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March 22, 2004
WACO, Texas - 2004 NCAA Division I Women's Basketball Championships
Midwest Region 2nd Round
#15/17 Baylor (25-8) vs. Florida (19-10)
Mon., March 22, 2004 - 8 p.m. (CST)
The Pit (18,018) - Albuquerque, N.M.
The winner of tonight's game will advance to the Sweet 16. They will travel to Norman, Okla., to play in the semifinals of the Midwest Region on March 28.
TELEVISION - ESPN...
Tracy Warren - Play-by-play
Tim McCormick - Color analysis
RADIO - KLRK - FM 92.9...
Rick May (play-by-play) and Lori Scott Fogleman (color analysis). Broadcast begins 30 minutes prior to game time.
#15/17 BAYLOR VS. FLORIDA...
The 15th-ranked Baylor Lady Bears (25-8) are in the fourth phase of their schedule, NCAA postseason play, as they travel to Albuquerque to participate in the 2004 NCAA Division I Women's Basketball Championships at The Pit on the campus of the University of New Mexico. The Lady Bears came into the tourney as the championship's fourth seed in the Midwest Region and defeated 13th-seed Loyola Marymount in the first round, 71-60.
For the fourth straight season, head coach Kim Mulkey-Robertson has guided her Baylor squad to a 20-win season. The Lady Bears passed the 20-win mark by completing a sweep of No. 24 Oklahoma on Saturday, Feb. 22 and are now 25-8.
Seven of Baylor's eight losses in 2003-04 have come against teams ranked No. 15 or higher and four have been by three points or less. In addition, seven losses have come against participating in the NCAA Tournament.
BAYLOR IN THE NCAA TOURNAMENT...
Baylor is making its third appearance in the NCAA Tournament after appearing in 2001 and 2002. The Lady Bears are 2-1 in first round games and 0-1 in second round games.
2001- No. 8 seed - West Region - Durham, N.C. (Duke host)
First round - lost to No. 9 seed Arkansas (68-59)
2002- No. 2 seed - East Region - Waco, Texas (Baylor host)
First round - defeated No. 15 seed Bucknell (80-56)
Second round - lost to No. 7 seed Drake (76-72)
2004- No. 4 seed - Midwest Region - Albuquerque (New Mexico host)
First round - defeated No. 13 seed Loyola Marymount (71-60)
BAYLOR IN THE POLLS...
Baylor continues to be ranked in the Associated Press' Top 25 Poll, it is currently No. 15, dropping one spot from last week. The Lady Bears broke into the AP Poll on Jan. 5 and have been ranked for 11 straight weeks (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 sits at the No. 17 spot. After defeating No. 9 Texas Tech last week and losing by only four points to No. 2 Texas in the semifinals of the Big 12 Tournament, the Lady Bears dropped two spots in the Coaches Poll.
THE LADY BEARS...
The Lady Bears finished the non-conference portion of their schedule at 12-1 and league play at 10-6. Under fourth-year head coach Kim Mulkey-Robertson's guidance the Lady Bears are 46-2 in non-conference regular season games. Baylor's league record placed it in a tie for fourth place in the conference standings with Texas Tech. However, in the tiebreaker for tournament seeding, Texas Tech received the No. 4 seed by beating Baylor in head-to-head competition. Baylor defeated the Lady Raiders in the quarterfinals of the league tournament, 80-72 and advanced to the semifinals where it lost to top-seeded Texas by four points.
Two players are averaging in double figures for Baylor with two 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 four more against Kansas (20p, 11r), Texas (18p, 13r), Kansas (18p, 10r) and Texas Tech (26p, 13r). She is averaging 16.7 points and 8.5 rebounds an outing and has scored in double digits in every game but two (Missouri & Oklahoma State) this season. Steffanie Blackmon, a junior post, ranks second in both scoring and rebounding at 15.6 points and 6.9 rebounds. Freshman forward Emily Niemann comes off the bench to average 9.6 points while senior Jessika Stratton follows closely with 9.4. Senior Dionne Brown is third on the team in rebounding with 5.4 a game.
