Baylor
7-0 #4/4
Rice
0-6
No. 4 WBB Overpowers Rice 89-38
12/2/2015 12:00:00 AM | Women's Basketball
| 1ST | 2ND | 3RD | 4TH | F | ||
 | RICE | 5 | 15 | 6 | 12 | 38 |
 | BAYLOR | 23 | 15 | 24 | 27 | 89 |
Box Score | Quotes | Notes | Photo Gallery 
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Waco, Texas - Attendance: 5,615
By Jerry Hill
Baylor Bear Foundation
One thing's for sure, this Baylor Lady Bears are good listeners. Or maybe they just didn't want to run any extra laps.
After a week of running laps every time they turned it over in practice, the fourth-ranked Lady Bears turned it over zero times in the second half and a season-low six times for the game in blowing out the Rice Owls, 89-58, Wednesday night at the Ferrell Center.
"When you look at a stat sheet and you see what you've been emphasizing all week and they listen and tried, you can live with whatever the scoreboard says," said Baylor coach Kim Mulkey, whose team improved to 7-0 with its 155th consecutive home win against a non-ranked opponent.
Senior point guard Niya Johnson, who had eight points, nine assists and no turnovers in 23 minutes, said it "starts with discipline."
"In practice, she's really emphasized it," Johnson said of Mulkey. "Every time we turned the ball over, we had to run a lap. We just took that to the court and really focused on not turning the ball over."
Asked how many laps the team ran since committing 41 turnovers in their two games at the Junkanoo Jam in the Bahamas, Mulkey laughed and quipped, "We quit counting. But I guess the positive is they're getting in shape."
Making her first start of the season, junior forward Khadijah Cave recorded her fourth career double-double and first of the year with 19 points and 10 rebounds, hitting 8-of-14 from the floor. Alexis Jones added 15 points and five assists, while Nina Davis had 12 points, seven rebounds and six assists.
"I knew coming in that I had a height advantage, so I worked well with Niya on lobs and ran the floor," said Cave, who scored three of the last four buckets in a 17-0 run to open the game. "I just did whatever I could do to help my team out on the defensive end and the offensive end."
The Owls (0-6), playing their third top-10 team, turned it over four times and missed their first eight shots before Maya Hawkins ended the drought with a jumper at the 2:56 mark in the first quarter. BU led by as many as 21 in the opening quarter before Lauren Grigsby drained a buzzer-beating 3-pointer that made it 23-5.
Baylor struggled in the second quarter, hitting just 6-of-20 from the field and turning it over three times. The Owls reeled off seven unanswered points, capped by a three-point play by Shani Rainey, and whittled a 24-point deficit down to 29-12.
Rice got as close as 36-20 on a trey by Grigsby with 7.9 seconds showing on the clock, but Johnson went coast to coast before dishing off to Cave for a layup at the buzzer that gave the Lady Bears an 18-point cushion at the break.
"We've talked a lot about failure recovery. When things don't go your way, how do you respond to that?" first-year Rice head coach Tina Langley said. "I do believe that the team recovered well each team Baylor went on a run. That's what we focus on when we a play a team like this. They're going to go on runs, and they're going to have great plays, and we have to be able to bounce back and continue to compete."
In a replay of the first quarter, Baylor held the Owls scoreless for the first seven-plus minutes and scored the first 19 points in the third, extending the lead to 57-20 on a layup by Dekeiya Cohen off a dish from Jones.
Freshman Justis Szczepanski, finally declared eligible by the NCAA after missing the first six games, saw her first game action in a Lady Bear uniform and had one point and three rebounds in 13 minutes.
"There were definitely butterflies, but it felt amazing to be out there with my team and to contribute any way I could," Szczepanski said.
Fellow freshman Kalani Brown missed her first five shots from the field, but bounced back in the second half and finished with 11 points and five boards in 14 minutes.
"She gets abused sometimes down there," Mulkey said of the 6-7 Brown. "I fought that with (Brittney) Griner. It took till about her junior year before I made people realize, I don't care how big she is, those are fouls. . . . As poorly as it was at the half, I'd tell her, that's a pretty productive game. You played 14 minutes, you give me 11 points, five rebounds. I don't want her to get happy about it, but she did OK."
Continuing a five-game stand, the Lady Bears will face Northwestern State (3-4) at 7 p.m. Friday in the rematch of last year's NCAA Tournament first-round game won by Baylor, 77-36. As part of the 10th annual "Care Bear" drive, first-year event sponsor Whataburger will provide a $5 ticket and free Whataburger coupon (while supplies last) to every fan who donates a new teddy bear.
