By Jerry Hill
Baylor Bear Insider
 
AMES, Iowa – Despite seeing a halftime lead disappear for the second-straight game, the fourth-ranked Baylor women were 30 seconds away from walking out of Hilton Coliseum with a hard-fought win.
 
Jada Walker, who also hit a three-quarter-court shot at the end of the first quarter, gave the Bears a one-point lead with 31.6 seconds left. But Iowa State freshman center Audi Crooks' layup and a pair of free throws by Hannah Belanger helped the Cyclones (12-4, 5-0) hand Baylor (14-2, 3-2) its second-straight loss, 66-63, Saturday afternoon.
 
"We were 1-for-9 from 3 in the fourth quarter," Baylor coach Nicki Collen said, "and we missed two key free throws when Aijha (Blackwell) had a nice steal and attack. We just couldn't get momentum. (We were) 3-for-15 in the third quarter, and a lot of those were wide-open shots."
 
Behind a matching, season-high 23 points from Crooks, the Cyclones won their eighth in a row, second-straight against a ranked opponent and third-straight versus the Bears. Belanger hit 3-of-4 from 3-point range and scored 10 of her 15 points in the second half, while Addy Brown and Emily Ryan scored 12 points apiece.
 
"It's hard to get interior against Crooks," Collen said. "She's a space-eater in the paint and keeps the ball high and doesn't have to jump. She does a good job of creating this space in front of her to go get defensive rebounds. Her weight is never off-balance when she rebounds because she doesn't really play anyone until they come to her. We needed to be coming from the perimeter. We needed our 3's and 4's to be flying in there and creating opportunity."
 
Picked sixth in the coaches' preseason poll, Iowa State is tied atop the Big 12 standings with 12^th-ranked Kansas State (17-1, 5-0), which rallied from a six-point second-half deficit to beat No. 10 Texas, 61-58.
 
After falling behind 10-5, the Bears hit eight of their next 11 shots in the first quarter and capped off a 19-1 run with Walker's buzzer-beating 3-pointer to go up 24-11. Baylor scored 14 points off Iowa State's 10 first-quarter turnovers and got a combined 15 points from Walker and Dre'Una Edwards, who finished with 19 points and seven boards.
 
The Cyclones chiseled into the deficit with a 7-0 run to start the second quarter and were down by just eight at the break, 37-29, when Crooks hit a jumper in the final seconds of the half.
 
And then, with a chance to extend a five-point lead at the end of the third quarter, Edwards took a quick 3-pointer rather than work the clock for a last shot. That gave Iowa State enough time for Belanger to knock down a 3-pointer that made it a two-point game, 54-52, going into the fourth.
 
"I feel like one of the things that maybe was a little fool's gold," Collen said, "when you win a lot of games by a lot of points early in the season, the time-and-score execution isn't as glaring. But I was trying to get them to take the last shot of the third quarter. And it wasn't that we even took a bad shot, Dre took a wide-open 3.
 
"Situationally, we needed to take the last shot there. Worst-case scenario, you're up five going into the fourth quarter. Maybe you're up six, seven or eight . . . and we gave up a 3 and head into the fourth with them having momentum and the crowd behind them."
 
There were three ties in the fourth quarter before Crooks scored on a layup off a feed from Addy Brown with 3:17 to go, putting the Cyclones ahead, 61-59.
 
After Ryan made one of two free throws to make it a three-point game, Walker hit a jumper in the lane and then gave the Bears the lead back with, 63-62, with a pair of free throws with 31.6 seconds left.
 
But the bucket by Crooks and free throws by Belanger were enough for Iowa State to pull out its first home-court win against Baylor since beating the then-No. 2 Bears, 57-56, on March 8, 2020, in the last game before the COVID shutdown.
 
After Collen called a time out with 10.8 seconds remaining to call a final play, Sarah Andrews missed a 3-pointer that would have tied it up. Andrews, Baylor's leading scorer for the season, got into early foul trouble and finished with three points on 1-for-7 shooting from outside the arc.
 
Walker had 14 points and six assists and Darianna Littlepage-Buggs added eight points and eight boards for the Bears, who were outrebounded, 36-31, and outscored in the paint, 36-24. Baylor shot 39.7% overall and 8-of-30 from 3-point range.
 
After the 0-2 road trip, Baylor returns home for its next two at the Foster Pavilion, hosting UCF (9-6, 0-5) next Saturday and K-State on Monday, Jan. 22, for a "White Out" game.

 

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• The No. 4 Baylor women's basketball team was unable to overcome Iowa State on Saturday afternoon, falling 66-63 at Hilton Coliseum. 
• The Bears started hot, closing the opening frame on a 19-1 run for a 24-11 lead. 
• BU scored 14 points on ISU's 10 turnovers in the first quarter and finished with 21 points on the Cyclones' 21 mistakes for the game. 
• Dre'Una Edwards turned in her second-highest scoring output of the season with a team-leading 19 points. She tied a career-high behind the 3-point arc, finishing with a trio of made threes. 
• Jada Walker dished out a team-leading six assists and added 14 points for her seventh double-digit scoring performance this season. 
• For the sixth time this year, Darianna Littlepage-Buggs paced the Bears on the boards, grabbing eight rebounds. 
• Baylor went to the free throw line just eight times as Walker went a perfect 3-for-3 from the charity stripe. 
• Senior Sarah Andrews has hit a 3-pointer in 15 of 16 games this season and she has 208 for her career. She needs just 51 more from range to break Odyssey Sims' career record (258).