MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — Baylor outscored West Virginia 25-9 in the third quarter en route to a 64-39 win at the Coliseum. The victory secured at least a share of the Big 12 regular season title for the second-ranked Bears (26-1).
“Winning never gets old,” said Baylor head coach Kim Mulkey. “Losing will put you in your grave but winning never gets old.”
West Virginia competed well with the Bears in the opening half. The Mountaineers trailed 11-6 at the end of the first quarter and 29-19 at halftime. But the Mountaineers had no answers for Baylor’s post players in the second half. BU outscored West Virginia 32-14 in the paint.
“Their posts scored a lot of points and ours didn’t,” said WVU head coach Mike Carey. “We turned them over fourteen times. Well, you can turn them over but you have to rebound. You have to score in the paint also.”
Te’a Cooper led Baylor (26-1) with 17 points and Lauren Cox added a dozen points for the Bears. Kysre Gondrezick was the lone Mountaineer to reach double figures. She scored 13 points in her return to the lineup after missing three games due to injury.
WVU connected on just 13 of 55 shots from the floor (23.6%) and they went just 3 of 19 from 3-point range.
West Virginia raced out to a 13-1 start to the season and they won their first three games in Big 12 play. But the Mountaineers (16-10) have gone 3-9 since and are in jeopardy of missing the NCAA Tournament for the third consecutive season. WVU entered Monday’s matchup with an RPI of 59. Three games remain in their regular season.
“We’ve got to win all three,” Carey said. “Two of the teams we beat here (Iowa State and Texas Tech), one beat us at their place (TCU). So we have to win all three of them.”
“Teams can have a losing streak at any point in the season and peak at the right time,” Gondrezick said. “We’re not going to sit here and beat a dead horse. We have three more games to go and we have a (Big 12) Tournament to compete in. And I think we can do really, really well.”