Less than a day after drilling 10 threes in a first-round win, the Texas Tech Lady Raiders went cold from outside in a 82-51 loss to No. 4 Baylor in the quarterfinal round of the 2016 Big 12 Women’s Basketball Championship, in Oklahoma City, on Saturday.
The Lady Raiders started out going shot-for-shot with the Lady Bears, holding a 14-13 lead late in the first quarter. However, Baylor finished the frame on a 7-0 run, punctuated by a desperation buzzer-beating three from Alexis Jones to take a 20-14 lead.
From there, Baylor extended the lead to double digits, taking a 29-18 lead early in the second quarter. The Lady Raiders battled back and only faced a 38-26 deficit at halftime, despite going 0-5 from long range.
However, the drought would continue as the Lady Bears extended the lead. Baylor began the third quarter on a 7-0 run to push the lead to 45-26, and kept the Lady Raiders at arms’ length from there.
“Baylor is really good and they’re extremely difficult to guard,” Texas Tech head coach Candi Whitaker said.” They have great perimeter players and a huge inside presence that keeps coming at you. In order to beat them we wanted to really try to take away as many transition baskets as possible, as many second-chance shots away as possible and we needed to shoot it well from the three.”
Tech was not able to connect from long range until Zuri Sanders made her first-career three-pointer in the second half as part of her second-straight double-double. She had 11 points and 15 rebounds, which equaled a Tech individual season high for rebounds. She averaged 12 points and 14.5 rebounds at the Big 12 Championship.
The Lady Raiders finished 2-17 (.118) from three-point range, despite draining 10-21 last night against Iowa State.
“No question Baylor guards you, but I thought if you go back and look at the threes we got I thought for the most part they were pretty good looks and they were open,” Whitaker said. “They didn’t go. Did they not go because you’re more uptight because you’re playing Baylor? Possibly. But I thought our threes were pretty open.”
For the second-straight game, Japreece Dean led the Lady Raiders in points, with 17. She also dished out four assists. She averaged 22.5 points in her two games this season at the Big 12 Championship. Ivonne CookTaylor joined her in double figures, with 16 points.
The Lady Raiders shot 13-30 (.433) in the first half, but only mustered a 10-36 (.278) mark in the second half. Baylor, which leads the conference in field goal percentage, lived up to its season averages, putting together a 33-66 (.500) performance from the field. The Lady Bears also won the battle on the glass, 45-34.
Both teams recorded 15 turnovers, but Baylor registered 20 assists compared to Tech’s eight.
The Lady Raiders finish the 2015-16 campaign with a 13-18 overall record, but also with their first victory at the Big 12 Championship since 2012.
