Baylor Lady Bears Basketball @ Oklahoma Sooners, Game Preview and Gamethread

The No. 4/3 Baylor Lady Bears conclude regular season action tonight at No. 16/16 Oklahoma. Tipoff is set for 7 p.m. (CT) in Norman, Okla.

How to Watch

1. Buy a ticket, fly to Norman, Oklahoma and scream “Sic ‘em Bears!” very loudly inside the Lloyd Noble Center.
2. Fans can watch the Lady Bears compete on FS1 with Ron Thulin (play-by-play) and Brenda VanLengen (analyst) on the call. Live audio is also available on the Baylor Sports Network, IMG College and 92.9 FM in Waco, Texas. Rick May (play-by-play) and Lori Fogelman (analyst) will call the action.

Lady Bears Sweep This Weeks Big XII Awards

For the third time this season, Baylor women’s basketball swept Big 12 weekly awards on Monday, Feb. 27. From Baylor Bears dot com.

Sophomore Kalani Brown was selected Big 12 Player of the Week for the third time this season and freshman Lauren Cox earned her fourth Freshman of the Week accolade.

Both played integral roles in Baylor’s 2-0 week with wins at No. 6/8 Texas and against Texas Tech, which culminated in an outright Big 12 regular season championship. It is the seventh-straight regular season conference title and the eighth overall for the Lady Bears.

Brown averaged team-highs with 24.0 points, 9.5 rebounds and 2.5 blocks in the two-game stretch. She shot an impressive 84.2 (16-19) percent from the floor and 94.1 (16-17) from the free throw.

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Slow Motion Highlights vs. Texas Tech

About the Bears

1. Baylor leads the nation in scoring margin (+34.4) and is second in scoring offense with an 88.7 points per game average. Broken down, the Lady Bears average, 49.4 points in the paint, 32.0 points from the reserves, 20.1 second chance points, 18.8 points off turnovers and 7.4 fast break points per contest. Baylor averages 20.8 points per game in the first quarter, 22.4 points per game in the second quarter, 23.9 points per game in the third quarter and 21.6 points per game in the fourth quarter. The Lady Bears have a balanced scoring effort throughout the game, averaging 43.3 first half points and 45.6 second half points per contest.
2. Baylor’s senior class of Khadijiah Cave, Nina Davis, Alexis Jones and Alexis Prince have a chance to accomplish something that has never been done in the history of the Baylor women’s basketball program. Each player has the opportunity to or has already scored at least 1,000 points in their career. No other class has had all of its members reach that milestone in Lady Bears’ history. Davis is the sixth player to surpass the 2,000 career points mark, doing so against Mississippi Valley State on Nov. 20, 2016. After 29 games this season, Davis has scored 2,306 career points. Cave is 13 points from joining the 1,000 career points club with 987. Prince is 19 points away from 1,000 in her career with 981. Jones, who is only in her second season with the program, is 69 points from netting 1,000 at Baylor with 931 points.
3. Baylor is third in the nation in assists, averaging 21.9 per game, due primarily to its stellar guard play of redshirt senior Alexis Jones and junior Kristy Wallace. Wallace has distributed a team-high 152 assists (5.2 per game) and Jones has tallied 126 assists (4.8 per game). Both players have distributed 10 or more assists in at least one game so far, with Wallace tallying a career-high 15 assists against No. 18/17 DePaul and Jones notching 10 assists at No. 22/25 Tennessee and against No. 20/20 Oklahoma. Wallace’s 15 assists are the sixth-highest single-game assist total in program history. Freshman Calveion Landrum, who averages 2.0 assists per game off the bench, joined the club, distributing a career-high 11 assists to lead Baylor against Texas State.
4. The Lady Bears lead the country in blocked shots (243) and blocked shots per game (8.4) through 29 games played this year. Baylor averaged 7.5 blocks per game in 2009-10, 7.4 blocks per game in 2010-11, a school-record 7.8 blocks per game in 2011-12 and 6.7 blocks per game in 2012-13. So far in 2016-17, Baylor has set a school record for blocks in a game with 17 against Winthrop on Dec. 15, 2016, and reached double figures in the category eight times, three in Big 12 Conference play.
5. Depth has been a strength for the Lady Bears so far this season with 927 of their 2,573 overall points (36.0 percent) coming from the reserves. Nine of 13 players on this year’s roster have earned a start in the 2016-17 season. Six players have logged minutes in all 29 games, with all 13 players seeing time in seven games and 12 players seeing action in nine games. Sophomore Kalani Brown began as a force off the bench and earned starts in the last 18 games. She is averaging team-highs with 14.9 points, 8.2 rebounds and 2.0 blocks per game. Freshman Lauren Cox is averaging 8.6 points and 4.7 boards in 13.7 minutes per contest. She earned the first start of her career against Winthrop on Dec. 15, 2016. Freshman Natalie Chou is averaging 4.4 points, 2.0 rebounds and 1.5 assists in 13.5 minutes per game. Sophomore Dekeiya Cohen comes off the bench to average 3.2 points, 3.4 rebounds and 1.3 assists per contest. Sophomore Beatrice Mompremier, who has started 10 of 24 games played this year, is averaging 8.7 points, 6.6 rebounds and 1.6 blocks per game.

