Baylor rallies to beat Nebraska 67-62 in March Madness opener after winning appeal on flagrant foul

DURHAM, N.C. — Taliah Scott scored 15 points and Baylor rallied from a nine-point deficit in the fourth quarter, making 11 of 14 free throws down the stretch, to beat Nebraska 67-62 on Friday in the first round of the NCAA Tournament.

After leading 19-11 after the first quarter, the sixth-seeded Bears (25-8) went cold and were down 50-41 with 9:33 to play in their March Madness opener. Baylor then turned up the full-court press and forced six turnovers by Nebraska in the final quarter.

“I thought that we got tough at the end,” Baylor coach Nicki Collen said. “When time was running out, I thought that’s about as tough a five minutes as we’ve ever played. It was our defense. It was our intensity. Our ball pressure in the full court, we turned it up. So a really hard-fought battle against a really good team. Happy to survive and advance.”

The turning point came on a jump ball with the game tied at 53 with 3:48 to play. Collen appealed for officials to review the play for a flagrant foul on Nebraska junior forward Jessica Petrie, who appeared to have pulled down Baylor’s Bella Fontleroy.

Baylor won the appeal, and Scott made two free throws to give Baylor the lead for good. Petrie, who had 10 points for the Cornhuskers, fouled out on the next play.

“I definitely think it flipped the game on its head a little bit,” Fontleroy said about the foul. We had energy, we had a few really good stretches, but that just gave us a little extra cushion. We really continued to be aggressive and compete after that and finish the game strong.

Collen said her coaching staff was confident the foul would be called after watching the video replay on a tablet, so she was willing to risk a timeout for the appeal.

“I thought the importance could be the momentum shift,” she said. “So the worst thing that was going to happen to us was we were going to get the ball. But we got the ball, the possession arrow stayed ours, and we ended up with a three-point possession.”

Nebraska coach Amy Williams said the call could have gone either way.

“We’ll watch some of the men’s tournament for the next several days, and we’ll see that type of play happen many, many times,” Williams said. “I thought Jess was just doing her best to be aggressive and to try to protect the ball. It was a physical game, and there was a lot of contact. It was an unfortunate circumstance that ended up kind of shifting a little bit of the momentum.”

Darianna Littlepage-Buggs scored 13 points for Baylor. Jana Van Gytenbeek added 12, including two critical 3-pointers in the second half.

Britt Prince had 27 points for the 11th-seeded Cornhuskers (26-8), who fell short in trying to become only the second team to advance from the First Four to the second round since the women’s field was expanded to 68 teams in 2022.

Next steps in Lincoln

After making three consecutive NCAA Tournaments, Williams said the program’s goal is to play at home in the postseason next season.

“We’ve got to put ourselves in position to be hosting,” she said. “That’s kind of the next steps. We want the returning players in our program to be talking about playing games like this in Pinnacle Bank Arena next year in Lincoln and what do we need to do in the off-season to make that happen.”

Up next

Baylor will play Sunday against third-seeded Duke, which beat Charleston 81-64 in the earlier game.

The Bears beat the Blue Devils 58-52 in their Nov. 3 season opener. They both will enter Sunday’s game with identical 25-8 records after Duke rebounded from a 3-6 start.

“I think Duke was elite when we played them, and I think they’re elite now,” Collen said. “I think we maybe didn’t quite know who we were yet.”