Lady Bears Rise Back to No. 3 in AP and Coaches Polls

They say that it takes a thousand “attaboys” (“attagirls” in this case) to make up for one “oh sh_t.” For the Baylor Lady Bears basketball team, it took 14 straight wins and all the accompanying “attagirls” that carried off those those wins.

The Lady Bears started the season ranked at No. 3 behind Connecticut (No. 1) and Texas (No. 2). Following a loss in their fourth game of the season to UCLA, the Lady Bears fell all the way to No. 8 to begin week three. The following week, Ohio State downed Stanford for the second time this season and climbed ahead of the Lady Bears pushing them down to No. 9 in both polls. It seems a win over Stanford carries a lot more weight with the pollsters than a win over Missouri State, even though the score was 100-58.

With wins over Georgia Tech, No. 20 Kentucky and No. 16 Stanford, the Lady Bears rose back to No. 8 to begin week five.

Week six saw the Lady Bears rise to No. 6 where they would remain until week ten with a rise to No. 5.

Last week, week eleven, the Lady Bears advanced to No. 4.

Not quite same as it ever was, but this week, 14 wins removed from their loss to UCLA, the Lady Bears have regained the No. 3 ranking in the AP and Coaches Polls, landing behind Connecticut (No. 1) and Mississippi State (No. 2).

Here are some of those accompanying “attagirls”:

• Kalani Brown has been selected as this week’s Big 12 player of the week.
• Baylor has the NCAA No. 2 scoring offense with 88.7 points per game. UConn No. 1 at 90.4.
• Baylor has the No. 4 defense allowing only 53.6 points per game. UConn No. 15 at 55.9.
• Baylor has the No. 1 scoring margin, winning by 35.1 points per game. UConn is at No. 2, winning by 34.5 points per game and Mississippi State at No. 3 winning by 29.5 ppg.
• Baylor has the No. 2 field goal percentage at 51.5%. UConn No. 1 at 53.1%.
• Baylor has the No. 1 opponent field goal percentage, allowing only 30.8%. UConn No. 6 at 34.1%.
• Baylor has the No. 1 rebounding margin at 19.7 more rebounds per game than their opponents. UConn at No. 11 with 9.6.
• Baylor is No. 4 in assists with 21.7 assists per game. UConn at No. 2 with 22 apg.
• Baylor is No. 4 in blocks with 7 per game. UConn at No. 22 with 5.4 bpg.
• Individually, Kalani Brown has an NCAA leading field goal percentage at 70.6%.
• Credit ESPN STats.

Baylor women’s basketball has been included in the Associated Press Top 25 Poll for 280 consecutive weeks, which is second only to UConn, a team that has been ranked for 462-straight weeks. Notre Dame is third with 205 consecutive AP Top 25 rankings, followed by Maryland with 146 weeks and South Carolina with 104 weeks.