The Baylor women's basketball team has a new coach this season, but the results in the Big 12 look very familiar. The No. 5 Bears won 87-62 at No. 8 Iowa State on Monday and clinched at least a share of their 12th consecutive Big 12 regular-season title.
The previous championships all came under coach Kim Mulkey, who left in April after 21 seasons and three NCAA titles at Baylor and is now at LSU. She was replaced by Nicki Collen, who is 24-5 in her first season in Waco, Texas.
A win in their finale against Texas Tech on Sunday would clinch the title outright for the Bears, as would an Iowa State loss at West Virginia on Saturday.
Baylor moved to 14-3 in the league; Iowa State is 13-4. Oklahoma and Texas are both 11-5. All four teams were projected to be in the NCAA tournament's top 16 in the selection committee's latest reveal Monday, which would mean they would host early-round games.
With two victories over Iowa State this season, Baylor already has clinched the top seed in the Big 12 tournament, March 10-13 in Kansas City, Missouri. The Bears have won that event 11 times; it wasn't played in 2020 because of the coronavirus pandemic.
The Bears also won the regular-season championship in 2005 and thus have 13 of those titles overall. All but one of them to this point have been outright; they shared the 2014 championship with West Virginia.
Baylor got off to an uncharacteristic start in Big 12 play in January, losing its first two league games to Kansas State and Oklahoma. Other than a second loss to Oklahoma in early February, Baylor has not stumbled in the Big 12 and is on a nine-game winning streak.
Senior forward NaLyssa Smith, currently projected in ESPN's WNBA mock draft as the No. 1 pick in April, led the way Monday with 28 points (on 11-of-15 shooting) and a career-high 20 rebounds. According to ESPN Stats & Information research, she is just the second Division I women's player in the past 20 seasons to have at least 25 points and 20 rebounds in a top-10 matchup.
The other was former Stanford star Chiney Ogwumike, who was the WNBA's No. 1 draft pick in 2014 and is now with the Los Angeles Sparks. Ogwumike had 32 points and 20 rebounds against Tennessee on Dec. 21, 2013, in her senior season with the Cardinal.
Smith, the Wade Trophy winner and Big 12 Player of the Year last season, helped Baylor to the 2019 national championship as a freshman. She's averaging 21.8 points and 11.7 rebounds.
"It wasn't really that bad," Smith told ESPN after Monday's game about adjusting to a new coach as as a senior. "Nicki came, and she knew she wanted to win. And that's what we did."
According to ESPN Stats & Information research, Baylor's 25-point win was the largest margin of victory in a top-10 women's matchup this season. There have been 18 games with that designation.