Baylor women chase high standards in NCAA tournament
What constitutes a rebuilding year for the Baylor women's basketball program has thus far resulted in a fifth consecutive Big 12 Conference "double" of regular-season and tournament championships.
Tuesday, the Bears also added a No. 2 seed in the Oklahoma City regional of the NCAA tournament.
Baylor reached 30 victories for — you guessed it — the fifth consecutive year with its recent sweep of three games in the Big 12 tournament. The Lady Bears (30-3) are ranked sixth in the Paste BN Coaches' Poll and own an RPI ranking of No. 4 after winning the league that boasts the best conference rating.
Coach Kim Mulkey, aiming for a third national title in 15 seasons, expressed indifference about being named a top seed in the NCAA tournament prior to the release of the bracket.
Notre Dame is the No. 1 seed in the Bears' region. Baylor opens play Friday at home against Northwestern State of the Southland Conference.
"We've won a national championship not being a 1 seed, and we've won it being a 1 seed," Mulkey said. "It really doesn't matter."
It didn't matter that Baylor was picked last fall to finish second in the Big 12, likely on the basis of losing three-time All-American guard Odyssey Sims. The Lady Bears reeled off 25 consecutive wins between a mid-November non-conference loss at top-10 Kentucky and stumbling twice on the road late in league play. At the Big 12 tournament in Dallas, they trailed for all of one minute and 23 seconds.
In the five seasons beginning with 2010-11, Baylor's 170-13 record and .929 winning percentage is second in Division I women's basketball only to Connecticut (176-12, .936).
Mulkey lost 49% of the scoring from last year's squad that reached the national final, losing to Notre Dame. She resorted this season to employing her largest rotation ever at Baylor with seven players averaging more than 17 minutes per game.
"They're basically demanding that from me," Mulkey said. "They want to play, and they're doing things to get out on the floor."
Oklahoma State coach Jim Littell called the current Baylor iteration Mulkey's deepest team.
"It's a team that's got lots of weapons," he said.
The biggest weapon is 5-11 sophomore forward Nina Davis. She kept the Big 12 Player of the Year award at Baylor for the fifth consecutive year, following Sims last season and three-time recipient Brittany Griner.
Davis, who is from Memphis, led the conference in scoring and was third in rebounding for an offense that ranks seventh in Division I in scoring and fourth in field-goal percentage.
Niya Johnson, the Lady Bears' 5-8 junior point guard from Gainesville, Fla., set the Big 12 record for assists this season and leads Division I in that category.
Texas coach Karen Aston called Johnson the key to Baylor's success. "She gets the ball to the right people at the right time," Aston said, "and she creates really easy shots for her teammates."
Last year's Baylor team set school records for three-point makes (200) and attempts (596) thanks to seniors Sims and Makenzie Robertson (Mulkey's daughter). This year's squad pushed inside more, with Baylor's fewest treys made and attempted in five years (108 for 317).
Mulkey said she's concerned that her point guard is also the team's primary defensive stopper, a taxing combination. Baylor allows 59.4 points per game, ranking 71st in Division I.
"I think we are better defensively than we were when the season started," she said, "but we're not anywhere near where we have to be to really contend for a Final Four or national championship."
Which, Mulkey noted, is now the expectation for Baylor women's basketball.
"It's so difficult to maintain it," she said. "I think it's more difficult to maintain it than it is to win your first one."