January 4, 2024
Locked On Women’s Basketball: Sarah Andrews, Baylor Bears rolling, eyeing banners for Foster Pavilion
By The Next
With big wins and rocking home crowds, Baylor are surpassing every expectation
Undefeated Baylor are off to a roaring start in 2024, extending their win streak to 13 with a resounding 71–50 win over No. 23 TCU in their new home arena, Foster Pavilion. Leading the pack for the No. 6 Bears is guard Sarah Andrews, who joined Howard Megdal on today’s episode of Locked On Women’s Basketball.
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Medgal and Andrews first discussed Baylor’s tough schedule, and how they’ve managed to jump every hurdle along the way. Andrews attributed some of that success to the team’s quality up and down the bench:
“Now we have a lot of more legs that we might not have had down the stretch [before],” she explained. “This team has so much depth, that’s the special thing about it … nobody’s averaging over 30 minutes and that’s what you want at this level. Every game in the Big 12 is a hard game, you have no cupcake games. You’re gonna have to come out and play your best basketball and it sets you up going into the NCAA tournament because this league has gotten so much better. So not having anybody average over 30 minutes is a blessing because you can’t say many programs have the type of depth that we have.”
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Megdal brought up Baylor’s big win over TCU, which came despite the Horned Frogs holding the Bears to zero points in the second quarter. Andrews spoke about how the Bears are able to use their depth to get over lulls in energy, especially going into the second half.
“In the fourth quarter we play in transition a lot and when you play in games like that, you got to have legs to keep playing at the pace that we want to play,” she said. “That’s what you saw against TCU, you saw us take it to another level and have wind and legs down the stretch that I don’t think they had like we have.”
Andrews, who is in her senior season, also spoke about finally feeling at her best after dealing with injuries throughout her career at Baylor. She again pointed to the Bears’ depth, which has taken some of the load off of her shoulders.
“I’m starting to get my groove back on, I’m starting to get that bounce back that I had in AAU and I’m starting to feel like Sarah again. So it’s only going to keep getting better,” Andrews said. “I’m playing better defense because I’m getting in better shape and I’m feeling the best I have in a while.”
As for the atmosphere at Foster Pavilion: “I’m telling you, the atmosphere is just different and it’s something that you want to be a part of, because it’s very special,” Andrews said. “We just appreciate the crowd because you know, women’s basketball is starting to get the right recognition that it deserves.”
Tune in to hear more from behind the scenes at Baylor, including the Bears’ hopes of bringing a banner to their new home gym at Foster Pavilion, what the locker room of an undefeated team is like post-win and what goes into Baylor’s defensive mentality. Make sure to subscribe to the Locked On Women’s Basketball podcast to keep learning about women’s college basketball, the WNBA, basketball history and much more!
