Baylor
Texas Tech
No. 11 WBB Heads to Lubbock to Face Texas Tech
1/25/2022 2:54:00 PM | Women's Basketball
Bears look to follow up their first top-10 win of the seasono
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11/14 BAYLOR BEARS (13-4, 3-2) Location: Waco,Texas Conference/Affiliation: Big 12 Head Coach: Nicki Collen (Marquette, 1998) Roster | Stats | Game Notes (PDF) |
BAYLOR (13-4, 3-2) at TEXAS TECH (9-9, 2-5) January 26, 2022 • 7 p.m. CT Lubbock, Texas • United Supermarkets Arena LIVE STATS: Stat Broadcast WATCH: Big 12 Now on ESPN+ Talent: Ron Thulin (pxp), Brandi Poole (analyst) LISTEN: ESPN 1660AM, 92.3FM, BaylorBears.com Talent: Derek Smith (pxp), Sophia Young-Malcolm (Analyst) Baylor Social Media:    |
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TEXAS TECH LADY RAIDERS (9-9, 2-5) Location: Lubbock, Texas Conference/Affiliation: Big 12 Head Coach: Krista Gerlich (Texas Tech, 1993) Roster | Stats (PDF) | Game Notes (PDF) |
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By Jerry Hill
Baylor Bear Insider
Like pretty much everyone in the country, the 11th-ranked Baylor women want to play their best basketball in March . . . and hopefully April.
If the Bears (13-4, 3-2) can top Sunday's 87-61 dismantling of then- No. 7 Iowa State, everybody else better watch out.
"That one night when we're all hitting shots, it's going to be pretty scary," said sophomore guard Sarah Andrews, who scored 18 points and knocked down 4-of-5 from 3-point range in the win over the Cyclones.
Riding a three-game winning streak, Baylor takes its act back on the road to face Texas Tech (9-9, 2-5) at 7 p.m. Wednesday at United Supermarkets Arena in Lubbock. The Lady Raiders seem to be headed the other way, losing four of their last five, but did hand 25th-ranked Kansas State one of its two conference losses 64-45.
"The thought of the day was about consistency," first-year Baylor head coach Nicki Collen said. "Nine days ago, the message was different. We know what it is to be at the bottom of the standings. We've just got to keep working our way up. And we've got to win every day and take the approach of 1-0. I know these guys know what it felt like a week ago."
Baylor was at the bottom of the league standings after an 0-2 start, but has strung together three-straight wins and climbed closer to the top, just a game out of first place. And actually, the Bears are tied with four other teams in the loss column – No. 13 Iowa State, 18th-ranked Oklahoma and K-State at 5-2 and No. 9 Texas at 4-2.
"If you get too high after a good week, it's easy to be humbled with a bad week," Collen said.
Sunday's game against Iowa State was the closest the Bears have come to a complete game on both ends. They were 12-of-21 from outside the arc, including Jordan Lewis' 6-for-7 performance, while holding the Cyclones to 33% shooting overall and just 7-of-27 from distance.
"I feel like we're on a high right now, but I hope we don't get too high on that high," said senior forward NaLyssa Smith, who's averaging a double-double with 20.2 points and 11.8 rebounds per game. "We still have a lot of games to play, so we can't get too excited just winning two games. We still have 15, 16 left."
While the improved 3-point shooting should eventually open things up for Smith and 6-3 senior center Queen Egbo (10.4 ppg, 8.6 rebounds), Smith said she feels like teams are still "packing it in and hugging me in the post half the game."
"I feel like the more we progress at the 3, they're going to have no choice but to expand it and go out and play the 3," Smith said. "The more we keep improving, the more open I'm going to be."
It helps, too, that Egbo has picked up the pace, averaging 14.8 points and 12.3 rebounds over the last four games. She had 14 points and a career-high 21 rebounds in the win over Iowa State.
"Just to see her finally getting out of the slump, finally enjoying the game, is good for her," Smith said of Egbo. "When I'm not at my best, we're supposed to have another player that's going to go off. That's the beauty of everyone playing D-I basketball. We're all here for a reason, everybody has talent. So, when I do have an off night, I expect someone to go for 20, 30 points."
Under second-year head coach Krista Gerlich, the point guard on Tech's 1993 national championship team, the Lady Raiders got off to a 6-1 start this season. But, since the calendar flipped to December, they have lost eight of their last 11 games.
