By Bailey Brammer | Broadcast Managing Editor
The No. 4 ranked Lady Bears took down Texas A&M Commerce 127-61 Thursday evening in the Ferrell Center in their second and final exhibition match of the pre-season.
Freshman center Queen Egbo led the Lady Bears with 24 points, nine rebounds and six assists, followed by freshman guard Honesty Scott-Grayson with 16 points and senior center Kalani Brown with 15 points.
“I feel like when we’re pressing, that’s the best way to do it because we’re athletic as a team and we have athletic players that can do that,” Egbo said. “Being a strong post player is my best aspect to my game.”
Women’s basketball head coach Kim Mulkey said sophomore guard DiDi Richards did not play on Thursday because she “tweaked her ankle” in practice on Wednesday, and that freshman forward Acquira DeCosta will be in a walking boot for a few weeks because of a toe injury from last week’s exhibition game against Langston.
For the Lions, senior forward Ekaterina Zhibaerva led with 12 points, followed by junior guard Alexus Jones with nine points.
Despite the Lady Bears’ high score, the team struggled with fouls. Freshmen forwards Caitlin Bickle and NaLyssa Smith both fouled out after receiving five personal fouls each. Egbo and junior guard Juicy Landrum both came close to leaving the game with four fouls each .
In the team’s first exhibition game, Egbo fouled out early on and said she used that as motivation on Thursday to stay in the game.
“I really thought about what I was doing on the defensive end to try to prevent those same type of fouls,” Egbo said.
Before the game, Baylor honored the women’s basketball team managers and presented the six of them with their 2018 championship rings.
Baylor took an early lead in the first quarter, shooting 14-22 at 63.6 percent, and the Lions struggled to catch up trailing 56-30 at the half. Commerce did its best to beat Baylor on the outside, firing five three-pointers in the first half, but ultimately came up short.
The Lady Bears outscored the Lions in bench points in the first half 31-10, and Baylor relied heavily on second chance points, picking up 24 by the end of the third quarter.
In the fourth quarter, the Lady Bears broke into tripe-digits with two three-pointers from Landrum, bringing her game total in three’s to three. In the final minutes, managers Darryln McDonough and Michelle Kahue also had the opportunity to play. The Lady Bears shot 17-20 at 85 percent in the fourth quarter, and picked up 75 bench points to Commerce’s 24.
“I thought our ball movement was great,” Landrum said. “
Mulkey said her team did well, but struggled with energy and still has a ways to go as their regular season begins next week.
“I’m very pleased with Chloe Jackson –– that’s a kid that’s never had to play point guard, and she can do it, she pushes the ball up the floor,” Mulkey said. “We did some things good tonight: we didn’t turn the ball over a whole lot. We don’t have a problem scoring, our problem is on the defensive end. We are not guarding the basketball well enough as a team … We’ll get better on that end.”
Baylor will face off with Nicholls State in its season opener at 6 p.m. Tuesday in the Ferrell Center.
