By Michael Haag | Sports Editor
When Nicki Collen was hired as the Baylor women’s basketball head coach, she inherited a squad that had just watched Kim Mulkey, its former coach, leave for LSU. Left with only nine players for the 2021 season, Collen made it work, as she continued an 11-year streak of regular season Big 12 championships.
The second-year head coach did not walk into a dumpster fire though. Collen was able to lead a Bears team that saw three of its athletes get drafted into the WNBA. But now, with those standouts gone following a season of tight rotations, she said it’s all about reloading.
“When you lose three players to the draft and you’re Baylor, you’re trying to continue to stay at that level,” Collen said.
Turning the page to the 2022-23 season, Collen has welcomed her own recruiting class and brought in transfers that want to play for her, not Mulkey; It’s Collen’s program now.
Baylor brought in a 2022 recruiting class that ranked top ten nationally, along with three highly-touted Division I transfers. With only five returners among 13 players, Collen has a very different group, but it’s one she sees as being more versatile than last year.
“Having more bodies gives you a lot of versatility, a lot of different ways to play, a lot of different lineups,” Collen said. “We can match up with any team. We can go big, we can go small, and we can be equally good. Just a little more in the bag to play with.”
The top freshman recruit the Bears gained was guard Bella Fontleroy, ranked No. 8 for her position and No. 41 overall by ESPN HoopGurlz. Fontleroy said she has been integrated into the system well and that the team will be lethal once chemistry is built.
“We all love each other,” Fontleroy said. “We get along really, really well, and it shows out on the court. We’re still working on the chemistry and the details, but we’re going to be really good.”
Collen brought in redshirt senior forward Dre’Una Edwards from Kentucky, senior guard Aijha Blackwell from Mizzou and junior guard Jana Van Gytenbeek from Stanford. Baylor saw Blackwell first hand in a narrow 70-68 victory over the Tigers last season.
Blackwell went toe-to-toe with NaLyssa Smith, the No. 2 overall pick in the 2022 WNBA Draft, as the two traded baskets all night. Collen said she’s seen good things from all of the newcomers and that there are currently a lot of moving pieces.
Collen said it’s a challenge this early in the season because of that movement, and that the team just needs more time to get settled into roles. The 2018 WNBA Coach of the Year drew on her professional experience to reassure her group.
“Even my team in the W[NBA], as good as Tamika Catchings was — maybe one of the best ever and from an effort perspective, there was probably no one better — and she struggled to ever make the transition from [the] four to three [position],” Collen said. “She just played tough enough and was aggressive enough to be an undersized four. It’s not easy to do both. But we’re pretty determined to make it happen.”
Another consolation to the early woes is that the 2021 Big 12 regular season champs went through similar growing pains, according to Collen.
“Last year’s team looked like this, too,” Collen said. “Lyss [NaLyssa Smith] and Queen [Egbo] didn’t know the plays the first time we ran it, either. It took time.”
In terms of those two, Smith and Egbo — who have made an immediate impact in the WNBA — senior guard Jaden Owens said it’s a little odd not having them at practice.
However, Owens said the new group is exciting and that the team will still play at a high level.
“Playing with two amazing players like that, it’s always going to be different,” Owens said. “But with who we have now, we have more amazing players coming in. I don’t feel a drop-off.”
Owens, now in her third year with the Bears after transferring from UCLA, is one of the veterans that Collen is looking to step up as a leader. Collen named Owens, fifth-year senior forward Caitlin Bickle and junior guard Sarah Andrews as being three potential leaders for this group.
“Right now those are probably the three that understand the best what we do and why we do it,” Collen said.
As the group gears up for the season, it knows that the same target will remain on its back. Owens said that’s just what comes with wearing the green and gold.
“There’s always going to be pressure,” Owens said. “There’s a target on our back with our name being Baylor. But, I don’t feel pressure.”
The pressure to continue dominating in the Big 12 is something Collen and the team embraces. Regardless of who moves on or who is welcomed in, Collen and her group are walking into the storm together.
“Nobody wants to be a part of the team that breaks the streak of conference championships,” Collen said. “We wear that.”
