No. 1/1 Lady Bears Rout Texas, 64-35

Monday, February 25

Waco, Texas

6 p.m.

Baylor

26-1(16-0)# 1/1

Texas

21-7(11-5)#18/19

Texas

Baylor

No. 1/1 Lady Bears Rout Texas, 64-35

2/25/2019 8:49:00 PM | Women's Basketball

Box Score PDF Box Postgame Notes Postgame Quotes Highlights

Kalani Brown led the way with 19 points and 12 rebounds.

By Jerry Hill
Baylor Bear Insider
            While Baylor's post combo of Kalani Brown and Lauren Cox get most of the focus, and rightfully so, it's the Lady Bears' team defense that tends to give opposing teams fits.
            "Everybody talks so much about their bigs and how good they are on offense," Texas coach Karen Aston said, "but their defense is really tremendous. And it's a problem."
            It sure was for Aston's 18^th-ranked Longhorns (21-7, 11-5), who hit just 2-of-13 from outside the arc and a dismal 20 percent overall and scored their fewest points all year in top-ranked Baylor's 64-35 blowout victory Monday night before a Ferrell Center crowd of 6,875.
            "Three straight years we've led the country in field goal percentage defense, and it doesn't get talked about very much because it's ugly," said Baylor coach Kim Mulkey, whose team improved to 26-1 overall and 16-0 in the Big 12. "I just thought our perimeter players remembered what Danni (Williams) did to them in the fourth quarter, remembered what Sug (Sutton) did to them in the fourth quarter. And they were bound and determined not to let there be another moment like that."
            Just three weeks ago, Texas whittled a 21-point deficit down to four by dominating the fourth quarter before falling, 74-68, at home. Williams, who hit 5-of-8 from outside the arc and scored 19 in the first meeting, missed all seven shots and went scoreless.
            "The guards did a wonderful job on guarding their guards and guarding the 3-point shot," said Brown, who recorded her 36^thcareer double-double with 19 points and 12 rebounds. "We just went down on the other end and executed. Besides the offensive rebounds (by Texas), I think the defense was pretty solid."
            Despite being outrebounded for the first time all year, 46-44, Baylor extended its winning streaks to 39 consecutive Big 12 regular-season games and 36^thin a row at the Ferrell Center while beating Texas for the 20^thtime in the last 21 meetings.
            The Lady Bears' 29-point victory was their biggest margin in this series in the NCAA era and the largest since a 92-49 win on Dec. 4, 1975. It was also the fewest points Baylor has allowed in a conference game since a 74-35 win at TCU on Feb. 2, 2013.
            "It would be hard for me to say I'm pleased with a lot," Aston said of winning the rebounding battle. "We got it handed to us."
            The Longhorns scored just 13 second-chance points on their 26 offensive rebounds.
            "You can bet I'm going to harp on that," Mulkey said. "If you subtract those 13 points from their 35, what it could have been. I'm going to harp on those offensive boards that they got. We knew that was going to be difficult, we knew that they go to the offensive boards well. But, we can't allow that to happen."
            Texas hung with the Lady Bears through the first 16 minutes, trailing 16-11 after the first quarter and down by just three with less than four minutes to go in the half.
            But those last four minutes, proved to be the turning point of the game. Chloe Jackson hit a jumper and fed Brown on back-to-back shots in a closing 9-0 run that gave the Lady Bears a 27-16 lead at the half. '
            "I thought it changed the momentum and gave us a spark," Brown said. "We just needed some energy. And I think by me hitting those shots, everybody gets excited."
            Jackson, who had 12 points, six assists, five rebounds and four steals, said it was "just a big momentum swing going into the half."
            Scoreless over the last 7 ½ minutes of the second quarter, the Longhorns got the opening bucket of the second half on a Joyner Holmes jumper. But then, Baylor reeled off 12 unanswered points, extending the lead to 39-18 on a Cox free throw.
            "They established themselves," Aston said of that opening five minutes of the second half. "I just didn't think we were competitive enough. That first five to seven minutes of a half are going to kind of tell you how things are going to roll, which they did in the first half. We were competitive, but we kind of gave in."
            Cox finished a rebound shy of a double-double with 13 points, nine rebounds and six blocks, while Juicy Landrum was 6-of-6 from the line and chipped in with 11 points.
            Holmes had seven of her team-high nine points in the first half, while Sutton, Audrey Warren and Jatarie White had six points apiece.
            Baylor, which has already clinched its ninth consecutive Big 12 title, finishes the regular season with a home game on Saturday against Oklahoma State and Monday's road game at West Virginia.