CULTURAL EXPERIENCE

CULTURAL EXPERIENCE

8/2/2023 3:35:00 PM | Women's Basketball

Baylor women doing 10-day tour in Italy and Greece

By Jerry Hill
Baylor Bear Insider
            With only one of the 13 players on the roster being at Baylor for more than a year, Nicki Collen sees the Bears' foreign trip to Italy and Greece as much more than basketball.

            "Just camaraderie," Collen said. "The trip is really about cultural experience, spending time together, opening up the world to them. For us, our core values start with connection, so do we do a good job of finding ways to connect while we're over there?"

            Including four first-year transfers and 6-7 freshman Lety Vasconcelos, the Baylor women's basketball team leaves Thursday on a 10-day trip with stops in Rome, Naples and the Amalfi Coast in Italy and Santorini, Corinth and Athens in Greece.

            "We're only going to play two games. And because you don't practice over there, you literally just roll out and play," said Collen, who has made back-to-back NCAA Tournament appearances. "I think we're touring Capri on the day of our first game, so it's not exactly your usual get up, have a shoot around and focus on preparation. The basketball part is now. It's really getting them to learn to play together."

            Senior guard Sarah Andrews, who averaged 14.7 points and 4.3 assists in earning first-team All-Big 12 honors last year, said the foreign trip is a "once-in-a-lifetime thing that you've got to cherish."

            "It's special for them to take us over there to do some things for the community and give back while we're over there," Andrews said. "I'm looking forward to just going and having a good time with my teammates and coaching staff. I think it'll be a great experience for us to go over there and connect with each other."

            One of the advantages of a foreign trip, which the NCAA allows one every four years, is the extended practice time leading up to the trip. That gave Vasconcelos and transfers Denae Fritz (Iowa State), Yaya Felder (Ohio University), Madison Bartley (Belmont) and Jada Walker (Kentucky) the chance to get indoctrinated with the eight returning players.

            "The beauty of summer is that no one has been named a starter and minutes haven't been established," Collen said, "so I think you have this really good energy and positivity. These practices right now can create habits. We're not putting a lot in, so it's about foundation and pace – pace getting in and out of drills, pace in drills. Just teaching good practice habits so that we're not teaching that in September."

            Coming off a 20-13 season that ended with a 77-58 loss to UConn in the second round of the NCAA Tournament, Collen bolstered the roster with a quartet of potent offensive threats.

            "I do think we can go with a lot of different lineups – big lineups, smaller lineups, quicker lineups," Collen said. "We now have bigs that we can play five players that shoot the 3, at times. I think we have the ability to be significantly better offensively."

            Andrews, who scored 20-plus points eight times last season, said the depth on the team is "actually very scary, because now you've got to pick your poison of who you want to guard."

            "You can't just shut down one person," she said, "because we can go so deep inside our roster. On any given night, anybody can have a big game. We have a special team, and we're all rooting for each other and we're going to support each other each and every step."

            After losing guards Ja'Mee Asberry and Jaden Owens, Collen used the transfer portal to add scoring threats in Felder, Fritz and Walker.

            Felder was the leading scorer in the MAC last year, averaging 22.0 points per game and scoring a total of 638 points. The 5-8 junior from Hartford, Conn., scored a career-high 40 points in a Jan. 25 game at Central Michigan and shot 34.9% from 3-point range.

            "Yaya is probably as good as we've had in terms of being creative off the bounce," Collen said. "The most impressive thing about her is she takes a bump and finishes. She's not afraid to play through people. I think Yaya was in a situation (at Ohio) where she didn't have teammates at her level. So, she took some bad shots. It's really getting her to understand that she's surrounded by four people that are as good as her or can complement her."

            An All-SEC Freshman Team pick two years ago, the 5-7 Walker averaged 12.9 points, 3.1 assists and 2.6 steals last year at Kentucky.

            "She played off the ball for two years at Kentucky, so her growing pains are going to be in being that primary ball-handler and coming off ball screens," Collen said. "The one thing she's going to do is be a gnat. She's an unbelievable on-ball defender and really gets after you."

            The 5-11 Fritz gives the Bears a bigger guard for the first time under Collen. Starting all but one game last year at Iowa State, she averaged 8.8 points and 4.6 rebounds and joined Baylor's Darianna Littlepage-Buggs and Bella Fontleroy on the Big 12 All-Freshman Team.

            "She's got a little swag, competes, will get on the offensive glass," Collen said. "Just a tough kid, she has a natural toughness about her. Her growth is going to come in ball-handling, handling it with her left and playing off ball screens. She was clearly a spacer at Iowa State and wants to be more than that, so I think that's where she has opportunity."

            Bartley, a 6-3 senior forward, joins a frontcourt that includes Littlepage-Buggs, Vasconcelos, 6-3 sophomore Kyla Abraham and grad transfers Aijha Blackwell (Missouri) and Dre'Una Edwards. A first-team all-conference pick each of the last two years, she averaged 14.1 points and 5.1 rebounds last season at Belmont.

            "At first, I think I was a little scared," Bartley said. "Coming from a mid-major, you never know what's going to happen. I learned that I had to pick my physicality up. These last few practices, I've gotten more physical. I think just being able to learn from them how to play in the Big 12 and how to be more physical is something to learn early instead of learning during the Big 12."

            More of a natural stretch 5-player that knocked down 31.7% of her 3-point attempts last year, Bartley has the ability to "pick-and-pop, play off the bounce a little bit, trailing and making 3's," Collen said.

            "She's probably the best rim-runner we've had since I've been here, from a consistency perspective," Collen said. "Queen (Egbo) was fantastic when she would do it, but it wasn't every possession. Madison really wants to put pressure on the rim on every rebound."

            The lone freshman, Vasconcelos is a Brazilian native who is "learning to be physical, but huge upside and the ability to protect the rim."

            "She blocked a shot that looked like a clear layup for Kyla," Collen said, "and then Lety came out of nowhere. I think the thing that she's going to provide at the very beginning is rim protection."

            Although they're not technically newcomers, Blackwell and Edwards could make this team a Big 12 title contender and more. Limited to eight games last year, the 5-11 Blackwell averaged 15.0 points and 10.2 rebounds in three seasons at Missouri, while Edwards was the Pac-12 Freshman of the Year at Utah five years ago and averaged 16.8 points and 8.4 rebounds two years ago at Kentucky.

            "Those are two tough kids that know how to win and how to compete at a high level," Collen said. "(Edwards) is a player that can score on the low block, is going to offensive rebound, that's going to make 3's for us. . . . Analytically, (Blackwell) can make a mid-range jump shot, but it's not a very high-percentage shot for her, or a good return on investment. She plays downhill, she can score at the rim and she can get and-ones."

            For daily updates throughout the Baylor women's basketball tour, follow the team blog at baylorbears.com.