Baylor
TCU
No. 7 WBB Faces Horned Frogs Twice in Four Days
2/15/2022 2:31:00 PM | Women's Basketball
Baylor hosts TCU on Wednesday, travels to Fort Worth on Saturday
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7/10 BAYLOR BEARS (19-5, 9-3) Location: Waco,Texas Conference/Affiliation: Big 12 Head Coach: Nicki Collen (Marquette, 1998) Roster | Stats | Game Notes (PDF) |
BAYLOR (19-5, 9-3) vs. TCU (6-15, 2-10) February 16, 2022 • 7 p.m. CT Waco, Texas • Ferrell Center LIVE STATS: Stat Broadcast WATCH: Big 12 Now on ESPN+ Talent: Lincoln Rose (pxp), Jim Haller (analyst), Brooke Bednarz (reporter) LISTEN: ESPN Central Texas, BaylorBears.com Talent: Derek Smith (pxp), Sophia Young-Malcolm (Analyst) Baylor Social Media:    |
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TCU HORNED FROGS (6-15, 2-10) Location: Fort Worth, Texas Conference/Affiliation: Big 12 Head Coach: Raegan Pebley (Colorado, 1997) Roster | Stats (PDF) | Game Notes (PDF) |
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By Jerry Hill
Baylor Bear Insider
In a scheduling quirk due to the COVID pause in January, the seventh-ranked Baylor women have already finished four Big 12 series, including back-to-back matchups against 14th-ranked Texas.
Forty-five days after opening conference play, the Bears (19-5, 9-3) will play TCU (6-15, 2-10) for the first time at 7 p.m. Wednesday at the Ferrell Center in the first of back-to-back games. Baylor will then travel the short distance up I-35 to Fort Worth, playing the Horned Frogs at 1 p.m. Saturday at Schollmaier Arena.
"I think a lot of it is challenging them to not look at their record," said first-year Baylor head coach Nicki Collen, whose team has won four in a row and nine of its last 11 games to move into a second-place tie with 15th-ranked Oklahoma (20-4, 9-3) and one game behind No. 6 Iowa State (21-3, 10-2) in the Big 12 standings.
"They've played good teams well and have put together good stretches of basketball. Maybe not enough to sustain and win as many games as I certainly think they expected to this year with all of their super seniors and veteran players. I think they're better than their record."
While TCU has lost seven-straight, the Bears bounced back from a home-court loss against OU to sweep Texas, beat Kansas State by 45 points and dominate the second half in Saturday's 75-57 win over West Virginia.
"I wouldn't say we're playing our best basketball, but I think we're playing better together every game," said Lewis, who came out of a shooting slump to average 21 points and 6.5 assists last week while knocking down 8-of-10 from outside the arc. "And you can see it, not only with our scoring, but being connected on defense and locking into the game plan. We can't hit our peak right now. We have to keep growing and adding on thi8ngs that we want to do."
Lewis might have earned her second Big 12 Player of the Week honor if not for 6-4 senior teammate NaLyssa Smith. She scored 22 in the 95-50 win over K-State, matched her career high with 30 in the West Virginia game and has averaged 23.9 points while shooting 60.2% from the floor over the last seven-game stretch.
"She is a player that, quite frankly, is easy for me to get shots for, especially when teams play us man," Collen said of Smith, who is averaging 21.3 points and 11.2 rebounds per game. "Against Kansas State, she did a really good job of working to get open in the high post. That's a place where I think she can be really successful."
Smith's money shot is the mid-range jumper from the baseline, where she rarely misses.
"I think if you looked back at film and looked at her shot chart over the course of her career, it's a shot she has made," Collen said. "Maybe not as consistently as she's making now. We've just run action to get her that shot. It's a good spot for her, both because she can make that shot, and then we've opened up the middle for her to attack with her right hand."
An older team with transfers from Texas A&M, Arizona, Butler, Mississippi State, Virginia Tech, George Washington and Virginia Tech, the Horned Frogs are still led by fifth-year senior guard Lauren Heard. A two-time first-team All-Big 12 pick, Heard ranks in the top 10 in the league in scoring (16.4 ppg) and assists (4.2).
"Lauren Heard is the head of the snake, both offensively and defensively," Collen said. "She hasn't shot the ball particularly well this season, but she's had big games. What she does is she puts downhill pressure on you. She's good at getting to the rim, good at drawing fouls."
A volume shooter who took 17 shots in last year's 92-55 loss to the Bears in the Big 12 tournament, Heard got Baylor guard DiDi Richards in early foul trouble.
"DiDi got to watch most of that game from the bench," Collen said. "Even though it ended up being a blowout win for Baylor, she was in foul trouble because Lauren just puts her head down and goes."
Collen and eighth-year TCU head coach Raegan Pebley were both assistants together for two years at Colorado State (1999-2001) under Nicki's husband, Tom Collen.
"Sometimes, teams get this late in the season, they're having a down year, and they'll pack it in," Collen said. "But, I haven't seen any let-up from them in terms of effort or intensity. I know she's going to have them ready, I know they're going to play really hard. They're not going to come in here and not compete or lie down or count the days till spring break."
Wednesday's game will be streamed by Big 12 Now on ESPN+, with Lincoln Rose, former Baylor men's basketball coach Jim Haller and Brooke Bednarz calling the action.
BACK-TO-BACK (AGAIN)
• Due to Baylor's COVID pause in early January, BU's game against TCU originally scheduled for Jan. 5 was moved to Feb. 16. That meant that the Bears would host the Horned Frogs on Wednesday before traveling to Fort Worth on Saturday.
• This week isn't quite the turnaround that the Texas weekend was - when BU faced the Longhorns twice in three days. Instead, the Bears will play TCU twice in four days.
• While this will be Nicki Collen's first time as a head coach against the Horned Frogs, she isn't unfamiliar with their head coach, Raegan Pebley. The two served as assistant coaches at Colorado State from 1999-01 under Nicki's husband, Tom Collen.
SHARE THE SUGAR
• Baylor is No. 9 in the country - and third among Power 5 teams - with 63.1 percent of its buckets assisted on this season.
• Adding to that, the Bears are 10th in the country in assist-to-turnover ratio.
• In Baylor's Big 12 wins this season, BU assists on 68.2 percent of its buckets. In their league losses, the Bears assist on 54.8 percent.
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 five 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.
• Jordan Lewis joined the club with her 6-of-7 performance against Iowa State.
