Baylor
13-1,2-0Big 12
Oklahoma State
10-5,1-2Big 12
No. 6/6 WBB Wins 43rd-Straight Big 12 Game with 94-48 win over OSU
1/12/2020 3:05:00 PM | Women's Basketball
Smith posts career-highs in points and rebounds with 30 & 15
By Jerry Hill
Baylor Bear Insider
Kim Mulkey wants no part in voting in the polls, and grad transfer guard Te'a Cooper doesn't really care where the Baylor Lady Bears are ranked after ending top-ranked UConn's 98-game home-court winning streak.
But, the defending national champions continued to stake their case for No. 1 by following up Thursday's 74-58 road win in Hartford with a dominating 94-48 win over the Oklahoma State Cowgirls Sunday afternoon before a Ferrell Center crowd of 6,289.
OSU coach Jim Littell's not a voter in the USA Today coaches' poll, either, but he said, "It's obvious to me that they've probably got the best club in the country."
"Same type of Baylor team where their length bothers you, they speed you up," said Littell, whose OSU team dropped its eighth in a row to the Lady Bears and 23rd in the last 24 meetings. "Even when you're open, you're rushing shots. I was disappointed with the way we executed, but give credit to Baylor being very good. . . . Got a lot of size, can defend at five positions, score at a lot of positions, just a really good club."
With the top three teams all losing this week, including No. 2 Oregon and third-ranked Oregon State both falling at Arizona State, the sixth-ranked Lady Bears will almost certainly move up in the polls.
But, Mulkey made it clear that all she cares about is winning "as many in this conference as we can to get 10 (championships) in a row."
"That's a lot of championships, and that's our goal" said Mulkey, whose team won its national-best 47th-consecutive home game and 43rd-straight Big 12 regular-season game. "There's just so much basketball left, but it was good to be home today. It's always good to be home."
At home for the first time in 13 days, Baylor got a career-high 30 points and 15 rebounds from sophomore forward NaLyssa Smith to win their conference home opener with ease.
"That kid is just growing," Mulkey said of the 6-2 sophomore, who was 12-of-20 from the field and 6-of-9 from the line. "(She is) becoming an All-American at both ends of the floor. Don't get frustrated if they're banging on you. Don't get frustrated if you miss shots. Just keep an even keel. And I think you're watching it happen before your very eyes."
While neither Smith nor her coach knew it, she broke her previous career bests on the same play when she grabbed an offensive rebound, hit a layup and converted a three-point play with a free throw that stretched the Lady Bears' lead to 66-38 at the end of three quarters.
After scoring 10 fourth-quarter points in the win at UConn, Smith said she "knew coming into this game I had to have the same mentality."
Watching Smith in summer basketball a few years back, Littell "thought she was the best player in the country."
"Baylor develops their kids, and they go to a different level as they learn the system. And that's what she's done," Littell said of Smith. "She just attacks everything offensively, defensively, attacks the glass, thinks every rebound is hers. That's a sign of a really good player when you're just that aggressive on everything you do, and she runs the floor like a deer as well."
Coming off a heartbreaking 77-75 loss at home to Oklahoma, when they let a late 13-point lead slip away, the Cowgirls tied Baylor at 7-7 on a 3-pointer by Vivian Gray despite missing their first six shots.
Another dry spell proved costly, though, as Baylor scored 14 unanswered points when Oklahoma State missed 11 straight shots. Smith started the Lady Bears' run with a layup off an assist from Cooper and capped it by making one of two free throws for a 21-7 lead with exactly a minute left in the opening period.
Smith had eight first-quarter points and 10 more in the second, helping Baylor take a 43-24 lead into intermission.
OSU "became very vulnerable in a hurry" when Big 12 rebounding leader Natasha Mack picked up two quick fouls in the first quarter and was whistled for a third foul "while we had somebody at the table" to replace her, Littell said.
Coming in as the nation's second-leading rebounder with 13.6 per game, Mack finished with 15 points and just two boards in 23 minutes. After giving up 17 offensive rebounds at Connecticut, the Lady Bears gave up just five second-chance points on six offensive boards and outrebounded the Cowgirls, 61-21.
"I told them over and over, (Lauren) Cox is going to do her job on Mack. Everybody else crash the boards and help us keep them off the boards," Mulkey said. "I just thought we swarmed the ball better, and consequently we outrebounded them (by) 40. When we got back (from Connecticut), I told them I could nitpick a lot of things. But, if I had to take one, we have got to keep people off the boards."
In her most efficient game since returning from a foot injury, the 6-foot-4 Cox was 6-of-8 from the field and recorded her 31st career double-double and third of the season with 14 points and 10 rebounds. Cooper was 4-of-5 from 3-point range and finished with 16 points, giving the Lady Bears their third double-figure scorer, while Mack and Gray led OSU with 15 points apiece.
With Caitlin Bickle hitting a layup with 1:38 left, all 11 Baylor players scored in the game and Baylor's bench outscored the OSU reserves, 25-14. The Lady Bears also finished with a 46-8 edge on points in the paint and scored 21 second-chance points on 20 offensive boards.
Baylor goes back on the road to face Kansas (11-3, 0-3) at 7 p.m. Wednesday before returning home to host No. 19 West Virginia (13-1, 3-0) in a top-20 showdown next Saturday. The Jayhawks remained winless in league play with a 73-59 loss at TCU on Sunday, while West Virginia rallied to defeat Texas, 68-65, in Morgantown.
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