Comeback Bid Falls Short as No. 17 Bears Lose 64-59 to No. 8 TCU in Big 12 Championship
KANSAS CITY, Missouri – No. 17 Baylor women’s basketball (27-7, 15-3) fell 64-59 to No. 8 TCU (31-3, 16-2) in the Big 12 Conference Tournament Championship on Sunday evening at T-Mobile Center, marking the Bears third loss to the Horned Frogs this season.
Trailing by a bucket with roughly a minute remaining in the contest, center Aaronette Vonleh (Sr.) looked to tie the game at 59 apiece but was stripped of the ball, and TCU guard Hailey Van Lith (Sr.) sealed the game on the other end with a layup.
The Bears kept things close across the final minute and had one final chance down three points, but Vonleh missed a 3-pointer from the top of the key in the final seconds.
Baylor trailed by as many as 12 points in the third quarter, but the furious comeback bid ultimately fell short due to a sluggish start and a 19-point first half that proved too much to overcome.
Vonleh finished the game with a team-high 20 points on 8-of-18 shooting. Guard Sarah Andrews (Sr.) chipped in 13 points and five rebounds, with six of her points coming in the final quarter.
“I really thought Netty was going to make that 3, and we’d be playing overtime,” head coach Nicki Collen said. “She was good all night long, and I thought Sarah was the leader of that comeback; she got in her bag and was leading us in that stretch. I thought these guys were a big part of why we ended up with a chance to win it.”
Already missing star forward Darianna Littlepage-Buggs (Jr.) for the seventh consecutive game with a knee injury, the short-handed Bears woes continued as Vonleh, Bella Fontleroy (Jr.), Jada Walker (Sr.) and Aliyah Matharu (Sr.) all struggled with foul trouble for much of the contest.
Baylor shot 41% (21-of-51) from the field and 22% (2-of-9) from beyond the arc, while TCU shot at a similar 43% (19-of-44) clip but shot better from deep at 33% (5-of-15).
“When Fontleroy and Netty were in foul trouble in the second quarter, the game probably got away from us a little bit,” head coach Nicki Collen said. “I didn’t think we were effective from either end of the floor. I thought we clipped along. We played really good offense in the third. We made some defensive mistakes, but we really locked down in the fourth. It turned into a really good basketball game.”
Like the previous two matchups against the Horned Frogs this season, Baylor got out to an abysmal start offensively. The Bears scored just 19 points in the first half and shot 26% (7-of-27) from the floor and 20% (1-of-5) from deep.
Vonleh and Fontleroy were in early foul trouble and combined to score four points and play 18 minutes in the first half.
Although the Bears struggled offensively, the defensive intensity was fantastic. Collen’s squad forced TCU into 15 first-half turnovers but could only score four points off the turnovers and trailed 30-19 going into halftime.
Guard Yaya Felder (Sr.) gave Baylor a spark in the third quarter and provided 10 points on 3-of-4 shooting. The Bears out-scored the Horned Frogs in the period, 24-to-21, but TCU got most of its points from the charity stripe, shooting 10-of-11 from the free throw line.
“The whistle was blowing on hand checks,” Collen said. “I think there were stretches where it was a parade to the foul line on hand checks. No one wants to watch that in a conf championship game. I thought the last two games were very similar.”
Vonleh and Andrews carried the Bears in the final quarter, combining for 16 of Baylor’s 18 points to put the game within reach in the final minutes.
No. 17 Baylor (27-7, 15-3) will await Selection Sunday in the hope of earning a hosting bid. According to the latest ESPN projected brackets, Baylor is projected as a No. 4 seed in the NCAA Tournament.