Enoch Wu/Sentinel-Tribune, via Associated PressLindsay Palmer of Baylor celebrates a play against UC Santa Barbara on Sunday.Krista Pirtle of The Lariat at Baylor University will file reports about the top-ranked Baylor Lady Bears throughout the season for The Quad.
So far this season, the No. 1 Baylor Lady Bears have defeated every one of their 35 opponents by an average margin of 27.7 points.
Baylor leads the nation in blocked shots per game with 7.9 and is second in field goal percentage defense.
However, the only number that matters to the Lady Bears is five–as in five more games to win a national championship–after an 81-40 victory over No. 16 seeded UC Santa Barbara in the second round of the N.C.A.A. tournament in Bowling Green, Ohio, on Sunday.
"We've been waiting for this game for the longest," junior Destiny Williams said. "We had a bunch of days in practice going hard, and we were going to be facing another team and I thought we were going strong and starting strong, knocking out every shot, taking time how we've been practicing, and I thought we finished the game just as we started; it was a good one."
Junior Brittney Griner paced the balanced attack by the Lady Bears with 14 points followed by junior Brooklyn Pope with 13, Williams with 12, freshman Sune Agbuke with 11 and sophomore Odyssey Sims with 10.
The bench got a good amount of playing time, seeing as the starters did not play for more than 22 minutes out of 40.
Griner said she couldn't remember the last time she sat the bench for that long but "it was definitely fun. I liked it."
All of the Lady Bears played for at least 12 minutes Sunday afternoon.
"I was especially proud that everybody got to play 20–about 20 minutes each today–and we didn't really lose the lead, we extended everything that we did, and when I say extended, we extended the score, and sometimes that doesn't happen," Baylor Coach Kim Mulkey said.
The highlight of the game came with 53 seconds remaining as senior Lindsay Palmer became the tenth Lady Bear to score, chasing down a loose ball in the backcourt and sinking a shot past the Heslip zone as the shot clock wound down.
"The team is happy for he," Mulkey said. "I think, you know, that's probably going to make 'Sports Center,' huh? It won't be Brittney Griner on Baylor's team, it will be Lindsay Palmer. Good for her."
Defensively, Baylor held UCSB to only 16 of 60 from the floor; Santa Barbara did not score until the 14:48 mark.
On Tuesday, the Lady Bears face No. 9 seed Florida, who defeated No. 8 seed Ohio State Sunday afternoon 70-65.
"Florida is very good," Mulkey said Sunday. "Florida is very athletic. Florida is very physical. I thought that Florida came out ready to play, and when you can come to an environment and basically you're playing a road game–because I didn't see a whole lot of other colors in that gym other than red–that tells you how good Florida is, and we will get in that film room tonight and get on the floor some tomorrow and expect a very good basketball game Tuesday."
This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service — if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read the FAQ at fivefilters.org/content-only/faq.php#publishers. Five Filters recommends: Donate to Wikileaks.
0 comments:
Post a Comment