No. 13 WBB Completes Season Sweep of Houston in 83-60 Win

Sunday, February 4

Houston, Texas

2 PM

Baylor

17-4,6-4Big 12

Houston

12-10,3-8Big 12

Baylor

Houston

No. 13 WBB Completes Season Sweep of Houston in 83-60 Win

2/4/2024 4:10:00 PM | Women's Basketball

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By Jerry Hill
Baylor Bear Insider

HOUSTON – Preparing for Sunday's game at the Fertita Center against Houston, Baylor coach Nicki Collen went back and watched the Bears' 29-point win over the Cougars on Jan. 6 at Foster Pavilion.

"I thought for three quarters the last time, it's about as unselfish of basketball as I've seen in coaching in 20 years," she said. "And (today), we were sharing it, we were moving it and everybody was scoring. . . . It was good to see that Baylor team back out there today."

Shooting a sizzling 64.3% in the second half and dominating on the boards all night (52-26), the 18^th-ranked Bears (17-4, 6-4) finished off a series sweep with an 83-60 victory behind a balanced scoring attack led by Dre'Una Edwards with 15 points and eight rebounds.

"I thought we looked confident," said Collen, whose team had lost four of its last six after a 14-0 start capped by that 87-58 home-court win over the Cougars (12-10, 3-8). "I didn't see a lot of panic when we turned it over. "I think we've made a really concerted effort as a staff to stay super positive with this group. They're a group that needs a lot of positive reinforcement."

With Houston using a full-court press most of the game, the Cougars scored 22 points off Baylor's season-high 26 turnovers. That was one of the reasons why they were able to keep it close in the first half, trailing by just eight, 37-29, at the break.

"When you turn it over 26 times, but you still get 59 shots off, that's pretty good," said Collen, whose team broke out of a shooting slump to shoot 55.9% overall (33-of-59). "That means the pace is really high. There's a lot of possessions in the game, because normally if you have 26 turnovers, you don't win by 23 points. But I also think that when we took care of the ball, we got really good shots, whether they were layups or kick-out 3's."

In the first half, Houston used high ball screens against Baylor's man defense to get to the rim or find open shots in the lane. But when the Bears used a 2-3 zone for the first time "in extended minutes," that well dried up and Houston shot just 26.8% in the second half.

"There was good and bad to it," Collen said of the zone defense, "but I actually thought it was really good for us, because it kept them out of their comfortable high ball screen, stagger pull-up game that was bothering us some in the first half. They weren't making all their shots, but I thought they were getting to spots that they're really comfortable in. I'm sure they were surprised that we played zone."

Hitting eight of their first nine shots, including three layups by Jada Walker, the Bears jumped out to a 17-9 lead. But the Cougars closed the first quarter with a 10-4 run that included 3-pointers by Britney Onyeje and N'Yah Boyd.

Houston got off to a good start in the second quarter, taking its only leads of the game, but the Cougars missed seven of their last eight shots and turned it over four times in the last five minutes as Baylor closed the half on an 11-2 run.

"The Kansas game, the ball screen really hurt them," said Houston coach Ronald Hughey, "so that's why we were trying to stick with our ball screen stuff. Credit to Jada, she did a great job of getting through and fighting through the ball screen every time. She competed hard every time to say, I'm not going to let you use this ball screen. And that was the difference between Layla (Blair) and N'Yah getting downhill and creating opportunities for our posts."

Baylor's offense was its best in the fourth quarter, when the Bears scored 25 points, shot 76.9% overall (10-of-13) and made all three attempts from outside the arc. They quickly stretched it to double digits and led by 15 through the first three quarters, 58-43, when Yaya Felder made a layup with 2.5 seconds left.

Bella Fontleroy scored eight of her 10 points in the final quarter, hitting back-to-back 3-pointers late that gave Baylor its biggest lead, 83-57, with 1:10 left.

Six Bears scored in double digits, including Felder and Fontleroy with 14 and 10 points, respectively, off the bench. Darianna Littlepage-Buggs was an efficient 5-for-6 from the floor and finished with 12 points and eight rebounds, while Walker and Aijha Blackwell

Yaya Felder scored 14 points off the bench, hitting 2-of-3 from 3-point range. Darianna Littlepage-Buggs was an efficient 5-of-6 from the floor and finished with 12 points and eight rebounds, while Jada Walker, Aijha Blackwell and Bella Fontleroy scored 10 points apiece.

Blackwell also grabbed eight rebounds, going over 1,000 for her collegiate career. Senior point guard Sarah Andrews chipped in with eight points, four rebounds, four assists and the Bears' only block of the game.

Blair was the Cougars' only double-figure scorer with 14 points on 6-of-22 shooting and 2-of-8 from distance. In a repeat of the first meeting, Baylor also dominated points in the paint, 44-22, including a 26-6 edge in the second half.

Back on the road, Baylor will face BYU (12-11, 2-8) at 8 p.m. CT Wednesday at the Marriott Center in Provo, Utah. One of four league newcomers, the Cougars have lost three in a row, including a two-point loss at then-No. 4 Kansas State, 67-65.

GAME NOTES

The No. 13 Baylor women's basketball team used a 23-point victory to sweep the two-game series against Houston on Sunday, charging past the Cougars, 83-60.
The 23-point win marked the fourth 16-plus point victory by Baylor in Big 12 action this season.
Graduate senior Dre'Una Edwards played in her 100th career game – the fourth most of any Bear on the current roster.
With her fourth rebound of the game, Aijha Blackwell hit 1,000 rebounds in her career. She finished with eight boards, along with Edwards and Darianna Littlepage-Buggs.
As a team, the Bears finished with 52 rebounds, outrebounding the Cougars, 52-26. The 52 boards are the most by BU in a Big 12 game this year.
The Bears moved to 13-1 this season, and 52-9 in the Nicki Collen era, when outrebounding their opponent.
Baylor is 15-2 this season, and 60-6 in the Collen era, when leading at the half.
The 83 points scored by the Bears marked the third time in Big 12 action, and 10th time this season, that Baylor has tallied 80-plus in a game.
Six Bears finished in double figures led by Edwards' 15-point outpouring. It marked the first time in Big 12 play that six Bears finished in double figures.
Yaya Felder contributed 14 of BU's 28 points off the bench, leading the Baylor reserves for the second-straight game.
Littlepage-Buggs added 12, while Blackwell, Jada Walker and Bella Fontleroy each finished with 10 points apiece.
Three Bears hit a pair from 3-point range, including Sarah Andrews, who has hit at least one from behind the arc in 19 of 21 games this season and two-or-more from 3-point land in 17 contests.
For the fifth time this season, Jana Van Gytenbeek led Baylor in assists, dishing out a game-high six.