WBB Defeats Texas State in Season Opener

Tuesday, November 9

Waco, Texas

7 PM

Baylor

1-0,0-0Big 12

Texas State

0-1,0-0Sun Belt

Texas St.

Baylor

WBB Defeats Texas State in Season Opener

11/9/2021 9:40:00 PM | Women's Basketball

Box Score Box Score

By Jerry Hill
Baylor Bear Insider
            Playing their first game under Nicki Collen, the seventh-ranked Baylor women got the shots they wanted, they just didn't make them.
            After using a stifling defense to jump out to a 15-point first-quarter lead, the Bears had to survive a late push by the visiting Texas State Bobcats to hold on for a too-close-for-comfort 77-70 win in Tuesday's season opener and the first game of the Nicki Collen era.
            "If they're going to consistently go under Sarah (Andrews), Jordan (Lewis) and Ja'Mee (Asberry), they should be banging 3's," said Collen, who replaced Hall of Fame coach Kim Mulkey after three seasons with the WNBA's Atlanta Dream. "You shouldn't be able to go under ball screens on us, and they did all night. We just didn't take advantage of it."
            Baylor (1-0) struggled from outside the 3-point arc, knocking down just 4-of-25 overall and 0-for-8 in the second half. Jaden Owens hit her first two 3-pointers and scored eight points (all in the first 15 minutes), but the rest of the team went 2-for-20.
            "When we're on, we're on," said senior forward NaLyssa Smith, who scored 15 of her 23 points in the second half. "But, when we're off, we've got to find different ways to score the ball."
            Texas State's physical post defense frustrated the 6-4 Smith in the first half. She missed six of her first nine shots and had only one rebound through the first three quarters.
            "They were jamming our ball screens and being real physical at the point of attack," Collen said. "We talked to them at halftime about playing through that. (Smith) started to just drive around them and use her athleticism, which is kind of what she should do most of the time."
            The first quarter looked a lot like Baylor's early-season blowouts that became a staple of Mulkey's 21-year run. Queen Egbo, who recorded her 11^th career double-double with 16 points and 11 rebounds, scored eight in the first quarter and helped the Bears take a 22-7 lead.
            Making her Baylor debut, grad transfer Jordan Lewis from Alabama converted a three-point play with a layup and follow free throw as the Bears pushed their lead to 38-19 with 3:21 left in the first half.
With a chance to pull away, though, they missed their next four shots, and Kennedy Bailey hit a running 3-pointer at the buzzer that cut the Bobcats' deficit to 38-24 at the break.
            The same thing happened in the third quarter, when Baylor went up by 20 on a pair of Smith free throws. But, Texas State answered with back-to-back treys by Jo'Nah Johnson and Da'Nasia Hood and trailed 62-47 going into the fourth quarter.
            "We had a chance to open it up there in the third quarter, and we just didn't," Collen said. "We've got to learn from that. We can't take possessions for granted. I want to see that look in Lys' and Queen's eyes, fighting over rebounds at the end of the game, in the first quarter. That's how we have to be, and we have to be that all the time, because then you squash people's hopes."
            Instead, the Bobcats carried that hope to the end of the game, whittling the deficit to single digits on a Hood 3-pointer and making it a six-point game, 73-67, with 2:17 left on another Hood trey.
            "Look, we're everybody's Super Bowl. I know that," Collen said. "They're not worried about whether they missed their seven shots previous to that. Hood struggled early and then got going and started cooking again. What did she have to lose? You play with a different expectation when you put a Baylor uniform on, because you know you're going to get everybody's best shot."
            Smith slowed the train down with a driving layup, then Sarah Andrews gave the Bears some breathing room with a pair of free throws.
            "I feel like we were all saying, we needed one bucket just to get our momentum going," Smith said, "an and-one, a block, just something that was going to get us going. . . . It just helps you really want to dig into it and get the win, especially not for yourself, but for everybody in the stands."
            A preseason first-team All-Sun Belt Conference pick, Hood missed her first seven shots before making eight of her last 14 and draining four 3-pointers to lead the Bobcats (0-1) with 20 points.
            "We aren't at full health," said Texas State coach Zenarae Antoine, who was an assistant under Nicki's husband, Tom Collen, at both Louisville and Arkansas. "That being said, man, did these Bobcats give the Baylor Bears a fight tonight."
            Lewis chipped in with 14 points and seven assists, while Owens and Andrews had eight points apiece. Andrews also had a career-high eight rebounds, finishing just two points and two boards shy of a double-double.
            Baylor goes on the road to face UT-Arlington at 6 p.m. Thursday at College Park Center in Arlington, Texas, in the Lady Mavs' season opener. UTA is led by second-year head coach Shereka Wright, a three-time All-American at Purdue and the National Player of the Year as a senior at Copperas Cove High School.