No. 1 Seed Lady Bears Roll Past Cal, into Sweet 16

Monday, March 25

8:00 PM CT

Baylor

33-1

102

Cal

20-13

California

Baylor

102

No. 1 Seed Lady Bears Roll Past Cal, into Sweet 16

3/25/2019 10:34:00 PM | Women's Basketball

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Juicy Landrum and Chloe Jackson combined for 38 points and 15 assists.

By Jerry Hill
Baylor Bear Insider
            With all eyes on the highly anticipated post matchup between All-Americans Kalani Brown and Kristine Anigwe, all Juicy Landrum and Chloe Jackson had to do was hit open shots.
            Baylor's guard duo combined to knock down 16-of-26 shots and score 38 points to lead the top-seeded Lady Bears (33-1) to their 11^thconsecutive Sweet 16 with a 102-63 drubbing of the eighth-seeded Golden Bears from Berkeley in Monday's second-round matchup at the Ferrell Center.
            "If you're forcing them to beat you from the outside, and they're beating you from the outside, my thought is, 'Gosh, they probably deserve to win,''' said Cal coach Lindsey Gottlieb, whose team fell to 20-13 with its third second-round loss to Baylor in Waco over the last six years.
            "When their guards are hitting every mid-range pull-up and Juicy is going to go 50 percent from 3, I'm thinking, 'This team is a favorite to win the national championship.''
            The Lady Bears took another step toward their third national championship and first Final Four in seven years since the 2012 team that went 40-0.
            Baylor won its 39^thin a row at the Ferrell Center and 16^thstraight NCAA Tournament game at home, following up a 57-point first-round victory over Abilene Christian with another blowout win over Cal. Two years ago, the Lady Bears posted an 86-46 second-round victory over the Golden Bears.
            "You could not have treated us better," Gottlieb said. "I say with all due respect, I hope not to see you again next year or the year after or the year after."
            At least through the first quarter, it didn't look like the kind of lopsided game Baylor fans have grown accustomed to seeing.
            There were four ties and four lead changes in a back-and-forth battle, with the 6-4 Anigwe hitting her first bucket on a mid-range jumper to put Cal up 16-14 with 1:14 left in the opening quarter.
            "We came into this game believing we can win," said Cal sophomore guard Kianna Smith, who scored seven of her team-high 18 points in the first quarter. "This is the NCAA Tournament, that's what you do. Baylor is a good team, (but) we had no doubt that we could come out on the other side."
            Jackson had five buckets in an extended 25-2 run that stretched over the end of the first quarter and first eight minutes of the second period, scoring 10 of her 18 points and helping the Lady Bears go up 39-18 when she fed freshman NaLyssa Smith for a layup.
            "That was special," said Cox, who had 10 points, seven rebounds, five assists and one block. "We're going to need that down the stretch. We've always known they can hit those shots, and that was big for us."
            Landrum, who missed her first four shots from 3-point distance, nailed a buzzer-beater from beyond NBA range at the end of the half to put Baylor ahead 46-27 at the break.
            "The shot before that was an air ball," said Landrum, who hit her last four 3-point attempts and finished with a game- and NCAA Tournament-high 20 points. "We're supposed to be running a play, but the play was open, so I just hit the shot. I just happened to look up (at the shot clock) and it was two seconds, and I just took the shot."
            Baylor's post tandem of the 6-7 Brown and 6-4 Cox helped neutralize Anigwe, who saw her double-double streak end at 33 straight with 13 points and five rebounds. Averaging 22.8 points and 16.5 rebounds coming into the game, Anigwe picked up two fouls in the first 6 ½ minutes and was 1-of-11 from the field in the first half.
            "I didn't have the points or the fancy double-double, but I think I came out with great defense," said Brown, who had eight points, eight rebounds and a season-high five blocks. "That was my focus the whole game, and I executed.'
            Cox, who started on Anigwe at the start of the second half with Brown playing with two fouls, said Baylor's defenders "just wore her out."
            "She played 39 minutes against (North Carolina), so she was pretty worn-out," Cox said. "We just kept running on her, kept pushing on her. And when she did catch it inside, just go straight up and make her shoot over us."
            Landrum drained three 3-pointers in a 33-point third quarter as the Lady Bears stretched the lead to 79-40
            "At halftime, before we came back out, Coach told me just to settle down, set my feet, just relax and shoot," she said. "That kind of helped me settle down a little bit in the second half."
            With the game in hand, Baylor's bench scored 21 of the team's 23 fourth-quarter points. Playing a total of 11 minutes, the freshman trio of Smith (13 points, eight rebounds), Queen Egbo (eight points, six rebounds) and Aquira DeCosta (six points, six boards) helped the Lady Bear reserves outscore Cal's bench, 37-5.
            "I can't help but look at NaLyssa Smith, Aquira DeCosta and Queen Egbo," Mulkey said. "Those three freshmen played 11 minutes and have unbelievable stats. . . . I couldn't pick one of the three of them, because what they did was outstanding. We emphasize rebounding to those kids and they went in there. The points are icing on the cake."
            Landrum and Jackson combined for 13 assists and zero turnovers and helped Baylor shoot 54.7 percent from the field and 42 percent from 3-point range. The Lady Bears also dominated the boards, 49-23, and outscored Cal, 52-24, on points in the paint.
            Baylor advances to the regional in Greensboro, N.C., and will face fourth-seeded South Carolina (23-9) at 1 p.m. CDT Saturday at Greensboro Coliseum. Second-seeded Iowa (28-6) plays third-seeded North Carolina State (28-6) in the early semifinal at 10:30 a.m. CDT, with the winners playing Monday night for a Final Four berth the following weekend in Tampa, Fla.
            "Do I like the fact that we've already played them this year, or would I rather go into it not knowing much about each other? I don't know," Mulkey said of beating South Carolina, 94-69, on Dec. 2 in Columbia, S.C. "But, we know what they do, they know what we do. It will be like a home court to them. NC State, it will be a home court for them. That's where the ACC Tournament is played. That's OK. We'll go and give it our best shot. We've got to win two to get to a Final Four."