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#19/24 Baylor (18-6, 6-5) vs. Oklahoma State (8-15, 3-9)
Wednesday, Feb. 18, 2004 - 7 pm (CST)
Ferrell Center (10,284) - Waco, Texas
RADIO...
KLRK - FM 92.9 - Rick May (play-by-play) and Lori Scott Fogleman (color analysis). Broadcast begins 30 minutes prior to game time.
#19/24 BAYLOR AT OKLAHOMA STATE...
The 19th-ranked Baylor Lady Bears (18-6, 6-5) return home again as they face Oklahoma State on Wednesday night and Oklahoma on Saturday night in the Ferrell Center. The Lady Bears are 9-2 at home this season and are 3-2 in league home games. Oklahoma State enters the contest with a 8-15 season record and is 3-9 in Big 12 conference action. However, one of their three league wins came in an overtime thriller over Texas Tech.
Two more victories this season would give the Lady Bears four straight 20-win seasons under head coach Kim Mulkey-Robertson. Five of Baylor's six losses in 2003-04 have come against teams ranked No. 15 or higher.
BAYLOR IN THE POLLS...
Baylor continues to be ranked in the Associated Press' Top 25 Poll, they are currently No. 19, slipping one spot from last week. The Lady Bears broke into the AP Poll on Jan 5 and have been ranked for seven straight weeks now (see week-by-week listings on page 11). Baylor, after breaking into the Top 25 in the USA Today/ESPN Coaches Poll on Jan. 24, now sit at the No. 24 spot.
THE LADY BEARS...
The Lady Bears finished the non-conference portion of their schedule at 12-1. Under fourth-year head coach Kim Mulkey-Robertson's guidance the Lady Bears are 46-2 in non-conference regular season games. After splitting games at Missouri (W, 83-59) and Iowa State (L, 81-72) last week, Baylor's record now stands at 18-6 overall and 6-5 in league play which places them in a tie for fifth place in the league standings with Oklahoma.
Three players are averaging in double figures for Baylor with one more just under the mark. With a career-high 27 points against Washington State, sophomore post Sophia Young moved into the lead for the Lady Bears in scoring and rebounding average and has not relinquished it since. Young followed that game with the 19th double-double of her career with a 13-point, 10-rebound performance against Pacific and produced another double-double against Eastern Kentucky (21p, 11r). Young recorded back-to-back double-doubles against Colorado (14p, 11r) and Texas A&M (10p, 13r) and added another one against Kansas (20p, 11r). She is averaging a team-leading 16.1 points and 8.4 rebounds an outing and has scored in double digits in every game but one (Missouri) this season. Steffanie Blackmon, a junior post, ranks second in both categories with 14.8 points and 7.0 rebounds. Freshman forward Emily Niemann is averaging 10.6 points while senior Jessika Stratton follows closely with 9.8. Senior Dionne Brown ranks third on the team in rebounding with 5.7 a game.
Baylor is outscoring its opponents by 18.6 points a game and is shooting .467 (712-1523) on the season which ranks third in the Big 12. The Lady Bears are holding their opponents to just 59.1 points a game and a .354 (499-1411) shooting average. Baylor has shot .500 or above in 11 of the 24 games this season and has been over the .600 mark once (Sam Houston State .661).
THE COACHES...
Baylor head coach Kim Mulkey-Robertson, in her fourth season, has a 90-32 head coaching record which equates out to a .738 winning percentage. She has produced 20-win seasons in each of her years as a head coach and has taken the Lady Bears to postseason competition all three seasons, twice to the NCAA Tournament and to the finals of the WNIT last year.
Mulkey-Robertson was named Baylor's fourth head coach on April 4, 2000. She was inducted into the Women's Basketball Hall of Fame that same year. This past summer she was inducted into the Verizon/CoSIDA Academic All-America Hall of Fame.
Oklahoma State's Julie Goodenough, a 1991 UT-Arlington graduate, is in her 11th season overall as a head coach and is in her second season at Oklahoma State. She has a career record of 204-90 and is 16-36 at Oklahoma State.
SCOUTING THE OPPONENT...
The Oklahoma State Cowgirls come into the game with an 8-15 record overall and a 3-9 mark in Big 12 play. They are 0-6 on the road in Big 12 Conference games. The Cowgirls have posted conference wins over Texas A&M (67-65), Texas Tech (88-87 ot) and Iowa Sate (74-59). They have lost to Texas Tech (106-43), Oklahoma (87-37), Texas (67-45), Kansas (74-61),Texas A&M (65-52), Texas (75-52), Nebraska (64-41) and Missouri (71-46).
Oklahoma State has four upperclassmen and a freshman in their starting lineup with Trisha Skibbee (Sr.), Deidre Johnson (Sr.), Nina Stone (Jr.), Eliz Gomez (Jr.) and Destanie Sykes (Fr.) listed as starters. Stone, a 5-7 junior guard, ranks second in scoring with 10.9 points a game. Christian Hood, a 6-5 freshman center, comes off the bench to average 4.9 a game which ranks second on the squad.
THE SERIES RECORDS...
Baylor leads the series 10-7 and claims an 8-1 lead in games played in Waco and has won four straight in the Ferrell Center. Also, Baylor has won three of the last four and five of the last seven games. As Baylor's head coach, Kim Mulkey-Robertson is 4-2 against Oklahoma State.
