After playing a particularly bad game in the middle of the brutal Big 12 season, BYU women’s basketball coach Amber Whiting wrote the number “11” on the chalkboard in the locker room.

“I told them that’s where we were picked to finish and that’s what we were playing like,” Whiting said. “We finished higher than we were picked, but we have to play with a chip on our shoulder.”

The Cougars actually finished one spot higher than predicted and head into the Big 12 Tournament on Friday as the No. 10 seed. The matchup isn’t favorable: BYU plays No. 7 seed Kansas, which beat the Cougars twice during the regular season and has won eight of its past nine games.

“We have to pull the upset,” Whiting said. “We have to be playing with that fight in them that helps them play better. Being able to stay off the Thursday game and have that first round bye was important because it’s hard to play three games in three days. It have given us a better chance to make a run. Now we can have our eyes forward to look what we can go do.”

At 16-15 overall, BYU will likely have to win a game or two to have a shot at a WNIT invitation. The challenge is a big one, but in essence all of the teams in the Big Tournament are on equal footing: Win or go home.

“I told the girls this morning, ‘zero-zero,'” Whiting said. “This is what March Madness is for. This is why we build and play and do this all year long, just to go into this game thinking that very thing. It’s hard to beat a team three times in a row and we’re a good team. We want to go in on attack mode and go in confidently into this game.”

The first year in the Big 12 has been a big learning experience for Whiting and her program.

“We’ve improved a lot,” she said. “We’ve learned how to win and close out games and how to do it together. We’ve faced many different kinds of defenses and gotten better with our turnovers, everything across the board. We’ve grown tremendously and changed and come together in hard times. I’m proud of them.”

Every team in the tournament hopes to catch fire over the next five days.

“Everybody has to be playing their best basketball and I feel like if we’re firing on all cylinders, we’re really hard to stop,” Whiting said. ‘You also have to play together to win, not just on offense but on defense, too. You have to have each other’s backs. You’ve got to be able to execute the game plan. That’s where I feel like we need to be united.”

There is a level of urgency in Friday’s game, which could be the last for seniors Lauren Gustin and Kaylee Smiler as well as freshman Kailey Woolston, who will serve a church mission once the season is completed.

“To give our seniors a chance to keep playing in March is special,” Whiting said. “It means everything. On Senior Night that we just had, our younger kids played really hard for them because they really wanted it. I feel like if we play all together in our first Big 12 Tournament, we can do it. We have to take pride in our one-on-one defense and I think we can handle what they throw at us.”

Whiting and her staff are looking forward as well, continuing to build the program going into her third season at the helm.

“When you’re building something you always have to start somewhere,” she said. “What we did this year in the Big 12, we were building. Everybody we recruit or get out of the portal has to have the same mindset we do.”

Gustin, a first team All-Big 12 selection, is the nation’s leading rebounder (15.4 per game) and leads the Cougars with 17.3 points per game. Woolston earned honorable mention Big 12 honors and is averaging 13.4 points while shooting 46% from the 3-point line.

Two Kansas players — Taiyanna Jackson (13.0 points, 10.1 rebounds per game) and freshman S’Mya Nichols (15.1 ppg) — were named first team All-Big 12. Zakiyah Franklin (11.4 ppg) and Holly Kersgieter (11.4) were honorable mention selections. Jackson, Franklin and Kersgieter are all graduate students, giving the Jayhawks plenty of leadership and experience.

Women’s College Basketball

Big 12 Tournament

No. 10 seed BYU (16-15) vs. No. 7 seed Kansas (18-11)

Friday, 4:30 p.m. MT

T-Mobile Center, Kansas City

TV: None

Streaming: Big 12 Now on ESPN+

Radio: BYU Radio at 107.9 FM or byuradio.org

Live stats: byucougars.com

The Word: Kansas won both regular season meetings with a 67-53 victory in Lawrence and a 70-62 win in Provo. … BYU last won a conference tournament in the West Coast Conference (2019). … The winner of the Cougars-Jayhawks matchup plays No. 2 seed Texas in Saturday’s quarterfinals.

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