A three-time first-team All-Big 12 pick at Oklahoma State (2018-20) and Tech (2020-21), 6-1 senior forward Vivian Gray is Tech's only double-figure scorer, averaging 18.3 points, 6.0 rebounds and 2.9 assists per game.
Collen said the plan is to make Gray uncomfortable the same way the Bears did with Iowa State's Ashley Joens, who turned it over three times and was just 4-of-14 from the floor.
"It's hard to keep a player from taking a shot, but do we get a contest?" Collen said. "I think Lys's length can bother her. They'll isolate her on the block when she plays the 3 (small forward position). When she's at the 4 (power forward), they're going to isolate her more on pin downs and things like that.
"Sometimes, it doesn't come down to one player. It comes down to, are you making her inefficient and are you guarding the rest of them?"
Wednesday's game will be streamed by Big 12 Now on ESPN+, with Ron Thulin and Connecticut Sun assistant coach Brandi Poole calling the action.
THREE IN A ROW
• Over the last three games, Baylor is averaging 3.5 points higher than the season average in addition to shooting .459 from 3, compared to the season average of .347.
• Speaking of 3s, Baylor's guards are shooting at a blistering rate from long range. Sarah Andrews is red hot at 64.7 percent, followed by Jordan Lewis at 58.3 and Ja'Mee Asberry at 50.
• Baylor's starting five during this win streak is averaging double figures. NaLyssa Smith leads the way with 16, followed by Andrews with 15, Queen Egbo with 14.3, Lewis with 12.7 and Asberry with 10.7. Caitlin Bickle isn't far behind with 7.3 points per game.
• The Bears have doubled up their assist to turnover ratio at 66 dimes to 33 turnovers while assisting on nearly 80 percent of their buckets.
TOP 10 WIN
• Baylor picked up its first ranked win - and top-10 win - of the Nicki Collen era with an 87-61 victory over then-ranked No. 7 Iowa State on Sunday. It marked the worse loss since 2018 for the Cyclones.
• It was a true team effort for the Bears as shown by the 26 assists on 32 buckets. Over BU's three-game win streak, Baylor has assisted on 79 percent of its made baskets.
• Jordan Lewis led the charge offensively with 24 points off 9-of-11 shooting. The grad transfer went 6-for-7 from the 3-point line to tie her career high triples in a game.
• Queen Egbo went to work on the boards, pulling down a career-best 21 rebounds. That total tied her for eighth all-time in program history alongside Kalani Brown, Maggie Davis Stinnett and Jackie Valentine.
• Sarah Andrews continued her hot streak from the perimeter, shooting 4-of-5 from downtown.
• NaLyssa Smith added 17 points of her own to go with three blocks.
WALKING DOUBLE-DOUBLE
• NaLyssa Smith is third in the country with 13 double-doubles on the season.
• Smith is fifth in program history with 41 career double-doubles.
• The senior is averaging 20.2 points and 11.8 rebounds per game which ranks No. 20 and No. 6 in the country, respectively.
LET IT FLY
• Baylor's program record for triples made came on Dec. 18, 2019 against Arkansas State when Juicy Landrum caught fire and set an NCAA record with 14 triples. Besides that record-setting performance, BU hadn't drained more than a dozen shots from deep since 2011.
• BU's record for 3-point attempts in a season came in 2013-14 when the Bears attempted 596 3s.
• From that season to 2020-21, Baylor made 10 or more 3-pointers in a game only five times across a total of 281 games (1.78 percent). BU has done so four times this season.
• At Kansas, Baylor nearly set a record with a 14-for-29 display from the perimeter. BU's 14 treys marked the second most in program history.
• Prior to this year, only 14 Bears had made six or more 3s in a game. Two of them had done it multiple times (Makenzie Robertson, 2012, 2014) and Jennifer King (1990, 1991, 1993).
• Sarah Andrews and Ja'Mee Asberry have already joined that elite club this season. Andrews went 6-for-8 against Morehead State and from deep and Asberry fired off 6-of-8 against Alcorn State. Asberry then went 6-for-11 at Kansas, and Andrews set a career-high with a 7-for-10 mark.
• Andrews' seven 3s tied for third in program history. She is now one of six Bears in program history to hit a minimum of seven triples in a game.
• Andrews is currently No. 10 in the nation in 3-point percentage at 45.5 percent.
• Jordan Lewis joined the club with her 6-of-7 performance against Iowa State.
