No. 6 WBB Wins Big 12 Outright Following 64-57 Victory at Texas

Monday, March 1

Austin, Texas

6 p.m.

Baylor

20-2,15-1Big 12

Texas

16-8,10-7Big 12

Baylor

Texas

No. 6 WBB Wins Big 12 Outright Following 64-57 Victory at Texas

3/1/2021 8:46:00 PM | Women's Basketball

Box Score WBB_22_UT

NaLyssa Smith explodes for game-high 23 points in Lady Bears’ 12th consecutive win

By Jerry Hill
Baylor Bear Insider
            AUSTIN – Blown out by 25 just two weeks ago in Waco, the Texas Longhorns went toe-to-toe with the sixth-ranked Baylor Lady Bears for the first two quarters Monday night at the Frank Erwin Center.
            But, starting with back-to-back and-one layups by NaLyssa Smith and DiJonai Carrington, the Lady Bears (20-2, 15-1) scored 12 unanswered points in a two-minute stretch of the third quarter and rolled to their 12^th-straight win, beating the Longhorns, 64-57.
            And with it, Baylor clinches an outright title for the 10^th time in an unprecedented streak of 11-consecutive Big 12 regular-season championships, the longest active streak and fifth-longest in the history of NCAA Division I women's basketball.
            "We're the Big 12 champion for the 11^th-straight year. How could I not be happy?" said Baylor coach Kim Mulkey, whose team also won its 12^th-consecutive game overall and 10^th in a row over Texas (16-8, 10-7). "It was a good, ugly game. They had a ton of turnovers, we had a ton of turnovers. A lot of free throws shot (38), 43 fouls called. . . . We've got to get better at finishing the game when we're affected like we were on the perimeter."
            In a matchup of two of the league's top Player of the Year candidates, Smith held the upper hand on Texas junior center Charli Collier for the second time, finishing with a game-high 23 points to go with seven rebounds and a career-high-tying three steals. After score nine points in that pivotal third-quarter run, Smith put an exclamation point on her night by draining a pair of 3-pointers in the fourth.
            "Now, she'll just want me to set up more plays for her from the 3," Mulkey said, "so I'm going to have to deal with that all the way home to Waco. But I tell her, if you make them, shoot it again."
            Never lacking for confidence, Smith said, "I really shoot 3's. That's the first time y'all have seen it, tough. It felt good."
            Coming into Monday's game, the 6-2 junior forward had missed all seven 3-point attempts this season and was just 1-of-20 for her career. Her only previous made 3-pointer was in a 116-58 win over Saint Francis on Nov. 8, 2018, during her freshman season at Baylor.
            "I guess it's kind of a mismatch," Smith said, when asked if her shooting 3-pointers was fair to her opponents.
            In the first half, both teams struggled on the offensive end, hitting just 16-of-51 shots from the floor (31.4 percent) and combining for 46 points. Baylor limped into halftime with a 24-22 lead after the Longhorns missed three of four free throws and shot an air-ball 3-pointer when the Lady Bears were whistled for a foul and technical foul.
            It was a particularly rough night for Baylor's backcourt trio of DiDi Richards, Trinity Oliver and Moon Ursin, who were a combined 6-of-21 from the floor with nine turnovers.
            "I didn't think our seniors on the perimeter were very effective," Mulkey said. "They got spud up a lot. I thought Texas' half-court, close-up, in-you defense didn't allow Moon and DiJonai (Carrington) to relax. They were always in a hurry."
            Texas coach Vic Schaefer called a quick timeout barely a minute into the third quarter after back-to-back buckets by Smith and Queen Egbo, who had her fourth double-double of the season and 13^th of her career with 13 points and a season-high 14 rebounds.
            The big blow for the Longhorns, though, was after a Lauren Ebo layup made it a 30-24 game. By the time they scored again nearly four minutes later, Baylor had reeled off 12-straight points and stretched the lead to 42-24.
            After the layups and follow free throws by Smith and Carrington, Smith hit a baseline jumper, a pair of free throws and then another layup that pushed it to a healthy 18-point cushion.
            "You feed off the bench, you feed off everybody else's energy," said Smith, who scored 17 of her game-high 23 points in the second half, hitting 6-of-7 from the floor. "When we're all playing good, it's great basketball."
            Baylor was still up by 14 when Collier fouled out with 7:20 left in the game. But, the Longhorns finished the game on an 8-0 run that cut it to a single-digit deficit and one of Baylor's closest games of the year.
            While the Lady Bears won a tight battle of the boards, 34-28, Texas scored 25 points off Baylor's 23 turnovers. Collier finished with 12 points and nine boards, with Joanne Allen-Taylor and Audrey Warren chipping in with 15 and 12 points, respectively.
            "I thought our perimeter play was not very good tonight," Mulkey said. "Not only did (Carrington and Ursin) foul out, they ddid some things offensively and defensively that were out of our character. I want to be careful, because maybe Texas made them play that way. I need to go back and look at the film."
            Baylor will close out the regular season with a 4 p.m. matchup on Saturday at Kansas (7-15, 3-13) and a 7 p.m. home game next Monday against West Virginia (18-4, 12-4), which was officially eliminated from the conference race with the Lady Bears' win on Monday.

-BaylorBears.com-