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Baylor looks impressive, pounds Texas A&M in women's final

31.12.69

The Baylor women&#x92;s basketball team broke out the platinum uniforms with gold trim, gold shoes and socks on Saturday.</p><p>&#x93;Special occasion,&#x94; said star center Brittney Griner. &#x93;I love the uniform. I love the socks, everything. We love playing in them.&#x94;</p><p>&#x93;Give credit to Nike,&#x94; echoed guard Odyssey Sims. &#x93;They did a very good job with the designs and all the colors. It looked good on us.&#x94;</p><p>The top-ranked and undefeated Bears would have looked good in potato sacks as they overpowered Texas A&M 73-50 in the championship game of the Big 12 Women&#x92;s Basketball Tournament at Municipal Auditorium. </p><p>The Bears ran their record to 34-0, and though they have now beaten Texas A&M in 11 of their last 12 meetings, including last year&#x92;s Big 12 title game, this one avenged last year&#x92;s bitter loss in the NCAA Tournament&#x92;s Elite Eight that propelled the Aggies to the 2011 national championship.</p><p>The Bears celebrated Saturday&#x92;s win with the customary ball caps and Big 12 Champion T-shirts to accessorize their new unis, but the merriment was muted. The ultimate goal is to join Texas, Tennessee, and Connecticut (four times) as undefeated national champions.</p><p>&#x93;This is special,&#x94; said Baylor coach Kim Mulkey, who as a player led an undefeated Louisiana Tech team to an AIAW title in 1981. &#x93;There are many teams, many players, many coaches who never get to cut a net down, whether it&#x92;s a Big 12 championship &#x85; a state championship &#x85; and don&#x92;t take it for granted. </p><p>&#x93;But I&#x92;ve really loved their mindset. They&#x92;re not in that locker room high-fiving, ooh-ing and ah-ing, going crazy. It&#x92;s more like a business approach.&#x94;</p><p>In winning their fifth Big 12 tournament championship since 2005, the Bears showed they&#x92;re more than just Griner and the Girls. </p><p>Griner, who scored a tournament-record 45 points and leads the Big 12 with a 23.7 average, had season-lows in points, 11; and rebounds, three; against the determined defense of A&M&#x92;s Kelsey Bone and others. But that just opened the way for Sims, who scored a season-best 26 points; and forward Destiny Williams (&#x93;a double-double machine,&#x94; said Bone), who was six-for-eight from the field for 12 points with 11 rebounds.</p><p>&#x93;It&#x92;s not Brittney Griner and Baylor,&#x94; said Griner, whose 6-foot-8 presence still contributed to A&M&#x92;s 28 percent shooting in each half. &#x93;This is Baylor. We&#x92;re a team. Everybody contributes. I love games like this, watching my teammates score, and if I catch it, get double-teamed, kick it to them.&#x94;</p><p>Sims, a powerful 5-9 sophomore with a feathery left-handed touch, scored seven as Baylor sprinted to a 17-2 lead. </p><p>&#x93;Coach just told me to attack,&#x94; said Sims, who has averaged 20.8 per game in games against nine ranked teams. &#x93;We ran our play. It was the high screen. I had to either go to the rim or kick it out. And I just kept going until they tried to stop me.&#x94;</p><p>No one ever did.</p><p>&#x93;She does a good job of getting into the paint and using her body to hit those shots,&#x94; said A&M guard Sydney Carter. &#x93;And she even follows those shots. You don&#x92;t find a lot of point guards who will actually go in there and get a rebound after they miss.&#x94;</p><p>After Baylor jumped to the huge lead, the Aggies, 22-10, still didn&#x92;t consider themselves out of the game. They trailed Baylor 14-2 on Feb. 27 but came back and ended up losing 69-62. </p><p>&#x93;When it got to 17-2,&#x94; said Aggies coach Gary Blair, &#x93;we played them 18-18 the rest of the first half, and I thought we had a chance. If we would have hit our bunnies and got it down to a nine- or 10-point game, I think our confidence &#x85;&#x94;</p><p>Typifying the day, Aggie guard Skylar Collins -- playing for injured star Tyra White -- missed a layup on a two-on-none, and Carter, trailing the play, missed the follow that would have made it 39-26 with 18 minutes to play.</p><p>Then, at the other end, Griner hit a shot, and Sims made a steal, scored, was fouled, and the three-point play made it 44-24. The Bears led by as many as 31 at one point.</p><p>Now, the question is, can anybody beat Baylor in the NCAA Tournament?</p><p>&#x93;They can be beat because of Notre Dame and Connecticut and Stanford and whoever,&#x94; said Blair, whose team is 22-10 and will host first- and second-round games. &#x93;It&#x92;s hard to be the best all year and then maintain it. That&#x92;s why we have playoffs. Can you do it every night?</p><p>&#x93;But Baylor is that good, and yes, (Griner) is the best player I&#x92;ve ever played against, and I&#x92;ve played against every single one of them except Carol Blazejowski&#x85; coached against them or seen them, and that&#x92;s the best.&#x94;

Source: Kansas City Star