By Jerry Hill
Baylor Bear Insider
MANHATTAN, Kan. – Shorthanded all night and down to five players by the end of the game, 10th-ranked Baylor's fourth-quarter comeback came up short in a 68-59 loss to the Kansas State Wildcats Sunday afternoon at Bramlage Coliseum.
Ayoka Lee scored 28 of her game-high 32 points in the second half to help K-State (11-2, 1-0) remain undefeated at home and snap a 35-game losing streak in the series with its first win over Baylor since Jan. 27, 2004.
"This team knows where their bread is buttered and they need to get her touches," Baylor coach Nicki Collen said of the 6-foot-6 Lee. "She was just really good today, she was efficient, and they were able to manage the time that she was out of the game with (Taylor) Lauterbach."
Baylor missed its first 10 shots from 3-point range and dug an early hole, falling behind 18-4 in the first quarter. The Wildcats took a 3-2 lead on a Jaelyn Green 3-pointer a little over a minute into the game and never trailed the rest of the way.
"We've had games where we've started slow," Collen said. "We missed open 3's to begin the game, missed shots around the rim. But, we allowed the slowness that they played at to dictate our tempo."
Starting the game shorthanded with Jaden Owens, Kendra Gillispie and Andrea Katramados all out because of health and safety protocols, things went from bad to worse a little over two minutes into the game when Queen Egbo picked up her second foul.
Collen said that was a "big impact" in the game, because the 6-3 Egbo is the "best option we have in terms of guarding Lee one-on-one." In a 36-point win over the Wildcats last season, Lee had just eight points and four rebounds.
Lee was also limited by foul trouble in the first half, playing just eight minutes and scoring four points. But, she scored 19 of K-State's 20 third-quarter points and was 10-of-12 from the floor and 8-of-11 from the line in the second half.
"This is the kind of team that if you bring (double-teams), you're giving up 3's," Collen said. "I believe that she could score 32 and we could still win the basketball game, quite frankly, if we did a good enough job on other four people on the floor."
Baylor cut a 15-point deficit down to eight, 29-21, at the half, and got within five on a Sarah Andrews 3-pointer with 3:50 left in the third quarter. But, the Wildcats closed the period on an 11-5 run and had a double-digit lead going into the fourth, 49-38.
That lead ballooned to as many as 14 before Ja'Mee Asberry drained a pair of 3-pointers in an 11-2 run that made it a four-point game, 63-59, with 1:16 left.
"That run was too late," Collen said. "We didn't need to hit home runs, we just needed to hit singles. They did just enough of that to kind of take us out of offense, and we missed cutters, missed flashers. We were right there, certainly, but with Queen fouled out and Sarah being under the weather . . . it just took a lot of the game-planning out of the mix for me."
Kamara McDaniel, Jordan Lewis and NaLyssa Smith missed layups and Lewis had a turnover on an out-of-bounds "timing play" down the stretch as K-State clinched it by making 5-of-6 free throws in the last 40 seconds.
Smith saw her double-double streak stopped at 11, hitting just 4-of-12 from the floor and finishing with 12 points and seven rebounds. Asberry and Lewis led the Bears with 14 points apiece, while freshman guard Serena Sundell gave the Wildcats a second double-figure scorer with 10 points and a game-high six assists.
Kansas State shot 51% from the field (23-of-45), won a tight rebounding battle, 30-27, and outscored Baylor in the paint, 32-24, in a game that was marred by a combined 45 turnovers.
"We can't let our offense dictate our defense," said Lewis, who scored half of her 14 points in the fourth quarter. "I think in all our losses, missed shots have led to other teams getting open looks or things where we have game slippage and forget to guard somebody in a certain way. We just can't let our offense or missed shots affect our defense early in the game like we have in our losses."
Trying to bounce back after losing two of their last three, the Bears will return home to host TCU (4-5) at 7 p.m. Wednesday and No. 12/13 Texas (10-1, 1-0) at 2 p.m. next Sunday, Jan. 9, at the Ferrell Center. The Horned Frogs were blown out by Metroplex rival SMU, 79-53, while the Longhorns won on the road at Oklahoma State, 62-51.