No. 9 WBB Takes Down No. 13 Texas, 75-63

Friday, February 4

Waco, TX

7 PM

Baylor

16-5,6-3Big 12

Texas

15-5,5-4Big 12

Texas

Baylor

No. 9 WBB Takes Down No. 13 Texas, 75-63

2/4/2022 9:23:00 PM | Women's Basketball

Box Score Box Score

By Jerry Hill
Baylor Bear Insider
            Coming off a one-point loss to Oklahoma and playing their biggest rivals, the ninth-ranked Baylor Bears didn't need a big motivational speech from first-year head coach Nicki Collen.
            Seeing orange was apparently enough.
            Senior All-American NaLyssa Smith put an exclamation point on a 25-point game with a 3-pointer in the final minute and helped Baylor pull out a comfortable 75-63 win over 13^th-ranked Texas Friday night at the Ferrell Center before a crowd of 5,435 that included a near-record student draw.
            "The crowd was incredible tonight, because there were times when we were tired," said Collen, whose team improved to 16-5 overall and 6-3 in the Big 12 with its 12^th-straight win over the Longhorns (15-5, 5-4).
            "What they do with their press over 40 minutes is wear you down. It doesn't always turn you over, but it makes you tried. Every time the ball goes through the hope, you've got to go 94 feet, and nothing is easy. Credit our players for handling it."
            The Bears actually had little trouble breaking the press, but still turned it over 19 times against a Texas defense that came in ranked first in the league in points allowed (55.3), steals per game (10.3) and turnovers forced (22.3).
            "Certainly, we turned it over too much," Collen said. "The advantage tonight was a lot of our turnovers were dead-ball turnovers, which allowed us to set our defense. You get in big trouble when you have live-ball turnovers. We had a lot of travels, throwing it out of bounds, not inbounding it clean against the press."
            With the Longhorns turning it over on their first two possessions, Baylor scored the first five points of the game on a Smith layup and three-point play by Ja'Mee Asberry and was up 23-15 after the first quarter. Texas turned it over 20 times and was outscored 25-17 on points off turnovers.
            "Yes, it was a bad start. Yes, it can set the tone," said Texas freshman guard Rori Harmon, "but we shouldn't let it set the tone."
            Asberry hit four of her first seven shots from outside the arc and scored all 15 of her points in the first 12 ½ minutes, with Baylor leading by as many as 14 in the second quarter. Aliyah Matharu drained two 3-pointers and also made three free throws when she got fouled outside the arc, helping the Longhorns pull back within five, 39-34.
            Sophomore guard Sarah Andrews, who finished with 17 points, eight assists, seven rebounds and a career-high five steals, answered Matharu's trey with one of her own to give Baylor a 42-34 lead at the break.
            After fading late in Wednesday's 78-77 loss to OU, giving up a six-point lead in the last three minutes, the Bears saw another double-digit lead disappear. Harmon knocked down a jumper just inside the 3-point line that pulled Texas within three, 48-45, with 2:44 left in the third quarter.
            This time, though, Baylor answered.
            After Queen Egbo hit two free throws, Andrews had a three-point play and then made one of two free throws with 2.0 seconds left to finish off an 8-0 run and push the Bears' lead back to double digits, 56-45, going into the fourth.
            "We're always looking to close out the quarter with a bucket," Andrews said. "I think right then and there, we needed that momentum at the end of that quarter."
            The Longhorns were still within striking distance, trailing 68-57, when Joanne Allen-Taylor buried a 3-pointer with 2:06 left in the game.
But, Baylor took the wind out of Texas' sails by beating the press when Caitlin Bickle threw a deep pass to Andrews for an easy layup.
            "I just felt like Sarah had the most aggressive defender. Rori was guarding her, and she's so quick, and I knew they would be dialed-up trying to get a steal," Collen said. "We didn't even perfectly execute it, but it was just so open that it didn't matter. It's one of those players where they're all dialed-in, you execute that, get an easy one, and their shoulders drop."
            Scoring 11 of her game-high 25 points in the fourth quarter, Smith was a perfect 4-for-4 from the line and 3-for-3 from the field, capping it off with a 3-pointer off a kick-out from Jordan Lewis.
            "I feel like coming off a loss, you always play with a little bit more energy," said Smith, who finished 10-of-12 from the field overall, "just because you don't want to feel that feeling again. Coming into this game, I knew what we needed to do."
            Matharu was 4-of-6 from 3-point range and led the Longhorns with 17 points, while Harmon had 10 points, six assists and three steals.
            "There's things we went through for three-straight days and Baylor still scored on them," Texas coach Vic Schaefer said. "That's just part of having a young team out there. I've got a lot of youth out there, a lot of inexperience."
            With Friday's game being a makeup of a Jan. 9 postponement because of COVID health and safety protocols, the same two teams will hook up again at 3 p.m. Sunday at the Frank Erwin Center in Austin.
            "It was important to see our team bounce back, to really compete with and for one another," Collen said. "I wanted to play well in front of these fans."