Focusing on the Big 12 Regular Season Race: Where does Baylor WBB Stack Up?

As we reach close to the halfway mark of conference play for Baylor women’s basketball, let’s check in on what the Bears will need to do to win the Big 12 Championship.

Big 12 Race Overview

Tier 1 - Favorites

• Baylor (18-3, 7-1)
• TCU (19-2, 7-1)

Tier 2 - Contenders

• Texas Tech (20-2, 7-2)
• West Virginia (17-4, 7-2)
• Oklahoma State (16-5, 5-3)

There are five teams currently capable of winning the Big 12, and they can be grouped into two tiers. 

While there are a handful of other good teams in the conference, they either have stumbled too much early in Big 12 play, notably Iowa State, or simply lack the necessary firepower. 

Tier 1 consists of the league's two powers, fighting for the Big 12 crown for the second straight year. 

TCU is the best team in the conference this season by efficiency metrics and controls its own destiny. They snuck out a win in Morgantown, West Virginia, and knocked off a surging Oklahoma State squad, but did slip up against Utah. Notable games the Horned Frogs have remaining include at Texas Tech, at Colorado, vs West Virginia, vs Iowa State and a pair against the Bears.

Baylor has the best resume in the conference, with a 1.3 WAB (wins above bubble) lead on TCU. While Baylor has played the third-hardest Big 12 schedule to this point, they have yet to play four key games: at West Virginia, at Texas Tech, and the already-mentioned pair against TCU. The Bears' loss at home to Texas Tech came as their star player, Taliah Scott, was limited to two minutes due to an ankle injury.

Tier 2 includes three teams that are a step behind the two Texas rivals, but are capable of pushing for a title. 

While Texas Tech got off to a 6-0 start in conference play and a 19-0 start on the season, back-to-back losses dropped them out of the favorites tier. Furthermore, the Red Raiders have the second-hardest remaining conference strength of schedule, giving them a rough path to Big 12 hardware.

West Virginia is a sneaky pick to win the conference. The Mountaineers rank second among the Big 12 in efficiency metrics on the season and are favored to win all but one of their remaining games. They host Baylor and Oklahoma State, but have to finish an unblemished trip to the mountains this week to stay in that second tier.

The Oklahoma State Cowgirls had been the best team in conference play by efficiency metrics until they dropped their most recent game against Colorado. They also fumbled a 19-point lead at home against Baylor and fell to TCU in Fort Worth, placing them more on the outside looking in, but the Cowgirls deserve an honorable mention.

What does Baylor have to do to win the Big 12?

I believe the Big 12 winner will finish with a conference record of 15-3 or 16-2, meaning Baylor must clean up in the games they are favored in and split the four games the Bears are currently underdogs in on Barttorvik. 

The seven-game Baylor win streak has put the Bears in an arguable favorite position, as they are neck-and-neck with TCU. Over the seven-game win streak, the Bears rank 16th nationally in adjusted efficiency and first in the Big 12. TCU ranks 18th nationally over that span for comparison. 

The Bears’ defense has fueled the win streak. Baylor ranks fourth nationally since New Year’s Eve with a 71.7 adjusted defensive efficiency, trailing only Connecticut, Texas and UCLA. Those three teams happen to rank as the top three overall teams over that timeframe, too, placing Baylor in good company. 

Baylor’s defense has held teams to a 42.2% true-shooting percentage, as the Bears have absolutely smothered opposing 3-point shooting. Teams are shooting just 20.5% from 3-point range on decent volume. That volume is due to the Bears’ ability to prevent high-percentage looks from the paint, forcing offenses to take contested 3-pointers.

The key improvement on offense is the limited turnovers. Through games played before Dec. 30, Baylor turned the ball over on 24.5% of possessions. Despite playing strictly high-major teams since, the Bears have turned the ball over on just 20.2% of possessions, good for 78th nationally.

While the defense and improved ball security have been crucial to the Bears’ recent success, Baylor still needs to improve its scoring. They are not elite in getting offensive rebounds or taking care of the ball, and that is very likely to stay that way. Baylor must improve at putting the ball in the basket. While TCU is similar to Baylor, as both teams boast a top-10 defense with a more spotty offense, TCU’s offense has been considerably better than Baylor’s this season.

Over the course of the seven-game win streak, Baylor has been relatively efficient when looking at where the shots were attempted. The Bears are 62.2% at the rim, 39.5% in the deep paint, 37.2% from the mid-range and 30.6% from 3-point range. All four marks are above the average NCAA team’s percentages. However, a 2nd percentile rim rate and a 91st percentile mid-range rate tank the Bears’ overall efficiency to just 0.918 points per field goal attempt, which is very average.

Remaining Roadblocks 

As mentioned earlier, Baylor plays four games in which they will be betting underdogs. The first of those four is this upcoming Sunday, when the Bears travel to play West Virginia. The Mountaineers share Baylor’s neutral-site win over Duke and road win over Iowa State, and are a more balanced team than the Bears. West Virginia’s 3-point defense has been its flaw, and Baylor must take advantage of that weakness.

Less than two weeks after the Bears’ trip to West Virginia, they host TCU in a matchup that seems primed to define the team to beat in the Big 12. Baylor also closes its regular season with a sub-two-hour drive north to play the Horned Frogs. The Bears lost the series 3-0 last year, and the latter two losses cost them a Big 12 regular-season and Big 12 tournament trophy. The two games against TCU appear to carry the same weight. If Baylor loses both games to TCU, the Big 12 regular-season champion title will likely not be heading to Waco.

The other roadblock on the Bears’ schedule is Texas Tech, which remains Baylor’s only conference loss to this point. However, Scott played just two minutes, and neither of those minutes consisted of a healthy Scott. Baylor crumbled without its star guard’s normal production, but her presence in the rematch should turn the tide for the Bears. The Lady Raiders only face TCU once, so a Baylor win feels necessary here to stay ahead of Texas Tech in the conference race.

Baylor is more than capable of returning to its ways of Big 12 championships, and its toughness must show as it needs to steal a road game against a top-25 team over this final stretch of regular-season basketball.