In the process of handing No. 10 Iowa State its first loss of the season Sunday afternoon, No. 22 Baylor and Bears coach Nicky Collen may have given the rest of the country a plan to slow down Naismith Player of the Year candidate Audie Crooks.
The game log shows that Baylor's Talia Scott, who scored all of her 21 points in the second half, hit a last-second jumper to lead the Bears to a 72-70 upset win over the Cyclones (14-1) in Ames, Iowa, but the planning and execution of how to handle Crooks is what set the table for the stunning upset.
Before the game Collen joked that Baylor (13-3) will need supernatural help to protect Crooks, who entered Sunday as the nation's leading scorer with 29.4 points per game on a historic 72.5% shooting. In the history of NCAA Division I women's basketball (which officially dates back to 1981-82), there have been 24 previous occasions in which a player averaged at least 29 points per game, according to Stathead. None of them exceeded 60.1%.
Crooks has been unstoppable this season thanks to her shifting moves in the post, nimble footwork and unique frame. She already has three 40-point games, including a career-high 47 points against Indiana, and has never shot better than 57.1 percent in any game.
At the beginning of the match with Baylor, everything was about the same. Crooks, who was allowed to play one-on-one, scored Iowa State's first nine points with ease and scored 14 points on a perfect 6-6 from the field in the first quarter. By the end of the first half, she had 22 points on 9-of-11 shooting, and one of those misses was a rare 3-pointer just before halftime.
Crooks' productive second quarter overshadowed the fact that Baylor began to change its game plan on defense. There were several possessions midway through the frame when Jada Williams' defender dove into the paint to get ahead of Crooks and prevent the Cyclones from getting the ball to her.
This foreshadowed an even more radical approach by the Bears in the fourth quarter, when they prevented Crooks from impacting the game. Once again, the Bears ignored Williams (Reese Beaty briefly received the same treatment when she was in the game for Williams), so they could have two defenders with Crooks in the post. While Williams is a strong playmaker (team-leading 7.2 assists per game), she shot just 39.7% from the field on Sunday, including 26.7% from 3-point range.
“One of the guards sat in front of me the whole time, and the other girl who was actually guarding me was behind me,” Crooks said. “It was very, very difficult for the security guards to make passes once they came in because they were both, I think, at least 6ft tall with their legs up, so that made it difficult to get inside. It was a good defensive plan for Baylor.”
Even late in the fourth, the Bears were content to let Williams go 15 feet rather than let Crooks get involved.
Crooks was down a goal in the fourth quarter, and her two shot attempts were hasty fades when she once had a touch on the post and a rollback on an offensive rebound that was blocked. As a team, the Cyclones scored just 14 points on 6-of-17 from the field as the Bears completed the comeback win.
“Obviously that made it difficult for Audi to get the ball,” Iowa State coach Bill Fennelly said after the game. “At the end of the day, it’s hard to beat a really good team playing two against five, and that’s what it came down to today.”
Crooks finished with 26 points on 11-of-20 from the field, but had just four in the second half. Williams, meanwhile, scored 28 points on 11-of-28 shooting, including 6-of-17 from 3-point range, all career-highs for the junior guard. All other Iowa State players combined for 16 points on 5-of-23 shooting.
Throughout Crooks' dominant start to the season, there has been a lot of talk about why opponents haven't sent her more double teams. The obvious answer was Iowa State's elite three-point shooting. The Cyclones entered Sunday shooting 38.2% from beyond the arc as the 14th-ranked team in the country, and three of their starters – Mackenzie Hair, Arianna Jackson and Eddie Brown – were shooting 43.2% or better.
The Cyclones' spacing in their four-out offense makes it difficult to properly execute a double without giving up an open hit, but it's still surprising that opposing coaches aren't trying to rip the ball out of Crooks' hands more often.
Collen and the Bears took this idea one step further. You won't have to worry about getting the ball out of her hands if she never had one in the first place. Additionally, by ignoring Williams and protecting the Cyclones' elite three-point threats, the Bears gained more control over who had the ball and were forced to shoot instead of Crooks.
“We had to find a way to get Crooks off and so we obviously made the decision to let Jada Williams shoot,” Collen said after the game. “Sometimes it looks crazy because she's obviously got something going, but at the end of the day, if you look at the analytics, Crooks is shooting 70% and Jackson and Hare are shooting 50% from three, we had to pick our poison. I thought we executed it to a high standard.”
Collen's bold and daring strategy helped her team to their biggest win of the season and showed that it was possible to slow Crooks down – even without supernatural help. Was it a one-time success that caught Iowa State off guard, or will their upcoming opponents take a page from Baylor's book. And if they do, how will the Cyclones react?
Connelly isn't going to wait long to find out.
“We'll probably see that on Wednesday,” he said, when his team travels to Ohio to take on Cincinnati.