Baylor is outscoring its opponents by 16.3 points a game and leads the Big 12 in scoring offense at 76.8 points a game. They are shooting .464 (969-2088) on the season which ranks second in the Big 12. The Lady Bears are holding their opponents to just 60.5 points a game and a .360 (704-1954) shooting average. Baylor has shot .500 or above in 14 of the 33 games this season and has been over the .600 mark once (Sam Houston State .661).
BAYLOR HEAD COACH Kim Mulkey-Robertson...
Baylor head coach Kim Mulkey-Robertson, in her fourth season, has a 97-34 head coaching record which equates out to a .741 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 four seasons, three times to the NCAA Tournament and to the finals of the WNIT last year.
Baylor seasons under Mulkey-Robertson:
2000-01 - 21-9
2001-02 - 27-6
2002-03 - 24-11
2003-04 - 25-8
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 CoSIDA Academic All-America Hall of Fame.
Mulkey Robertson has an impressive NCAA Championships history, this will be her 21st trip to the NCAA Tournament. She recorded three trips as a player at Louisiana Tech, 15 appearances with the Lady Techsters as an assistant/associate head coach and this is her third appearance as a head coach. In other words, she has participated in 21 of 23 NCAA Women's Basketball Championships. She missed the NCAA Tournament in 1985 because she was working on a master's degree at Louisiana Tech (she was the recipient of an NCAA Post Graduate Scholarship) and was hired as an assistant coach at her alma mater in April of 1985, thus not finishing her master's degree. Last season, her Baylor team was not selected for the NCAA Tournament despite posting a 20-win season.
NCAA TOURNAMENT TRIVIA...
There are only two NCAA Division I head coaches that are coaching teams in the 2004 Women's Basketball Championships who have played on teams that played in the NCAA Championship game, and, only one of them won a NCAA national title. Temple head coach Dawn Staley played for Virginia when it placed second in 1991 and Baylor's Kim Mulkey-Robertson played on the Louisiana Tech team that claimed the first NCAA national title in 1982.
While at Louisiana Tech as a player, Mulkey Robertson's teams placed first in 1982, second in 1983, tied for third in 1984. Throughout her career, Mulkey-Robertson, the consummate point guard, played in 14 NCAA tournament games and was 12-2 in those games. She was named to the all-tournament team in the 1982 Championships.
SCOUTING THE OPPONENT...
The University of Florida Gators are making their 10th NCAA Tournament appearance and advanced to the second round after defeating host New Mexico in the first round, 68-56. Vanessa Hayden and Tashia Morehead each registered double-doubles against the Lobos with 17 points and 10 rebounds and 16 points and 11 rebounds, respectively. Bernice Mosby came off the bench to score 17 points as well.
The Gators have three players averaging double figures in scoring. Vanessa Hayden, a 6-4 senior center, leads the team in both scoring and rebounding with 19.2 points and 10.7 rebounds a game. Sophomore forward Bernice Mosby comes off the bench to score 13.3 a game and Tashia Morehead, a 5-11 junior forward, manages 12.0 a game. The Gators have registered 155 blocked shots on the season, 103 of which belong to Hayden.
Carolyn Peck is in her second season as the Florida Gators head coach. She is 27-29 at Florida and is 84-40 in four years as a head coach. Peck previously served as head coach at Purdue for two seasons where she posted a 57-11 record which included a NCAA National Championship in 1999 after a 34-1 season. Peck then moved on to become the WNBA Orlando Miracle's general manager and head coach. She came to the Gators from Orlando. She was named the 1999 Coach of the Year by both the Associated Press and the WBCA.
THE SERIES RECORDS...
The series between Florida and Baylor is tied at 1-1. Baylor defeated the Gators in Gainesville, Fla., earlier this season (Dec. 30), 71-54. Steffanie Blackmon, who is currently sidelined with a knee injury, led the Lady Bears with 24 points and nine rebounds. Sophia Young also tallied nine rebounds for Baylor. Florida posted a 70-58 victory on Nov. 16, 1998 in Waco. That game was in the second round of the Preseason WNIT and Florida was ranked No. 22 at the time.
