By Jerry Hill
Baylor Bear Insider
 
WACO, Texas – Even when UCF left her wide open, Baylor senior Sarah Andrews continued to struggle from outside the 3-point arc, missing eight of nine shots from distance and going 2-for-14 overall in Saturday's game at Foster Pavilion.
 
But when the visiting Knights put her at the free-throw line with the game on the line, Andrews calmly sank four free throws in the last 30 seconds to lift the 12^th-ranked Baylor women to a much-needed 77-74 win before a crowd of 5,089 at their new basketball fieldhouse.
 
"They were big," Andrews said of her clutch free throws. "If we had more time, I was still going to shoot it. I know, eventually, the ball is going to fall. It was just one of those nights where my shot wasn't falling, but I found other ways to be involved. I had 10 assists, so I can't complain. I love when everybody else is scoring. (My) shots didn't fall, but I didn't trip."
 
Coming off back-to-back road losses, the Bears (15-2, 4-2) were able to get back in the win column despite committing a season-high 23 turnovers and giving up 32 points to UCF guard Kaitlin Peterson. A transfer from Indiana who came in averaging 20.4 points per game, Peterson was 10-of-19 overall, 5-of-6 from 3-point range and 7-of-9 from the line, missing her last two.
 
"We knew Peterson was their first option," said Baylor coach Nicki Collen, whose team improved to 10-0 at home, including 3-0 at Foster. "We didn't do a good enough job. Whether we were in switches or hedges or whatever we were in defensively, she got loose. . . . Huge game for her. Obviously, she had to make them, but she shouldn't have gotten 19 shots off against us."
 
After Andrews hit a pair of free throws with 9.4 seconds left, giving the Bears a three-point lead, the Knights (9-7, 0-6) tried to tie it with a potential three-point play by Mya Burns. But she was defended by sophomore Darianna Littlepage-Buggs on a drive to the basket and missed her mark.
 
"We were trying to let her go and finish an and-one," said UCF head coach Sytia Messer, an assistant coach on Baylor's 2019 national championship team. "We felt like we were going to the basket aggressive there, and it could have gone either way."
 
This time, it went Baylor's way, as UCF remained winless in league play in its debut season in the Big 12.
 
"We're trying to teach them what this level is, but experience is the best teacher," Messer said. "They've got to go through this experience. And our thing is, we've got a lot of basketball left."
 
Trailing for most of the first quarter, the Bears went up 18-17 on a pair of free throws by Aijha Blackwell when she was fouled with 0.3 seconds after an offensive rebound.
 
Never able to fully shake the Knights, Baylor trailed by two at halftime, 35-33, when Khyala Ngodu grabbed an offensive rebound and scored on a putback with about a second left. Peterson and Ngodu dominated the scoring for UCF in the first half, hitting a combined 9-of-15 from the floor and scoring 25 points.
 
Littlepage-Buggs, who matched her season high with 24 points, had a pair of three-point plays in a two-minute stretch of the third period and scored on a putback to open a 6-0 run that gave the Bears a five-point lead, 58-53, going into the fourth.
 
"Shout out to my team, we stayed poised," said Littlepage-Buggs, who was a perfect 9-for-9 from the field and 6-of-8 from the line. "I think the (and-ones) helped boost us and gave us a little more oomph. I was happy I could hit them for my team and get us the win."
 
While Baylor never trailed in the fourth, the Knights kept the pressure on and twice closed to within a single point, the last coming on a three-point play by Burns with just 21.2 seconds left on the clock.
 
No problem, Andrews was able to wiggle out of a full-court press and then canned another pair of free throws to give the Bears the cushion they needed to pull out a nip-and-tuck win.
 
"This was huge," said Andrews, who recorded her second-career double with 11 points and a season-high 10 assists. "For one, we always want to protect home. That was our top thing. It means a lot, getting our boost up, because those two losses were hard. But we don't dwell on it, we just learn from it. I just think we're going to keep pushing forward and bring everything we did to this game and more to the next."
 
Shooting better than 40% from 3-point range for the season, Andrews is just 4-for-22 in the last three games.
 
"I don't know that Sarah has been that open in a game all season long," Collen said. "They really spaced her and dared her to shoot. Teams don't usually do that with her. And she's just not going to shoot 1-for-9 with that many open shots. Against Iowa State, they were contested, they were deep. These were standing up on the 3-point line, open. And you anticipate she's going to make those."
 
Dre'Una Edwards hit a big 3-pointer in the fourth quarter that gave the Bears their biggest lead of the night, 68-60, and finished with 18 points, five rebounds and three assists. Ngodu was 6-of-8 from the field and finished with 15 points, seven rebounds and two blocks for the Knights, while Burns had 14 points, seven rebounds and four steals.
 
UCF finished with a 24-14 edge in points off turnovers, but Baylor had a 39-28 edge on the boards and scored 11 second-chance points. Aijha Blackwell scored only five points, but grabbed a season-high 13 rebounds.
 
In a quick turnaround, the Bears will host league-leading and seventh-ranked Kansas State (18-1, 7-0) at 7:30 p.m. Monday in a nationally televised game by FS1. Despite losing 6-6 center Ayoka Lee to an ankle injury, Kansas State held on to defeat Kansas, 69-58, Saturday in Manhattan.


GAME NOTES

• The No. 12 Baylor women's basketball team outlasted UCF, 77-74, at Foster Pavilion on Saturday afternoon.
• The Bears played in front of their second-largest crowd this season at the new facility with over 5,000 in attendance. 
• For just the second time this season and second time in Big 12 play, Baylor went into the locker room with a deficit at halftime and picked up the victory both times. 
• Baylor moved to a perfect 10-0 at home this year. 
• The Bears are 42-of-52 at the free throw line at Foster Pavilion in three games on the new home court. 
• Darianna Littlepage-Buggs finished in double figures for the eighth time this season with her second-career 20-point outing matching a season-high 24 points. 
• Aijha Blackwell turned in her fifth double-digit rebound outing this year, and third in four games, with a season high 13 boards.  
• Sarah Andrews dished out a season high 10 assists, finishing in double figures in the category for just the second time in her career. 
• Andrews added 11 points for her second-career double-double. 
• The senior guard has hit at least one 3-pointer in 16 of 17 games this season. 
• Bella Fontleroy matched a career high with three steals. 
• Dre'Una Edwards finished in double figures with 18 points, and she has now reached double-figure scoring in a team-leading 14 of 17 games this season. 
• As a team, the Bears shot 50% (27-of-54) from the floor and moved to 18-1 in the Nicki Collen era when shooting 50% or better from the field. Additionally, Baylor is 266-2 all-time when shooting at least 50% from the floor.