TAMPA, Fla. _ For the first time in a month, Baylor's mighty women's basketball team got a challenge in Friday night's Women's Final Four game at Amalie Arena.
Upstart Oregon pushed the top-seeded Lady Bears for four quarters, but the end result was the same.
Another Baylor win.
The Bears withstood Oregon's barrage of 3-pointers to eke out a 72-67 win.
Baylor's 28th consecutive victory came 14 years to the day after they won their first national title. They won another seven years later and will try to add a third seven years after that Monday night against the winner of the late Notre Dame-UConn game.
Oregon's best season in school history ended at 33-5. It also might have been the end of the career for superstar guard Sabrina Ionescu, who can leave after her junior season to enter the WNBA draft. She hasn't decided what she'll do, but she'll have more time to think about it now that the Ducks' first ever Final Four is over.
Baylor (36-1) got Oregon out of rhythm early. The Ducks entered Friday averaging 9.9 turnovers per game _ fewest in the country. They had seven in the first quarter alone and 10 through the first 24 minutes.
Ionescu _ the Ward Trophy winner as the top player in the nation _ went scoreless through the first 11 minutes with as many turnovers (two) as shots.
The Ducks had no answer for Baylor's size inside. The Bears pounded the paint for 20 first-half points. Twin towers Kalani Brown and Lauren Cox combined for 19 of the team's 33 points through two quarters.
Even when Oregon seemed to make the right decision, it struggled with Baylor's height. Ionescu made a gorgeous pass to Oti Gildon in the closing minute of the first half, but Cox swatted it away for one of the team's four first-half blocks.
Led by Ionescu, Oregon eventually settled down. She exploded for 12 points in the second quarter, including a four-point play with eight seconds left that let the Ducks take a 34-33 lead into the locker room.
Neither team could pull away in the third, setting up the kind of close game Baylor has rarely faced during its dominant run to the program's fourth Final Four. The Bears were the third team ever to enter the Final Four after winning all of its tournament games by at least 25 points. Only six of Baylor's first 35 wins were by single digits.
But Baylor handled the pressure and got the biggest bucket of all when guard Chloe Jackson broke a 67-67 tie with a layup with 39 seconds left. The Lady Bears rebounded well enough and hit their foul shots to advance to the third title game in program history.
Ionescu finished with 18 points on 6-of-24 shooting. Cox (21 points, 11 rebounds) and Brown (22 points, seven rebounds) combined for 43 points and 18 rebounds for Baylor.
