Photo courtesy Emma Pravecek/Kansas AthleticsSaturday’s 4 p.m. tipoff between the Kansas women’s basketball team and perennial powerhouse Baylor will mark the first game between ranked women’s teams at Allen Fieldhouse in 10 years.
Coincidentally, the last time it happened featured top-ranked Baylor and No. 17 Kansas on Jan. 13, 2013. The Bears won that won in a rout, 82-60, behind 33 points and seven rebounds from Britney Griner.
There is no Griner on this year’s Baylor roster, but KU coach Brandon Schneider said this week that No. 23 Baylor is very much still a team to be reckoned with.
“I think they’re different in how they play,” Schneider said Thursday. “But I think in terms of being very talented and still a championship-caliber program, that hasn’t changed.”
The Jayhawks (12-1 overall, 2-0 Big 12) have lost 17 in a row to Baylor and have not defeated the Bears (11-3, 2-0) since Jan. 19, 2014.
That losing streak includes a tough loss in Lawrence last season which Schneider said the Jayhawks felt they “kind of gave away.”
The Bears are one of two Big 12 programs that Schneider has yet to beat at Kansas (Iowa State is the other), but his team, which has high expectations and big goals for the rest of the season, is approaching this one like a game it can win.
“Because of our experience, we have a group that expects to win every time they take the court,” Schneider said. “And, at the very least, knows that they can compete at a high level with anybody that they’re going to play.”
Like KU, Baylor opened Big 12 play with back-to-back wins — 64-42 at home over TCU and 81-70 at No. 17 Oklahoma. The Jayhawks also have one win away from home (at Oklahoma State last Saturday) and one at Allen Fieldhouse (Wednesday night vs. Texas Tech).
All three of Baylor’s losses have come to ranked teams — Maryland, Michigan and Arizona — but it’s the Arizona loss, which came in the Pac-12 Coast to Coast Challenge in Dallas, that jumps out.
The Bears lost to Arizona that day 75-54. Ten days earlier, Kansas defeated that same Arizona team, 77-50 on its home floor.
None of that, nor any of the highs and lows from the past 10 years of KU-BU battles have any bearing on Saturday’s game. Four of KU’s next five games come against teams that received first-place votes in the Big 12 preseason poll, and Schneider knows this is an important stretch for his team.
“(We’re) getting into a stretch where (our) opponents are good enough to win the league,” Schneider said. “So that’s who you’re facing, the people who are the favorites to win the league.”
