seed Fairfield.
The Wildcats improved to 19-1 with Lee this season and should have plenty of confidence when they face Kentucky on Sunday with a trip to the Sweet 16 up for grabs.
“We’re a good team,” Sundell said. “We were confident coming in. I think we all knew we were capable. We knew we were going to have a size advantage. We knew the coaches were going to do a good job of getting us a good scout and a good game plan, so we were just focused on staying disciplined to what the coaches had for us, which was guarding the three-point line, knowing that they were going to try some mismatches there.
“This group, when we can all stay committed, stay focused and disciplined to our scout, we’re a confident group and we are very capable.”
Sundell led all scorers with 18 points. She also sent out nine assists. Her talent and experience of playing in the NCAA Tournament helped the Wildcats pass their first postseason test.
Taryn Sides had 14 points and Jaelyn Glenn added 10 as K-State cruised to a blowout victory.
The Wildcats raced to a 17-4 lead and never looked back in this one.
Fairfield was no match for them with Lee at full strength.
“It’s good to be sitting here after a good victory,” K-State coach Jeff Mittie said. “I thought we got off to a good start. We talked about the pace of this game was going to be critical for us to play at a pace that we wanted to play it at, and that was going to require some balance offensively, it was going to require some shot discipline. That is what we got.”
This story was originally published March 21, 2025 at 3:35 PM.