Box Score By Jerry Hill
Baylor Bear Foundation
After the top-seeded Baylor Lady Bears wasted no time in sending an early message on the court, Idaho coach Jon Newlee had one for UConn coach Geno Auriemma in the postgame press conference.
Winning their 21st consecutive game, the Lady Bears (34-1) hit six first-quarter 3-pointers and jumped out to a 30-9 lead on the way to an 89-59 blowout of the visiting Vandals in Friday's NCAA Tournament first-round matchup at the Ferrell Center.
"Geno better be looking out," Newlee said of top-ranked UConn's head coach, "because I feel like the Bears are coming after them. . . . That is one hell of a basketball team. I heard they're the second-best team in the country, and in my mind there's no doubt about it. Those guys can go win the national championship."
One game does not a champion make, but Baylor certainly looked like a legitimate contender in dominating a 16th-seeded Idaho team that was coming off a Big Sky Tournament title. This one was never a contest.
"They know they're good, they don't have to hear it from other people," Baylor head coach Kim Mulkey said. "We're just going to lace them up and see how far we can take it."
Friday's convincing win sends the Lady Bears into the Round of 32 for the 13th straight time, where they will face ninth-seeded Auburn (20-12) at 6 p.m. Sunday. Behind a 24-point outing from Janiah McKay, the Tigers defeated eighth-seeded St. John's, 68-57, for their first NCAA Tournament win in seven years.
"You look at the juniors and seniors, this is what they've been doing," Mulkey said. "But for the freshmen and those kids like even Alexis Jones, this is her first time to do this. As we put on the board, you just scratch off another one and see if we can't just keep scratching off another victory."
They could have scratched this one off by the end of the first quarter.
Beating Idaho (24-10) at its own game - the Vandals came in ranked No. 2 in the country in 3-point field goals made - Baylor was 6-of-8 from behind the arc in the first 10 minutes and took a commanding 30-9 lead on Alexis Prince's buzzer-beater at the end of the quarter.
Jones, a Duke transfer who was playing in her first NCAA Tournament game in three years, opened the barrage with a 3-pointer from the corner just 26 seconds into the game. She had 23 points, eight rebounds and five assists, shooting 9-of-15 overall and 5-of-10 from 3-point range, tying Baylor's tournament record for 3-pointers made.
"Hitting the first 3 was good," Jones said, "but I was excited for my guards to follow it with me, too. I think we shot the 3-ball really well. It's just exciting to know that the whole team came out and had a lot of energy."
Before the Vandals even know what hit them, the Lady Bears took a double-digit lead with a 14-0 run, going up 19-4. Idaho missed eight straight shots in a four-minute scoring drought, with Jones and sophomore guard Kristy Wallace draining treys and Nina Davis capping it with one of her patented floaters in the lane.
"We just wanted to keep attacking and come out with energy from the jump," said senior point guard Niya Johnson, who tied her own program tournament record with 16 assists to go with four points, five rebounds, two blocks and a steal. "We didn't want to be that team that was having to press in the fourth quarter just to get back in it. We wanted to get it going from the tip."
Jones might have started it, but Wallace came off the bench to keep it going, knocking down three straight 3-pointers and then getting a fast-break layup off a steal and dish by Johnson.
"Our start was very disappointing to me, from an offensive and defensive standpoint," Newlee said. "We had hoped to come out and do a little better job out of our zone of finding shooters. Alexis (Jones) really made us pay for that, and then Wallace came in and did the same. You've got to pick your poison with Baylor."
Particularly early, Idaho packed the paint and made it tough on Baylor's post players. But when the 3-pointers started raining in, it opened things up, helping Nina Davis finish with 18 points and seven rebounds and 6-7 freshman Kalani Brown chip in with 10 and eight.
"We knew coming in that they were going to run a 2-3 and 3-2 zone, and they were going to really pack it in and force us to make shots on the outside," Davis said. "If (Baylor's guards) had not made those 3's tonight, I'm pretty sure it would have been a different game. When we started hitting the threes, they had to space out a little bit more, which opened up the inside for us bigs."
Wallace, who hit six 3-pointers and scored a career-high 24 points in last year's 88-70 win over Idaho, knocked down three treys and finished with 13 points, four rebounds and three assists. Freshman post Beatrice Mompremier left with a shoulder injury, but Mulkey said she's "good to go."
Idaho, which made nine out of 43 shots from outside the arc, got 17 points and nine rebounds from senior forward Ali Forde and 12 point from senior guard Christina Salvatore. The Vandals rarely went inside, particularly in the second half, and got outrebounded 54-31.
"I don't know that I've ever had to guard somebody who shoots 43 threes," Mulkey said. "They run an offense that's just hard to defend, and they challenged us to shoot the wide-open jumpers. We've got good shooters. It's just that we've go bigs, and I'm not about to become a perimeter shooting team. I'm not going to live and die by the three."
