No. 1 Baylor Overwhelms Minnesota 89-60
December 4, 2011

“I really didn’t think we played very well,” said Baylor coach Kim Mulkey. “You can’t turn over the ball like we did. We missed way too many gimme buckets.” Yet Mulkey’s Bears, ranked number-one in the country, had no trouble beating the Minnesota Gophers 89-60 at Williams Arena.

Baylor’s six-foot-eight sensation Brittney Griner wasn’t the only player to give the Gophers trouble, but she was the one they focused on. Getting help from a weak-side post or a strong-side guard, Minnesota double- and triple-teamed Griner, holding her to 20 points and 9 rebounds, both below her season averages, although Griner had 3 assists, all in the first half, more than 6 times more than her average coming into the game. “We were making adjustments,” said Minnesota coach Pam Borton, adding, “You plug a hole and another one pops open.”

The attention she got is nothing new to Griner. “I’m so used to having two and three [players] on me,” she said. “That’s my one on one.” Asked if the double-teaming was still a problem for her, Griner shrugged and said, “Sometimes, yeah.”

Baylor led 48-21 at halftime. Although the Bears outrebounded Minnesota 35-21 (with Baylor getting 21 offensive boards in the first half), the Gophers took nearly as many shots from the field. However, Minnesota hit only 7 of its 37 field-goal attempts while Baylor made 17 of 40. Both teams turned the ball over a lot, with the Bears having one more, 12-11; point-guard Odyssey Sims had 5 turnovers in the half and 7 in the game. (Baylor had 16 turnovers in the game to 14 for Minnesota.)

Although Sims had a turnover problem she scored 14 of her 15 points in the first half. Six of the points came on passes out of the post by Griner to the weak side for Sims, who drained a pair of three-pointers. “Those were just the shots I had open so I hit it,” Sims said.

The Gophers came out stronger in the second half. “We were all very excited and pumped up to play Baylor today and I think it showed a lot in the second half,” said Borton. “I think we calmed down in the second half and got more guard play and settled down and got a good feel for how things were going.” Rachel Banham scored 15 of her 19 points in the second half, and Kiara Buford had 11 of her 13 points after the break. Off the bench, Leah Cotton scored 14 points in the game. “I was very pleased, not with the outcome, but with some of the stats we had during the game,” said Borton. “We had three of our guards in double figures. We were able to force 16 turnovers for the game, 10 steals for our team, 20 offensive rebounds, and we were at the free throw line 20 times today. Those are all positive things, and I felt like if we were able to have that same attack mode in the first half offensively, we wouldn’t have dug ourselves into as big of a hole in that first half.

“We can use this game as a measuring stick individually as players and as a team and continue getting better from here.”

In particular, Borton lamented her team missing 15 shots from the lane in the first half, and she didn’t blame the poor shooting on the defensive presence of Griner (who blocked 2 shots in the first half and 5 in the game). “It’s been an issue we’ve had. An issue as far as finishing shots in the lane, finishing shots in the paint, our post players making lay-ups. I think that’s something we continue to work on at practice, finishing in the lane. It’s going to be something to focus on. It’s a mind set.”

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