Feb. 16, 2005
Box Score
WACO, Texas - Steffanie Blackmon had 31 points and 11 rebounds to lead No. 7-ranked Baylor to a 74-57 win over Missouri in Big 12 Conference action Wednesday night at the Ferrell Center.
Sophomore F Tiffany Brooks (Leavenworth, Kan. / Leavenworth HS / Kansas State) led the Tigers (9-14, 3-9 Big 12) with 19 points, junior G LaToya Bond (Urbana, Ill. / Urbana HS) added 10 points, and sophomore F Carlynn Savant (Euless, Texas / Trinity HS) had another solid game with eight points and seven rebounds.
Despite being outrebounded 6-2 in the first four minutes, the Tigers made five of their first seven shots to take an 11-10 lead with 14:57 remaining. That prompted Baylor's first timeout of the game.
With the score tied at 15, Abiola Wabara scored inside on back-to-back possessions to give Baylor (20-3, 10-2) a four-point lead, yet the Tigers held the Lady Bears scoreless for the next three minutes and tied the game at 19 on a fadeaway from sophomore F EeTisha Riddle (O'Fallon, Ill. / O'Fallon HS). Mizzou made nine of its first 13 shots (69.2 percent).
Baylor went on an 8-2 run over the next 5 minutes for a 27-21 lead, yet the Tigers fought to within four in the waning minutes of the half before Steffanie Blackmon converted a 3-point play with 32.8 seconds left for a 34-27 BU lead. Blackmon had 17 points and seven rebounds at the break, yet 54.5-percent shooting (12-of-22) kept the Tigers in the game.
The Lady Bears pushed the second-half lead to 10 points (42-32) on a Chameka Scott driving layup with 17:11 left to play. Yet Mizzou came back with a 7-2 run, capped by a Riddle 3-pointer, to pull within five (44-39) with 14:15 left.
Baylor came out of the next media timeout, though, and threw a 7-0 run, finished off with an Emily Niemann trey, over a 53-second span to take a 51-39 lead. Blackmon's third 3-point play of the game three minutes later made it 56-41 for BU's largest lead of the game.
The two teams traded scoring possessions over the next seven minutes, with Brooks scoring Mizzou's last 12 points of the game.
"I thought we did a lot of good things today. Our effort was outstanding," said Head Coach Cindy Stein, who returned to the Tiger bench after missing two games due to the death of her father. "I liked the way we attacked, especially with LaToya and Tiffany in the second half. Defensively, Blackmon was hard to stop. She was just too tough, a handful."
The Tigers remain on the road, playing at Oklahoma on Saturday at 4 p.m. in a game that will be televised through much of the country by FSN. The game may be heard on KFRU-AM 1400 and KLIK-AM 1240, and online through Yahoo! Audio at www.mutigers.com.
