No. 2/1 WBB Extends Big 12 Win Streak to 50 Games

Wednesday, February 5

Waco, Texas

7:00 PM

Baylor

20-1,9-0Big 12

Kansas

12-9,1-9Big 12

Kansas

Baylor

No. 2/1 WBB Extends Big 12 Win Streak to 50 Games

2/5/2020 8:59:00 PM | Women's Basketball

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Lady Bears have 8th best regular season conference win streak in NCAA history

By Jerry Hill
Baylor Bear Insider
            This probably isn't what the rest of the Big 12 wants to hear, but . . . she's baaaack.
            In easily her best game since returning from a high ankle sprain, sophomore forward NaLyssa Smith was a near-perfect 10-of-11 from the field and finished with 23 points and 10 rebounds to lead No. 2/1 Baylor (20-1, 9-0) to a 97-44 blowout victory over the Kansas Jayhawks Wednesday night before a Ferrell Center crowd of 8,265.
            Since initially suffering the ankle injury nearly a month ago, when she scored a career-high 30 points against Oklahoma State, the 6-2 forward had missed two games and scored a combined 27 points in the other four.
            Against Kansas (12-9, 1-9), though, she looked like the same player that was "on a roll before she got hurt."
            "I put her back in to get that (10^th) rebound, and told her, 'Don't you go out there and get hurt,''' Baylor coach Kim Mulkey said. "But, I wanted her to get it . . . She had reached that point where, 'OK, I'm getting it, Coach. I get it.' And then she gets injured. She's not there yet, she still gimps up and down the floor. She's like (Lauren) Cox and a lot of the great ones, she can help us, but you've got to be smart and careful on how to use her."
            In the practices leading up to Wednesday's game, Smith felt like she was close to 90 percent. She looks better than that.
            "I feel like I'm at that point where I'm almost there," she said. "The last two games, I didn't score a lot, didn't defend a lot, didn't get a lot of minutes. So, just coming back to the normal how I know how to play, it feels good."
            Smith was at her best in the third quarter, hitting 6-of-6 from the floor and scoring 13 of her game-high 23 points as the Lady Bears stretched their lead to 77-29.
            "Once I see my shot go in," she said, "I just keep doing things that I see that's working. It just felt comfortable."
            Extending winning streaks of 50 in a row in conference play, 52-straight at home and its 13^th in a row since a Nov. 30 loss to South Carolina, Baylor went on an 18-0 run in the first quarter and then scored the first 19 points of the third.
Smith hit four buckets and then capped the third-quarter run with a three-point play to give the Lady Bears a commanding 65-17 lead with 5:53 left in the period.
            Kansas coach Brandon Schneider said Baylor made the Jayhawks pay for their 24 turnovers, leading to 35 of their 97 points.
            "They're fantastic if they can create live-ball turnovers," Schneider said. "They're really good rebounding it and running as well. But when you get a shot attempt, people know they should initiate transition defense. It's really hard to initiate transition defense after live-ball tonight. That's where they were exceptional, and we did a poor job in stretches of the game of taking care of the basketball."
            Queen Egbo recorded her seventh double-double of the season and 10^th of her career with 10 points and 11 rebounds, while guards Te'a Cooper (15) and Moon Ursin (11) also scored in double digits for the Lady Bears. Aniya Thomas drilled four 3-pointers and scored 19 points to lead Kansas.
            Dominating in every category, Baylor outscored Kansas in the paint, 56-12, had 18 second-chance points to the Jayhawks' zero and finished with a 53-24 edge on the boards. The 53-point margin was a school record in a Big 12 game, topping the previous high of 50 set against Kansas in 2006.
            "I just think Moon and Queen are playing exceptional basketball," Mulkey said. "They give me a rotation that we don't miss a beat until we can get (Smith) back to 100 percent."
            Because of that depth, Schneider thinks this year's Baylor team is better than last year's national championship squad that finished 37-1.
            "They could very well be right back in the national championship hunt," Schneider said. "And having that type of production off the bench is one of the reasons why I think that. Because it's those young players that are more developed and have more experience, maybe, than they did a year ago."
            Egbo's night could have been even better, but she missed her last six free throws. The Lady Bears were just 11-of-21 overall from the line.
            "That's a sensitive topic," said Egbo, who was 3-of-6 from the field but just 4-of-10 from the line.
            "I'm going to coach from the tip until that clock is on (0:00)," Mulkey said. "I'm going to coach hard and I'm going to get on you and I'm going to develop you. Even it's not for this year, if it's for the future, you have to take advantage of minutes and make it very difficult for me to take you off the floor."
            Baylor finished the first half of conference play with a two-game lead over TCU (16-4, 7-2) and will go back on the road to play Kansas State (10-10, 4-5) at 2 p.m. Saturday in Manhattan. The Wildcats have won three of their last four and rallied from a fourth-quarter deficit to defeat Texas Tech, 84-70, on Wednesday.