WACO, Texas - The University of Idaho women's basketball team fell to host team No. 8 Baylor on Friday night in the opening matchup of the World Vision Classic by an 82-37 score.
Idaho falls to 0-4 on the season, while Baylor improves to 4-1.
"There's a reason they're ranked No. 8, and they should be," Idaho head coach Jon Newlee said. "I've seen a number of top-10 teams through the years and they definitely belong there."
With the Vandals focused on stopping Baylor's 6-8 freshman sensation Brittney Griner, Baylor did what good teams do, and made Idaho pay in different ways. While Idaho held Griner to a season-low six points on 1-of-3 shooting, Baylor hit seven of their eight 3-point attempts in the first half and junior guard Melissa Jones scored a career-high 23 points.
Griner and the tall Baylor lineup created a lot of problems for the Idaho offense by contesting most inside shots and forcing the Vandals to shoot with hands in their faces all night long.
"Defensively, she (Griner) is such a huge presence," Newlee said. "She can close with one step on most shots, even at the 3-point line."
Even so, Idaho shot a decent .333 (8-24) from the field in the first half and .385 (5-13) from the 3-point line, but Baylor's hot start from long range and .515 (17-33) field goal clip was too much for the Vandals to keep up with.
In the second half, Idaho had a tougher time, and hit just six of its 28 attempts, including three of its 18 3-pointers, while Baylor continued its efficient shooting.
"Defensively, they took us out of some of the things we wanted to do," Newlee said. "We got down to the end of the shot clock a lot tonight and weren't able to get into offensive flow and just took too many rushed shots and bad shots and that was reflected in our percentage."
Junior guard Bianca Cheever was the lone Idaho player with double-digit points, as she was 3-of-6 from long range and put in 11 points, with four rebounds and two assists. Freshman Kanisha Bello put in a career-high eight points on 3-of-6 shooting from the floor.
Idaho continued to experiment with different combinations and used its third different starting lineup in four games, as Newlee and the Idaho staff tries to find out which player groups work best together. Newlee said that the team's personnel groups would be different than they were last season, when Idaho ran with primarily a rotation of six players.
"There are going to be a lot of different lineups," Newlee said. "It's only four games into the year and we've got to get the old players clicking with the new ones and sometimes it takes longer than you'd like."
With the game against the tournament host behind them, the Vandals will now look to close out the World Vision Classic on a high note against Lamar on Saturday and Louisiana-Lafayette on Sunday. Newlee said that both teams will provide tough tests and both should give Idaho a preview of what to expect from its Western Athletic Conference games later this year.
"We're going to see how tough we are in the next two games, because both Lamar and Louisiana-Lafayette are strong, tough teams," Newlee said. "Our goal was to play hard for 40 minutes today, and we did. Now, our goal is to play hard for 40 more minutes tomorrow and get ourselves a win."
Saturday's game against Lamar will tip off at 12:30 p.m. (PST) and the Vandals will close out the tournament on Sunday against Louisiana-Lafayette at 10 a.m. on Sunday.
