No. 4/4 WBB Pulls Away from Kansas State, 65-50

Wednesday, January 9

Waco, Texas

7 p.m.

Baylor

12-1, 2-0

Kansas State

10-5, 1-2

K-STATE

Baylor

No. 4/4 WBB Pulls Away from Kansas State, 65-50

1/9/2019 9:02:00 PM | Women's Basketball

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Lauren Cox recorded her 20th career double-double.

By Jerry Hill
Baylor Bear Insider

Presented with three easels filled with roses commemorating her 550^th career victory before the game, Kim Mulkey struggled to get No. 551 Wednesday night.

Facing a second-half deficit for the first time in four games, Baylor's defense and "big lineup" answered the call in the fourth quarter as the fourth-ranked Lady Bears (12-1, 2-0) pulled away for 65-50 victory over the Kansas State Wildcats before a Ferrell Center crowd of 5,025.

K-State (10-5, 1-2) took a 42-41 lead with 3:03 left in the third quarter on a layup by Kayla Goth, but Baylor answered with a 9-0 run and held the Wildcats to just eight points and 2-of-22 shooting the rest of the way.

"We're going to have nights like this," said Mulkey, who picked up her 550^th win three days ago when the Lady Bears beat Texas Tech, 73-56, in Lubbock. "We've played three games in seven days, and you tell me we haven't been on an emotional, physical (roller coaster). You just have to keep grinding. You're going to play four games in 10 days, you've got to grind."

Baylor's inside duo of Kalani Brown and Lauren Cox combined for 29 points and 19 rebounds and helped the Lady Bears dominate the boards, 44-32. Cox recorded a double-double with 13 points, 10 rebounds, five assists and three blocks, while Brown had 16 points, nine boards and three assists.

But, for most of the night, the Wildcats stifled Baylor's usually potent inside attack with a sagging man defense that played off the guards. Typically more of a zone defense team, K-State used a man-to-man defense with 5-11 junior forward Jasuen Beard replacing 6-2 senior forward Kali Jones, who was out with a sprained ankle she suffered in practice.

"We've been working on (the zone defense) the past couple days, so they kind of surprised us with the man," Cox said. "And it was tough, because they were packing the paint and we weren't hitting some of the normal shots we hit."

K-State coach Jeff Mittie, who also dismissed 6-4 sophomore center Maary Lakes earlier this week for violation of team policy, said Brown "can't be guarded one-on-one very rarely by anyone in the country."

"There's really only a couple ways (you can defend her) – great ball pressure, or sag and help off one," he said. "We can't get that kind of ball pressure necessarily to keep it out of there. We were able to do it OK with the two-headed monster. But, when they brought (6-2 freshman NaLyssa) Smith in there, it was really tough for us to defend."

Going to the "big lineup" for most of the fourth quarter, with Smith joining Brown and Cox, Baylor outscored K-State, 15-8, to clinch its 30^th consecutive win in the series and its 29^th in a row at the Ferrell Center.

"I was looking for a lift anywhere I could find it," Mulkey said. "K-State's strategy offensively was to stall and take shots when the shot clock was winding down. And you know we're going to guard you. And I thought our defense was fine. Then, when we come on the offensive end, they packed the paint and we missed some wide-open shots. But, was that because our great defense for 30 seconds every time down on the other end of the floor?

"You're going to have nights like this on the offensive end. That's why you've got to tell kids and make sure you sell them on the fact of just play good defense. They'll be nights like this."

After Goth's go-ahead bucket, freshman center Queen Egbo grabbed an offensive rebound off a miss by Juicy Landrum and completed a three-point play with a layup and follow free throw that gave the Lady Bears the lead for good.

Landrum, DiDi Richards and Brown added baskets in the closing minutes of the third quarter that pushed Baylor's lead to 50-42.

Peyton Williams, who had a double-double with 18 points and 10 boards, opened the fourth-quarter scoring by draining her second 3-pointer of the night to pull the Wildcats back within five, 50-45. But, they missed 13 of their last 14 shots and scored just five points over the last 8 ½ minutes as Baylor closed the game on a 13-5 run.

"I think it was good for us just to have a game like that, especially when we're tired,"

Cox said, "because at the end of the season we're going to have two, three games in a row like that. So, just having to fight like that and not be up 20, 30, where can just coast it out, that was good for us."

One streak did end, though, as the Lady Bears failed to hit a 3-pointer for the first time since Feb. 20, 2017, snapping a string of 56 consecutive games of hitting at least one trey.

With Richards and senior point guard Chloe Jackson combining to hit just 5-of-20 from the floor, Landrum stepped up to score 12 points on 6-of-10 shooting but was 0-for-1 from 3-point range.

"Coach always tells me I need to shoot," said Landrum, who added seven rebounds, three assists, one block and a steal while playing all 40 minutes. "Or, if I'm not shooting, I need to do something defensively. Coach (Bill) brock kind of gets on me when I don't shoot the ball. I feel like even when they come to my side and they're not sagging, that gives me a spot to throw the ball."

Mulkey said she didn't find out until after the game that the roses were purchased by the Lady Bear players.

"I just thought, 'Wow, that's the kind of kids I get to coach,''' she said.

Baylor goes back on the road for its next two, facing TCU (11-3, 1-2) at 3 p.m. Saturday in Fort Worth and Kansas (10-3, 0-2) at 7 p.m. next Wednesday in Lawrence.