By Foster Nicholas | Sports Editor
On the same night she was honored for scoring 1,000 career points, junior forward Darianna Littlepage-Buggs picked up her 10th double-double of the year, leading all players with a season-high 26 points and 15 rebounds to push Baylor women’s basketball past BYU 83-71 Saturday evening at Foster Pavilion.
“She was just Buggs,” head coach Nicki Collen said. “I thought she ran the floor, and she was still, at the end of the game, playing with better pace than anybody on the floor, and she played the most minutes by 10. I felt like she needed to be out on the floor for us tonight, at both ends.”
With the win, the Bears (20-5, 10-2 Big 12) stand in a three-way tie for first place in the conference and own the second-longest winning streak in the Big 12.
“Our goals are still attainable, but I think there’s about, I don’t know, seven teams right now that still feel like their goals are attainable,” Collen said. “I’m proud of our girls for putting themselves in this situation, and we’ve got to keep working.”
The Cougars (12-11, 3-9 Big 12) focused their efforts on 3-pointers in the first half, finishing 7-for-14 from long range on the night. They nailed their first two triples in 22 seconds in the first quarter before graduate guard Aliyah Matharu checked in for the Bears. BYU’s swift 6-0 run was put to bed as the Florida transfer darted to the rim for a contested layup and knocked down a 3-pointer a minute later.
Matharu scored 13 of her 14 points in the first quarter and finished the day shooting 5-of-11. Despite five turnovers, she maintained a game-high plus/minus of 22 in 23 minutes.
Baylor carried a 22-13 lead into the second quarter thanks to a 12-1 run to close the first, capped off by a block from junior forward Kyla Abraham as the game clock expired. But blocked shots were the least of BYU’s concerns.
Coming into Saturday’s affair, the Cougars had forfeited 20 or more turnovers just three times. By halftime, the green and gold had forced 17 turnovers, 10 of which came in the second quarter. BYU gave away 26 turnovers during the night, leading to 18 Baylor points.
“[We] definitely tried to speed them up, but it was also for us — we needed to speed up,” Littlepage-Buggs said. “We rebound off our defense, so once we get our defense going, that’s when we can get stops and we can play good offense.”
Matharu continued her strong play in the second quarter, recording a team-high eight points to go along with two steals, both coming on inbound passes. Baylor closed the half on a 7-0 run and took a 47-29 lead into halftime
Behind freshman guard Delaney Gibb, who finished with 21 points on 6-of-14 shooting, the Cougars scored the first six points out of the break. Junior forward Bella Fontleroy and senior guard Yaya Felder helped the Bears deliver the next blow with five points, pushing Baylor further ahead 57-35 with 7:33 on the clock.
“Aliyah and Yaya are playing great, and they’re building more and more confidence and playing well together, which is great,” Collen said.
Felder finished with 12 points and two steals, while Fonleroy racked up seven points and a team-high three steals. Aside from the 10-0 run in which the Bears shot 4-for-4, the offense was hard to come by, shooting just 2-of-14 for the rest of the quarter. However, Baylor’s double-digit cushion never vanished in the second half.
“[There are] seven games left,” Felder said. “So we just put it all in; we’ve got to work harder.”
Littlepage-Buggs took control in the fourth quarter, scoring 11 of Baylor’s 15 points in the quarter on 5-for-5 shooting. The junior flipped up a reverse layup under the hoop with less than a minute on the clock to seal her season-high and the green and gold’s 83-71 victory over the Cougars.
“Buggs was just so good tonight, and she just didn’t look tired. So maybe that’s crazy, considering the score, but I think the way they were getting shots and making shots, I was worried about resting her too soon, because you saw how quickly 20 went to 12.”
The Bears will be back in action against No. 18 West Virginia (19-4, 9-3 Big 12) at 7 p.m. Tuesday at the Foster Pavilion.
