No. 6 WBB Falls in Close Matchup with Maryland

Sunday, November 21

College Park, MD

12 PM

Baylor

3-1,0-0Big 12

Maryland

6-0,0-0Big Ten

Baylor

Maryland

No. 6 WBB Falls in Close Matchup with Maryland

11/21/2021 1:54:00 PM | Women's Basketball

Box Score

Bears fall 79-76 in top-10 matchup with Terps

By Jerry Hill
Baylor Bear Insider
            COLLEGE PARK, Maryland – Other than subbing in when DiDi Richards suffered a hamstring injury in the Elite Eight matchup against UConn, Sarah Andrews didn't play in a lot of big moments as a Baylor freshman last year.
            In one of the biggest moments of her career, Andrews nearly completed a fourth-quarter rally by the sixth-ranked Baylor Bears, but her 3-pointer at the buzzer rattled out as the No. 3 Maryland Terrapins (6-0) held on for a 79-76 victory Sunday afternoon at the XFINITY Center.
            Watching Andrews take the wide-open 3-pointer, first-year Baylor head coach Nicki Collen thought it was going in and the Bears (3-1) were headed to overtime.
            "That's what I was hoping for," said Collen, who suffered her first loss. "It was a good shot, and Sarah Andrews is a good player, and Jordan Lewis made the right play right there. That's just though. Sarah Andrews didn't play in a lot of big moments a year ago.
            "I think she's learning to pay through fatigue, because she certainly didn't play a lot of minutes a year ago. I just believe she's going to make the next one."
            NaLyssa Smith had a monster double-double with a career-high-tying 30 points and 15 rebounds, while Lewis had 13 of her 29 points in the fourth quarter and Smith added 10 points, eight assists and six rebounds for the Bears, who trailed by seven at the break and were down by as many as 13 in the third quarter.
            "When it comes down to it, we lost the game at the free throw line," Collen said of the Bears being outscored, 17-4, at the foul line. "When you look at points off turnovers, things like that, those were pretty even. We beat them on the boards (43-39), we shot the ball better, we did a lot of things well. That's why it was a one-possession game. The difference was the foul-line discrepancy."
            Lewis and Smith scored all 21 of Baylor's fourth-quarter points, combining to hit 9-of-17 in the period. But, the rest of the team was 0-for-6 in the final period and 0-for-5 from distance.
            "They kind of look to us as veterans and as team leaders to carry the team in that way," said Lewis, whose previous Baylor high was 14 points in the season opener against Texas State.
            "Lys had the hot hand, I had the hot hand at times . . . so you want to feed the hot hands. Although (the other players) weren't scoring, they did a good job getting us the ball in open spots and rebounding and setting good screens. I don't think what they did went unnoticed, it just wasn't necessarily in the points column."
            Trailing by seven at the break and down by as many as 13 in the third quarter, the Bears rallied to cut it to 64-59 on a pair of Smith buckets that forced Maryland coach Brenda Frese to call a timeout with 8:36 left in the game.
            "A lot of it was just execution," Collen said. "We got the ball to the people that were making shots. We went to NaLyssa in a variety of ways. I thought we executed a lot of our actions. And it's not an easy team to execute against, because their man, their zone, are so hybrid that sometimes your players aren't quite sure where to screen. They have to hunt spaces and openings."
            The Terps pushed it back to double digits and went up 76-65 on a tough shot in traffic by Ashley Owusu, who scored a team-high 24 points. But Lewis knocked down a 3-pointer, then converted a three-point play with a fast-break layup and follow free throw.
            Smith made it a three-point game, 76-73, on a second-chance layup off a dish from Lewis, but Maryland's Angel Reese answered with a three-point play on the other end when Smith was called for a foul on the driving layup.
            In the end, that proved to be the difference when Andrews' 3-pointer rattled out and left the Bears three points short.
            "I think everybody thought that Lys and Queen (Egbo) would carry us, which Lys did in moments," Collen said. "But, it takes more than one player in a really good game to do that. I thought after a little bit of a shaky start for Jordan Lewis, she was just a beast."
            Baylor won a tight rebounding battle against a taller Maryland team, 43-39, but the Terrapins finished with a 17-7 edge in second-chance points and outscored Baylor, 17-13, in points off turnovers.
            Even with point guard Katie Benzan out with an illness and Diamond Miller still limited by an injury, Maryland had four players score in double figures. Reese just missed a double-double with 17 points and nine rebounds, with Chloe Bibby adding 16 points and Mimi Collins 10 points and eight boards.
            "As a competitor, you don't want to lose the game," Lewis said. "You can take things away from the game and move forward, but it hurts. While we can take a lot of good things from it, I think it still stings."
            Moving on to the Cancun Classic in Cancun, Mexico, the Bears will face Fordham (3-1) at 10 a.m. CST Thursday, Arizona State (2-2) at 10 a.m. Friday and Houston (2-2) at 12:30 p.m. Saturday. Fordham handed Michigan State its first loss of the season, 71-68, on Sunday.