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Baylor 'Bears' teeth; Lady 'Cats thumped
Published 2/6/2012 in Sports
By ARNE GREEN
Special to The Telegram
MANHATTAN — Kansas State's full house was no match for Baylor's 22 straight.
A sellout crowd of 12,528 that took advantage of K-State's "Pack the House" promotion gave the Wildcat women an early lift, but once Baylor flexed its muscles things quickly got out of hand.
The No. 1-ranked Bears finished the first half with a 20-5 run to lead by nine at the break, then poured it on after intermission to bury K-State, 70-41, Saturday night at Bramlage Coliseum.
With the victory, Baylor improved to 23-0 overall and 10-0 in the Big 12. K-State fell to 15-7 and out of a second-place tie with Texas A&M and Oklahoma in the league race to 6-4.
All-America center Brittney Griner had 29 points and nine rebounds to lead Baylor, which also got 14 points and nine boards from Destiny Williams and 13 points from Odyssey Sims before coach Kim Mulkey cleared the bench. Brittany Chambers and Mariah White paced K-State with 10 points apiece.
"Griner, I don't know how do you guard her," Mulkey said of the 6-foot-8 junior. "I'm glad she's on my team.
"I couldn't tell you how to guard her. She's 12 for 16 (from the field) and she was a great leader for us tonight."
Even with Griner scoring 17 points in the first half, adrenaline and a raucous crowd carried K-State through the first 15 minutes. The Wildcats led by as many as six points before reality set in and Baylor scored the last eight points of the period to lead 33-24 at the break.
"I've never played in front of a crowd at home this big and they showed a lot of support the whole game and we're very grateful for them to come out and support us," said K-State guard Brittany Chambers, whose 10 points tied Mariah White for team scoring honors. "They definitely brought energy to us at the beginning.
"We wish we would have performed better for them."
K-State coach Deb Patterson, whose Wildcats lost 76-41 at Baylor two weeks before, said she was encouraged by her team's first-half performance.
"This was a game I felt, unlike any of our recent games against Baylor, where after the first half we had our positioned ourselves to be competitive, to really make it a basketball game," Patterson. The second half was even more frustrating as Baylor opened with a 10-2 spurt, and six minutes in had extended the lead to 20 on Sims' 3-pointer.
Baylor outrebounded K-State, 38-24, with Williams, Griner and backup Brooklyn Pope combining for 26. White led K-State with five and had four assists.
Baylor shot 56.3 percent from the floor to 26.4 for K-State, which hit just 19.2 percent in the second half.
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