On Thursday night, Baylor took down the Connecticut Huskies 68-57 to earn their first program win over a No. 1 ranked opponent in school history.
From the jump the No. 8-ranked Baylor squad took control of the game on the offensive end of the floor looking inside to six-foot-seven Kalani Brown, who finished with a game high 22 points on 11-17 shooting.
???? Highlights from last night’s historic win will give you goosebumps! #SicEm pic.twitter.com/mQMiVTV1s7
— Baylor Lady Bears (@BaylorWBB) January 4, 2019
Lauren Cox and Brown were dominant inside and did a tremendous job of taking advantage of mismatches and posting up smaller defenders, and their guards got them the ball leading to a +42 points in the paint advantage. Baylor finished with 52 paint points compared to UConn’s 10.
On the defensive end of the floor, the size, length and physicality of Baylor affected the UConn offense all night, limiting paint looks and contesting every shot they put up, frustrating the UConn shooters. The Huskies shot a season low 29-percent with only nine made two-point field goals. These are staggering numbers considering UConn was shooting 51 percent and making close to 25 two’s coming into the contest.
But Baylor guarded 1-on-1 and as head coach Kim Mulkey stated after the game “followed the game plan to a T,” forcing the Huskies to earn every point they got for 40-minutes.
Nothing like celebrating a Lady Bear victory with @KimMulkey
#SicEm ???????? | #GoHeavy ???? pic.twitter.com/j3LfXFdUSa
— Baylor Lady Bears (@BaylorWBB) January 4, 2019
It’s been a while since we’ve seen No. 1 Connecticut get defeated in the regular season — over four years and 126 games ago to be exact, when the Huskies were beaten by Stanford on November 17th, 2014. The last time they lost by double digits was in 2012 in a 13 point loss to Notre Dame.
Both teams are back in action this Sunday as Baylor heads to Texas Tech and Connecticut will look to respond at Houston.
