WBB Falls in Overtime to No. 16 Oklahoma, 98-92

Tuesday, February 7

Waco, Texas

7 p.m.

Baylor

16-7,7-4Big 12

#16 Oklahoma

19-4,9-3Big 12

OT 1

Oklahoma

Baylor

Caitlin Bickle shoots the three against OU

WBB Falls in Overtime to No. 16 Oklahoma, 98-92

2/7/2023 9:50:00 PM | Women's Basketball

Box Score Box Score (PDF)

Bears see Bickle get a 30 piece and Littlepage-Buggs has 11th double-double

By Jerry Hill
Baylor Bear Insider
            Leading 16^th-ranked Oklahoma for all but 39 seconds in regulation, the Baylor women had this one in hand. All the Bears had to do was hold on to the ball and walk away with a series sweep of the Sooners.
            In the blink of an eye, though, Oklahoma rallied from a five-point deficit in the last 20 seconds of regulation, tied it on a Taylor Robertson 3-pointer and then scored the last six points in overtime to pull off a 98-92 stunner Tuesday night at the Ferrell Center.
            "You don't get over it, you don't," said Baylor coach Nicki Collen, whose team fell to 16-7 overall and tied for third in the Big 12 at 7-4. "When you have a game like this that you put your heart and soul into, and you feel like you should have won. . . but you didn't and you respect your opponent, and they made the plays late."
            Oklahoma (19-4, 9-3), which didn't take its first lead until 1 ½ minutes into the overtime period, scored 31 points off Baylor's 21 turnovers. But the most costly turnover came when Ana Llanusa picked off a Sarah Andrews pass in the backcourt and fed Robertson for the game-tying 3-pointer with 14.3 seconds left.
            "That game was won, and we found a way to lose it," Collen said. "It was probably a mistake on my part that I didn't use my last timeout when they cut the lead to three, but we got the ball inbounded to Sarah Andrews, and they had to foul. Last possession, they're down three, they've got to foul. We needed to cover up, and they had to foul."
            Instead, the Sooners tied it on a 3-pointer by the NCAA's all-time leader in 3-pointers made.
            "There's a reason (Robertson) is the NCAA all-time leading 3-point shooter, Collen said of Robertson, who scored 14 points and went 3-for-7 from outside the arc. "She's not going to miss that shot. I've seen her for two years make that shot over and over and over again. . . . The ending of that game just eats at you. It eats at your soul. You don't sleep, you don't eat."
            Baylor came back from a five-point deficit to tie it twice in OT, the last one when Andrews fed freshman Darianna Littlepage-Buggs for a layup that made it 92-92 with 1:30 left. But the Sooners regained the lead on a Madi Williams jumper and scored the game's last six points to escape with the improbable road win.
            "I think for us, it's going home, watching this film, getting with the coaches and wipe it away," said Baylor senior forward Caitlin Bickle, who hit four 3-pointers and scored a career-high 30 points. "That's exactly what Coach Nicki said. She wasn't like, 'Oh, let's dwell on it.' No, you're going to watch the game, we're going to learn from it and we're going to move forward and become better for it."
            Littlepage-Buggs recorded her fourth-straight and team-high 11^th double-double of the year with 14 points and a career-high 17 rebounds. The Bears also got 20 points from Andrews, a career-high 14 assists from Jaden Owens and an 11-point outing by Ja'Mee Asberry.
            But OU was even better-balanced with five double-figure scorers, led by Llanusa and Skylar Vann with 20 points apiece. Williams just missed a double-double with nine points and 10 rebounds, while Neveah Tot and Liz Scott scored 13 and 11 points, respectively.
            Collen said she didn't do enough "to get them to believe we were going to win when the game went to overtime."
            "Even trying to get them to understand they had five minutes to prove they were the better team," she said, "because they had proven for 39 minutes and 46 seconds that they were the better team. . . . I feel like we were deflated, giving up the lead. We even tied it up once, we just didn't have enough gas in our tank to get enough stops late to win."
            The Bears also had a 12-point second-quarter deficit, but Oklahoma closed the half with eight unanswered points and got it back to 46-42 at the break.
            After turning it over just four times in the first half, including none in the first period, Baylor had 17 in the second half and 21 for the game to keep the door open.
            "I don't know what to say, we didn't take care of the ball," said Owens, who added seven points, four rebounds and two steals, but also had five turnovers. "I didn't take care of the ball, especially in crunch time. I wouldn't really say they got me sped up or anything, or us. I just think it was, I don't know, maybe a lack of focus."
            Oklahoma used an 11-1 run to get back in it late in the fourth quarter and pulled within two when Vann hit a layup off a turnover under the basket by Littlepage-Buggs, when she rebounded an OU miss and threw it to Vann as she was falling out of bounds.
            "You have a loose ball under the basket . . . I don't even want to save it under our own basket," Collen said. "Whatever end it's on, it usually ends poorly. She was just making a hustle play. It was instinctual to try to save that ball. She just happened to save it directly under the basket."
            Bickle, whose previous high was 21 points, was 8-of-11 from the floor, a career-best 4-of-7 from 3-point distance and a perfect 10-for-10 from the line.
            "There's a reason Caitlin's good," Collen said, "because she takes her craft seriously. She doesn't get away with being good because she's faster or stronger or quicker. She's good because she studies and she cares and she wants to make the right play.
            Baylor goes back on the road to face Oklahoma State (17-7, 7-5) at 2 p.m. Saturday in Stillwater. The Cowgirls handed Baylor one of its three home-court losses in conference play, 70-65, and beat West Virginia, 76-65, Tuesday night to win its third in a row.

NOTABLES

In the first overtime game of the season, and just second in the Nicki Collen era, No. 16 Oklahoma squeaked out the 98-92 win inside the Ferrell Center Tuesday night. Additionally, it marked the first league game to go to OT this year.
Caitlin Bickle finished with a career-high 30 points marking the second 30-point outpouring by a Bear this season. She also connected from range a career-high four times and went a perfect 10-for-10 from the charity stripe.
For the second-straight game and 15th time this season, Jaden Owens led the Bears with a career-high 14 assists, matching an individual high on the year by a Bear.
In her third-straight 20-plus point game, and eighth of the season, Sarah Andrews turned in 20 to reach double figures for the 11th-straight game.
Darianna Littlepage-Buggs posted her fourth-straight double-double and 11th of the season, finishing with 14 points and a career- and high 17 rebounds.
Ja'Mee Asberry was the fourth Bear to reach double figures, tallying 11 in the outing.