Box Score By Jerry Hill
Baylor Bear Foundation
Baylor is a different team with Niya Johnson and Alexis Prince on the court. And it showed Wednesday night.
After suffering their only loss of the season to Oklahoma State 50 days ago, when the veteran guards were both out with injuries, the fourth-ranked Lady Bears dispatched the 17th-ranked Cowgirls, 66-41, to win their 13th in a row.
And while their combined 10 points might not seem like that much of a difference, they definitely impacted the game in a big way. Johnson dished out 11 assists and hit two clutch buckets at the end of the third quarter, while Prince had five blocks and two steals and held Brittney Martin scoreless in the first half.
"I didn't have to do a lot of motivating," Baylor coach Kim Mulkey said, referring to the 52-45 loss to OSU in the Dec. 30 league opener. "I didn't have to do any backflips or anything. I just thinking having our entire team healthy . . . you can't go to battle with some of your players not playing."
OSU head coach Jim Littell said it was "pretty obvious" that the Lady Bears (26-1, 13-1) were a much different team with Johnson and Prince back in the lineup.
"I know there's some point guards that score more than Niya Johnson, but there's not a better point guard in the country that runs the thing better than she does about getting the ball where it needs to be and throwing the lob pass to the post players," said Littell, whose team fell to 19-9 and 9-5. "Great point guards make everyone around them better, and obviously she makes them better."
That included junior guard Alexis Jones. After hitting just 2-of-18 in that first meeting, Jones was 7-of-15 overall and 3-of-5 from outside the arc to score a game-high 20 points. Junior forward Nina Davis also posted her second straight double-double and fourth of the season with 13 points and 13 boards.
"Every single game we're getting better and better," Jones said, "and we're getting to know each other better each game. It's just a good feeling to know that this team is getting better each and every game."
Prince wasted no time making her presence felt, blocking a 3-pointer by Roddricka Patton and running the floor to hit a fast-break layup off a feed from Johnson that made it 8-0 just 3 ½ minutes into the game.
The Lady Bears had plenty of chances to extend an 11-point lead, but missed five straight free throws and was up 16-5 after the first quarter.
Despite shooting just 16 percent from the field (6-of-37), getting zero points from Martin and getting 11 shots blocked, the Cowgirls trailed just 27-15 at halftime.
"I thought a lot of shots we took in the first half were intimidated hope shots," Littell said, "and that's not conducive to playing a team that's No. 4 in the country and obviously that good."
Still, the Cowgirls pulled to within four, 37-33, late in the third quarter on a pair of free throws by Martin. But a three-point play by Davis off an offensive rebound and a pair of buckets by Johnson in the last 30 seconds pushed Baylor's lead back to double digits, 44-33.
"That was huge, that was something we needed going into the fourth quarter," said Johnson, who sprinted coast to coast for a buzzer-beating floater after taking the inbounds with 4.9 seconds left. "The way the game was being called and the way the game was going, that's just something we needed to boost all of our players and encourage them that `we've got one more quarter, let's keep fighting.'''
Baylor put any comeback hopes to bed with another 11-0 run at the start of the fourth quarter, capped off by a Kristy Wallace three-point play off a steal, to make it 55-35. In five minutes of actual game time, the Lady Bears pushed the lead from four to 20.
"It's real deflating, win or lose, when you fight back and spend that much time and then you get careless with the ball," Littell said. "Give them credit - they're in passing lanes, they're going for steals, they're running past screens and they're creating run-out situations for themselves. It's just a combination of them playing really good defensively . . . and we got real sloppy with the basketball."
Wallace scored nine of her 11 in the second half, helping the Baylor bench outscore the OSU reserves, 17-6. The Lady Bears also won the rebounding battle, 45-39, and points in the paint, 42-26. Davis had a season-high 13 rebounds, while Martin had a double-double for the Cowgirls with 12 points, 11 rebounds, three blocks and five steals.
"Nina's undersized in there, but she figures out a way to get around people and get in there and get clutch rebounds," Mulkey said. "I've been riding her a little bit about that. I think she's become so used to the bigs that she has on this team now that sometimes she's not going in there like she used to. I thought tonight she made some big buckets and got some big rebounds."
Baylor hosts Iowa State (13-12, 5-9) at 2 p.m. Saturday in the Lady Bears' "Sic `em for the Cure" game. All fans are encouraged to wear pink in support of breast cancer survivors.
