LESS TALK, MORE WORK

By Jerry Hill
Baylor Bear Insider

STILLWATER, Okla. – Although she spent nearly 20 minutes in Tuesday's media session talking about a frustrating 61-60 loss to Texas Tech in the Dec. 21 conference opener and Wednesday's road matchup at Oklahoma State, Baylor coach Nicki Collen knows that "talk is talk."

And talk isn't going to beat an Oklahoma State team that opened league play with a 91-63 road win at Cincinnati and has won 19 in a row at home.

"If you want to do the things that you say your goals were, then you've got to put in the work," said Collen, whose No. 22/21 Bears (11-3, 0-1) face the Cowgirls (12-2, 1-0) at 2 p.m. Wednesday at Gallagher-Iba Arena. "Talk is talk, we've got to work. That's the biggest thing is, we have to work."

The Bears, who let a six-point, fourth-quarter lead slip away, have had to sit with that loss for 10 days now.

"I remember our first year, we lost to Michigan heading into the break," Collen said. "It's never fun. It sits with you longer. It was a lot more fun when we won on the road last year at Kansas. But I also think that every team has to find its way. And you find it in different ways. I don't think we did enough to win the basketball game, and we were close, but it's one stop, it's better execution."

Of course, one of the biggest issues was not having leading scorer Taliah Scott (20.8 ppg) until the final 2 ½ minutes. Despite being hobbled by an ankle injury she suffered in the loss against Texas two weeks ago, Scott assisted on two buckets and took a charge, helping Baylor take a three-point lead with less than a minute left.

But Tech, which snapped a 31-game losing streak in the series, hit four free throws in the last 40 seconds to escape the Foster Pavilion with a win.

"It was definitely frustrating, to not open conference the way we wanted," said senior guard/forward Bella Fontleroy, who went 0-for-8 from the floor and scoreless for only the third time in her career. "But having that time off with our family to restore, relax and re-center helped us. . . . We have to come out and do better and be more focused on executing our game plans and just being more together whenever we're playing, moving forward."

Collen said Scott is "back in practice, but we're still being careful with her and limiting her reps."

"I think she's getting a little better each day, so hopefully she's closer to 100%. But I think we'll leave that up to her and (athletics trainer Chalisa Fonza) in terms of what she's truly capable of doing."

Helping offset the loss of Scott was a breakout performance by 6-2 sophomore transfer Yuting Deng from Auburn, who hit 4-of-5 from 3-point range and scored a season- and game-high 22 points. She missed a short jumper in the lane that would have won it.

"I think Yuting really had a coming-out party," Collen said of Deng, whose previous best in a Baylor uniform was 12 points in the win over Davidson. "When you do that against teams that you're bigger than, stronger than . . . it's different than when you do it against a veteran team that has nine seniors. Defensively, she's got to get better, but offensively, I thought she was super productive."

Baylor split a pair of games against OSU last year, losing 84-61 at home during the regular season and then beating the Cowgirls, 84-74, in overtime in the Big 12 tournament semifinals.

In a strength-on-strength matchup, a stingy Baylor defense faces one of the best offenses in the country. While the Bears allow 55.0 points per game and rank eighth nationally in field goal percentage defense (33.3), OSU is No. 3 nationally in scoring offense (93.6), second in 3-pointers made per game (11.4) and fifth in 3-point shooting percentage (38.9).

The Cowgirls have six players averaging double-digit points, led by South Dakota State transfer Haleigh Timmer (15.9 ppg). She poured in 35 points in the win over Cincinnati and had 11 points in the Jackrabbits' 74-68 upset of seventh-seeded OSU in the first round of last year's NCAA Tournament.

"They're a great 3-point shooting team," Fontleroy said, "but I think that's something that we're capable of taking away. We're coached in a way that we're supposed to run people off the 3-point line, make them play two by two instead of giving up back-to-back threes. Just being really focused on that, making sure we know personnel, that we're communicating and just kind of being on a string in our defensive rotations to take away their actions."

The New Year's Eve matchup will be streamed on ESPN+, with Adam Hildebrandt and Bryndon Manzer calling the action.

LESS TALK, MORE WORK

Players Mentioned

Yuting Deng

Bella Fontleroy

Taliah Scott

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