About the Sooners

1. No. 16/16 Oklahoma hosts its final regular season home game Monday versus No. 4/3 Baylor at 7 p.m. CT inside Lloyd Noble Center. The Sooners have won 10 straight games on their home floor, which is tied for the seventh-best home winning streak in program history. A victory would also give the Sooners their first undefeated season at home in league play since the 2008-09 season.
2. Against Big 12 opponents at home, OU is averaging 79.6 points per contest and shooting .457 on its home floor versus league foes. Vionise Pierre-Louis leads the Sooners in scoring at home in conference play, averaging 16.4 points per game and is shooting .605 from the field. Maddie Manning is just behind Pierre-Louis at 16.3 points a contest, while Peyton Little averages 15.1 points a game inside Lloyd Noble Center in league play. Gabbi Ortiz is shooting .519 from deep during OU's home Big 12 slate.
3. Vionise Pierre-Louis has been a force for the Sooners in the paint over the last five games. The junior center is averaging 20.6 points, 9.2 rebounds and 2.6 blocks per contest during that stretch. She leads the Big 12 with 2.4 blocks per game in league play and is ninth in scoring at 14.4 points a contest versus conference opponents.
4. The Sooners are not short on experience this season. Entering tonight's game, OU's roster boasts 396 career starts among 10 players who have made at least one career appearance in the Sooners' starting five. The foursome of Gioya Carter, Peyton Little, Maddie Manning and Gabbi Ortiz have combined to make 314 starts between them. OU's bench is laden with experience, including T'ona Edwards and VIonise Pierre-Louis who have played in 122 and 93 career games, respectively.

Previous Game, January 29

In the previous matchup on January 29, the Lady Bears rolled over the Sooners 92-58. In that game Baylor’s Alexis Jones, who is likely out for tonight’s game with a bruised bone in her knee, recorded a triple double that included 24 points for the Lady Bears, 10 points less than the 34 points margin of victory.

"I thought our spacing was fantastic early in the game,” says Sooner Head Coach Sherri Coale, “the reads we were making, we were very anchored, we were attentive to the game plan really well at the start. Then, you get hit with a punch. And while you're reeling a little bit, they've got another wave they send in and hit you again."

"We missed quite a few layups and took the wind out of our own sails," Coale said, "and obviously gave them a window to attack. I think that sends a message, sometimes, when you miss those easy layups. Baylor does a really good job of sensing if you're nervous or you're scared. I thought they attacked at that point. Still, at halftime, I thought we were in great shape. You can't beat anybody in this league shooting the way we did in the second half."

Highlights from January 29

Lady Bears Intend to Win Today’s Game

In the grand scheme of things, Monday’s game at No. 16 Oklahoma doesn’t carry much significance for the Baylor women’s basketball team. Story by WacoTrib’s Brice Cherry from BearsExtra.

The Lady Bears want to win it anyway.

A week ago, No. 4 Baylor found itself essentially playing catch-up in the Big 12 title chase. The Lady Bears went into Austin last Monday tied with the Longhorns in the conference standings. A loss would have been a killer. But after the Lady Bears rallied for a triumph over the Longhorns, then Texas lost to Iowa State on Friday, Baylor needed only to take care of business against Texas Tech on Saturday to clinch an outright Big 12 championship for the seventh straight year.

Mission accomplished. The Lady Bears cruised by Tech, 86-48, to sew up that Big 12 title and give Baylor coach Kim Mulkey her 500th career win.

So, yeah, there may not be that much to play for in the regular-season finale against Oklahoma. But the Lady Bears (27-2 overall, 16-1 in conference) have no intention of dogging it.

“It means something in the fact that every game you play, you want to win,” Mulkey said. “Do I think win or lose that we’re going to get knocked out (of a No. 1 seed in the NCAA tournament)? No, it’s the body of work. People keep talking about conference tournaments. If people want to get knocked out of seeds because of conference tournaments and you’re in the championship game and you should lose, you’re focusing on the wrong thing.”

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“We needed that, because guys we’ve clinched and yet Monday has to mean something to them as well,” Mulkey said. “And I know it will for the seniors and the returning players. But we’ve got to regroup and come out with a tremendous effort to win at Oklahoma.”