No. 2 WBB Dismantles Oklahoma in Waco

Saturday, February 22

Waco, Texas

4:00 PM

Baylor

25-1,14-0Big 12

101

Oklahoma

12-14,5-9Big 12

Oklahoma

Baylor

101

No. 2 WBB Dismantles Oklahoma in Waco

2/22/2020 6:31:00 PM | Women's Basketball

Box Score Box Score (PDF)Postgame Quotes Baylor Postgame Notes

Lady Bears win 101-69 over the Sooners

By Jerry Hill
Baylor Bear Insider
            Kim Mulkey won three national championships and got to 600 wins faster than any other Division I men's or women's basketball coach with a smothering defense.
            But on Saturday, the second-ranked Lady Bears brought a little "Showtime" with them to the Ferrell Center, scoring 34 fast break points in routing the visiting Oklahoma Sooners, 101-69, to stretch their winning streaks to 54-straight at home and 55 in a row in Big 12 play.
            "We were getting a lot of long rebounds and running," said Mulkey, whose team improved to 25-1 overall and 14-0 in the Big 12. "And not only our guards, our posts. NaLyssa (Smith) was down there on a lot of those. I know as a player, you've got to love that. I like to tell the kids that you want to be in the open floor. It's kind of like in the NBA, it's Showtime. You want to do something exciting, but you've got to finish."
            And more often than not, the Lady Bears did just that, nearly running Oklahoma out of the gym in the first 15 minutes of the game.
            Not distracted in the least by a pregame ceremony honoring Mulkey for her 600^th win, Baylor hit 14 of its first 16 shots, ked 36-19 after the first quarter and shot a sizzling 69 percent in the first half to take a comfortable 63-27 lead into the break.
            "My worry was that I didn't get to do my normal routine with the team in the locker room," Mulkey said. "All I did was prior to halftime was tell them what I'd written on the board. But, your preparation the days before are the same things you write on the board. So, they knew what to do."
            Playing the Magic Johnson role of the Los Angeles Lakers' "Showtime," grad transfer point guard Te'a Cooper scored 16 points, dished off a career-high 11 assists and matched her all-time high with five steals.
            "Everybody is for everybody," Cooper said. "We are pulling for each other, we play together, and that's what we expect out of every game."
            Everybody got into the act, with all 11 Baylor players scoring at least two points and logging at least nine minutes.
            The inside duo of Smith and Lauren Cox combined to hit 17-of-21 from the floor and scored 22 and 16 points, respectively. Cox recorded her seventh double-double of the year and 37^th of her career, adding 11 rebounds, three assists, three steals and two blocks.
            Baylor's post-to-post connection was particularly effective, with Cox and Smith passing to each other for three-straight buckets in the second quarter.
            "Last year, it was always Cox and Kalani (Brown)," Mulkey said. "We've got to use our post players to where we make people guard us inside more. I thought we got away from that a little bit this year because we're athletic at the post. But, I still want to get some touches in there deep, I want to get some lobs, I want to pound it in there. And I thought we did that better tonight."
            Led by Cox and Smith, the Lady Bears dominated the boards, 41-23, and outscored the Sooners in the paint, 68-10.
            Like most of Baylor's opponents, Oklahoma (12-14, 5-9) had to do most of its work from long range. Gabby Gregory and Taylor Robertson combined for nine of the Sooners' 10 3-pointers and scored 30 and 16 points, respectively.
            Missing second-leading scorer Ana Llanusa, "I feel a lot of our guys were forced to grow up tonight," said Oklahoma coach Sherri Coale.
            "I thought Gabby Gregory was phenomenal," she said. "We're going to add to that and continue to get better."
            Before the game, Mulkey got a surprise on-court presentation for winning 600 games. Told that she was needed on the court, Mulkey said, "For what? It's too early."
            But, when she noticed a large group of her former players sitting in the bleachers at one end of the court and her family at midcourt, it finally clicked.
            "I said, 'I get it now,''' she said. "I realized they were doing something for the 600^th victory. And then, I just kind of wept a little bit. You didn't see that, did you?"
            Mulkey also got emotional as she hugged some of her former players, including Monica Arnold and Stasha Richards from her first NCAA Tournament team in 2001 and Jordan Davis, Chelsea Whitaker and Melanie Hamerly from the 2005 national champions.
            "We don't have those victories and we don't have this locker room and we don't have all the things we have now if those players – many of them took a chance on me," Mulkey said. "Some of them were on my first team, some of those were ones I inherited. And they're proud as peacocks. They're proud of the program. A lot of them are mothers now, and it was just very emotional."
            In a quick turnaround, Baylor will face West Virginia (16-9, 6-8) at 6 p.m. CST Monday in Morgantown, needing one more win (or a TCU loss) to clinch at least a share of its 10^th-consecutive Big 12 championship.