Lady Bears continue their advance
WACO — Another doubledouble for big post Lauren Cox, a standout game on both ends of the court for Juicy Landrum and a 10th consecutive trip to the NCAA Sweet 16 for Baylor.
Cox had 18 points and 16 rebounds, Landrum scored 17 points while helping finally stifle Michigan’s career scoring leader, and the second-seeded Lady Bears pulled away in an 80-58 victory over the No. 7 Wolverines on Sunday night.
“This team has gone through a lot of adversity this year, and we’ve fought through all of it and we’ve stayed together,” said Cox, the 6-4 sophomore post player who had her fourth consecutive doubledouble. “So getting to the Sweet 16 is really important for us.”
Big 12 champion Baylor (33-1) finally put Michigan away by scoring 13 consecutive points in the third quarter, going up 57-41 on a driving layup by Kalani Brown that capped the 4½-minute spurt.
Hallie Thome had 22 points — her fourth consecutive 20-point game — and Katelynn Flaherty, the career scoring leader, had 18 points on six 3-pointers in her last college game for the Wolverines (23-10). They combined for 30 of Michigan’s 34 first-half points but had only 10 the rest of the game.
“That kid (Landrum) is coming off screens guarding Flaherty. She’s just a hard kid to guard,” Lady Bears coach Kim Mulkey said. “Juicy was tremendous today. She hit big 3s, and took the ball to the rim, and I just thought her defense on that kid, especially in the second half, was big.”
All five Baylor starters scored in double figures, but only six players got in the game until Mulkey cleared the bench with 11.8 seconds left in the game.
Freshman Alexis Morris also had 17 points for the Lady Bears. Brown, the 6-7 junior who was the Big 12 Player of the year, had 16 points and eight rebounds. Dekeiya Cohen added 12 points.
There were four ties and four lead changes before Baylor went ahead to stay on the fifth — a layup by Cox that made it 20-19 at the end of the first quarter. That was during a stretch of eight consecutive points Cox scored, including three consecutive layups in the first quarter before a short bank shot started the second.
The Wolverines were within 4441 when Thome made a layup with 7:10 left in the third quarter. They didn’t score again until Flaherty’s 3-pointer with 1:53 left.