On Friday night, the Baylor women’s basketball team traveled to Austin and defeated Karen Aston’s Longhorns for the seventh consecutive time in a three-year span.
The last time Texas bested the Bears was in February 2017 when the Longhorns made the trip up to Waco and left with an 85-79 victory. Texas may lead the all-time series 57-42, but the supposed rivalry between the two teams is becoming much more lopsided.
As of late, the gap between the programs has continually widened. Last season, Baylor won the Big 12 en route to a National Championship victory. Meanwhile, Texas finished second in the Big 12 standings and was eliminated from the NCAA tournament in the first round.
For right now anyway, this truth remains: The Bears own the Longhorns. Texas, meanwhile, remains a distant No. 3, chasing Baylor down but coming up short each time by small or very large margins.
At her postgame press conference Friday night, Aston acknowledged how ahead of the curve Kim Mulkey’s Bears have been in recent seasons. She also identified what the Longhorns must do to be successful against them and the rest of the league in the NCAA Tournament moving forward.
“At some point, I hope we can knock them off,” Aston said. “ There is a mentality you have to have every day that you walk into practice and every day for 18 games if you want to win the league. And (the Bears) obviously have that mentality, and that culture that is expected from player to player … I respect it. Am I chasing it? Are we all chasing it? Yeah. I will still chase it tomorrow.”
Texas will continue to chase the juggernaut program in Waco, but the team will have to work pretty hard. Baylor was missing a few of its stars and still won by 20 on Friday night. To make matters worse for the Longhorns, Mulkey said, “Winning never gets old,” and she has no intention of taking her foot off the gas.
“When we get all of them on that floor, I think we have a lot of weapons,” Mulkey said. “We shoot the three ball. We’ve got size inside. I think our defense, I think all of our kids on the defensive end can guide all positions.”
Now sitting at third in the Big 12 , Texas can set its eyes on Baylor all it wants, but the road to the top from here on out will be decided by taking — and winning — one game at a time. For the Longhorns, this means the championship mindset Aston described will have to take hold on Sunday when they play Texas Tech.
