Texas women face Baylor for 1st place in the Big 12

The long wining streak for the No. 8-ranked Texas Longhorns women’s basketball team came to an end over the weekend, but head coach Karen Aston’s team will have a chance to recover against the No. 4-ranked Baylor Bears on Big Monday.

ESPN2 will air the match up, which will tip at 8 p.m. CT at the Frank Erwin Center.

Both teams are 14-1 in conference play, with the ‘Horns dealing the Bears the program’s only defeat by a Big 12 opponent this year, while Texas suffered a last-second defeat against Oklahoma.

The loss, the first since early December against UConn, broke a 19-game winning streak, including 14 games in conference play, a school record.

Despite the fact that Baylor is a formidable opponent, the odds are starting another winning streak are aided by the fact that the Texas women have been excellent at protecting home court over the last few seasons, going 30-2 over the last two years.

And even though the weekend included a loss, the Lady Longhorns have been excellent recently — freshman guard/forward Joyner Holmes has been the Big 12 Player of the Week for a month straight and also earned the nod as the espnW National Player of the Week.

She’s averaging 12.4 points per game and 8.3 rebounds per game as she keys the transition offense for the ‘Horns as a versatile player capable of handling the ball in the open floor and finishing around the rim.

Junior point guard Brooke McCarty has also been lights out recently, distributing the ball, scoring points on her own, and consistently knocking down looks from deep — she ranks second in school history in career three-point field goal percentage.

On the Baylor side, senior guard Alexis Jones is the older sister of Texas freshman guard Andrew Jones, and averages 14.4 points per game to help leads a Bears squad that tops the conference in 17 statistical categories.