The top-ranked Connecticut Huskies are no longer atop the college basketball world, after dropping a 68-57 decision to the Baylor Lady Bears Thursday night in Waco.
Baylor dominated Connecticut inside all night, relying on a three-pronged attack to overwhelm the undersized Huskies. Baylor entered the game third in the country in opposing points per possession, atop the country in offensive rebounding rate, per HerHoopStats, and they utilized that to their advantage. Both Kalani Brown, who finished with a 20 points and 17 rebounds, and Lauren Cox helped their Lady Bears to a massive advantage on points in the paint, 46-10 by late in the fourth quarter.
“What she wanted was a response from us,” Kalani Brown told ESPN’s Holly Rowe following the game, referring to Baylor’s 68-63 loss to Stanford. This certainly qualified.
But Brown and Cox didn’t do it alone. NaLyssa Smith scored in double figures as well, winning the battle of elite freshmen with Connecticut’s Christyn Williams, though Williams hit a pair of threes late in the third quarter to trim a 51-41 Baylor lead to 51-47 entering the fourth quarter.
Baylor’s ability to go with three elite bigs, giving rest to Brown in the third quarter, helped keep her fresh and finish out the victory.
It also helped to have Chloe Jackson, the transfer, on the floor once UConn hit a pair of threes to cut the lead to 61-55. Jackson sank a baseline jumper, then forced a turnover that finished with a Jackson layup, a 65-55 bulge, a Connecticut timeout and the inevitability of the Baylor win.
Notably, the two teams were practically even on the boards. But Baylor seemed to scoop up every necessary carom, and a rested Connecticut team looked a step slow all night, shot just 29 percent from the field, and never found a rhythm in the halfcourt set.
What the win means for college basketball as a whole is even more exciting. A world where Stanford can beat Baylor, Baylor can beat UConn, UConn can beat Notre Dame, means an NCAA tournament where nothing is certain. There are numerous elite teams capable of deep tourney runs, and that is from the vantage point of January, let alone who will emerge once we get to March.