OXFORD — Nina Davis smiled and shook her head.
The Baylor sophomore forward never imagined she could have this much fun on a basketball court. It made it even more satisfying that a career-best effort came on her 20th birthday nearly 90 minutes from home and with plenty of friends and family on hand to watch.
Davis scored a career-high 43 points and grabbed nine rebounds Sunday to lead No. 11 Baylor to a 96-54 victory against Ole Miss before a crowd of 2,338 at Tad Smith Coliseum.
Davis, a 5-foot-11 forward from Memphis, was 14 of 17 from the field and 15 of 19 from the free-throw line in 33 minutes. She left the game with 5 minutes, 49 seconds remaining trailing Ole Miss (6-3) by only one point. Her effort helped her set a Tad Smith Coliseum single-game scoring record, breaking the previous record of 40 points set by Tennessee’s Shelia Collins on March 3, 1985.
“I definitely felt like I was on,” said Davis, who eclipsed the 40-point mark for the first time in her career. It also was the 15th time a Baylor player has scored 40 or more points. “It was just one of those days when pretty much everything was going for me, so I just kept scoring and attacking the goal. It was motivation, being my birthday and all.
“I had a lot of family and friends here, so I wanted to put on a good show for them. I didn’t think I would have a 40-point show. I was aiming for 20 or 25. I am just honored.”
Davis acknowledged the large contingent of fans behind the Baylor bench by holding her arm at a 45-degree angle and tapping her chest during a break in the action. She also shook her head and smiled several times after absorbing contact and converting layups and after blocking a shot in an expressive performance that showed she might be ready to take on a bigger leadership role for the Bears (6-1).
Davis chalked her head shakes up to the “heat of the moment” and the motions that accompany it. She meant no disrespect shaking her head. She was just having a good time on a day when Baylor used a 22-2 run to break a 15-all tie midway through the first half.
Baylor coach Kim Mulkey said Davis, who entered the game leading the team in scoring (18.8 points) and rebounding (7.7 rebounds), is one player on a team that has only one senior who can emerge as a leader as the Bears strive to replace the void left by the graduation of All-American Odyssey Sims, who averaged 28.5 points per game last season and led the team to a 32-5 record.
“We’re trying to make Nina more of a leader,” Mulkey said. “She is quiet by nature. Her game, obviously, can lead you, but she has to be more vocal. That is part of being a sophomore, too.”
Baylor (6-1) played without freshman guard Kristy Wallace, who missed her fifth-straight game because she returned to Australia to train for the 2015 FIBA Under-19 World Championship. The Bears didn’t need Wallace’s perimeter shooting on a day in which they received 10 points from Khadijiah Cave, 11 assists from Niya Johnson, nine points from Imani Wright and Dekeiya Cohen, and shot 55.7 percent (34 of 61) from the field.
Davis did a lot of the damage with a variety of attacking moves. She showcased her length and agility by moving past and between defenders. On one shot attempt that she didn’t finish due to a foul, she took a pass in transition on the left wing and tried to go under the basket and lay the ball in on the other side. Most women’s basketball players wouldn’t have the length or athleticism to attempt that move, but Davis nearly completed it even with the foul.
“I thought Nine was special,” Mulkey said. “A lot of people in this area questioned her ability (and) if she was good enough even to play at Baylor. I think she saw today that she is.
“She know she can take over a game. The leadership I am looking for from her is in the locker room, it is on the floor when things get tough. We had a lot of those situations when we didn’t hold on to a game that we were ahead in at Kentucky (in a 76-64 loss on Nov. 17 in Lexington, Kentucky). I think everybody was looking for that senior or that junior who has that experience. Consequently, nobody led us. You also have to be want to be led. Some kids don’t want to be leaders. They also don’t want to be led, either. We are still searching for it. Nina is the obvious choice because of her talents, but I think she just has to keep working on being more vocal.”
Davis said she senses the opportunity is there to lead a team that has advanced to at least the Sweet 16 of the NCAA tournament the past six seasons. With an experienced point guard in Johnson and size in the post in Cave and Kristina Higgins (eight points, 10 rebounds), Baylor has plenty of pieces to make another run in the Big 12 Conference and in the NCAA tournament. Davis hopes she can take on a bigger role to help keep the Bears rolling.
“You can’t go very far without a leader or someone to lead when the times do get tough or the game is getting hard,” Davis said. “Pretty much everybody looks to that one person who everybody wants to fall back on. Now that the season is going on, I am ready to step up to the plate and be the person that when things go rough, the teams looks at me and I am ready to carry them on my back.”
Tia Faleru, Erika Sisk, and Kiara Golden led Ole Miss with nine points. Faleru added 12 rebounds and five blocked shots, but she was 2 of 9 from the field. The Rebels shot 18.8 percent (6 of 32) in the first half and trailed 44-19 at halftime. The Bears also had a 56-18 edge in points in the paint.
Those numbers bothered Ole Miss coach Matt Insell, who said after the game that his team needed to improve its effort and its toughness. Still, he said Ole Miss had plenty of the shots it wanted in the first half but didn’t convert. He also said he would re-examine how to get Faleru and freshman Shandricka Sessom (two points, 1-of-4 shooting) more involved, but he said the team recently had put more plays into the offense for both players.
“,” Insell said.
Insell recruited Davis when he was an assistant coach at Kentucky and has watched her play basketball since the eighth grade, so he was familiar with her talent. He referenced the movie “Moneyball,” a story about Oakland A’s General Manager Billy Beane and his attempts in the 2002 season to put together a team that would win the World Series. Many of the players Beane brought to Oakland didn’t appear to be ready to contribute, but the team came together and won the American League West with a regular season record of 103-59. Minnesota beat Oakland in five games in the American League Division Series.
Insell compared Davis to “Moneyball” because she doesn’t have a traditional shooting stroke, so it doesn’t look like her shots should go in, but they do. On Sunday, all but three of Davis’ field goal attempts went in, which gave her plenty of reason to smile and shake her head.
“Nina Davis is a great player,” Insell said. “She has played well for two years there. She is a player everybody in the world said she couldn’t do things. When I was recruiting her at Kentucky, you had all of these guys who do the rankings telling me, ‘She can play in the SEC.’ You had everybody telling Kim Mulkey, ‘She can’t play in the Big 12.’ All of these people who know so much said Nina Davis couldn’t play at a high level of basketball. But I knew she could because she is a strong-willed kid that is very tough. … She wasn’t a top-50 kid. She wasn’t a McDonald’s All-American. She is just a player that just goes out there and gets the job done.”
Follow Dispatch sports editor Adam Minichino on Twitter @ctsportseditor
Adam Minichino is the former Sports Editor for The Commercial Dispatch.
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