Turnovers, Sloppy Play, Doom Baylor in Season Ending Loss to Duke

Baylor needed to play its best game in order to knock off the Duke Blue Devils on their home floor, but they were far too sloppy as they fell behind and ultimately fell to Duke in the Round of 32.

Nov 3, 2025; Paris, FRA; Baylor Bears head coach Nicki Collen reacts to a call against the Duke Blue Devils during the first half at Adidas Arena. Mandatory Credit: Chris Jones-Imagn Images | Chris Jones-Imagn Images

Winning in the NCAA Tournament is hard. The Baylor Bears found out just how difficult it can be in Friday’s nailbiter against the Nebraska Cornhuskers.

As each round passes, winning gets more difficult. That’s especially true when you’re a lower seed facing a team who has had a better regular season than you did.

In Baylor’s case on Sunday afternoon, it was a true road game against a team where they were a double-digit underdog.

If the Bears were going to be able to pull of an upset against the home team and advance to the Sweet 16, they needed something that is almost impossible to attain.

Perfection.

A fast start in Sunday’s game would have been able to take Duke’s home crowd out of the game, and potentially make things easier on a Baylor team who struggled to find its footing at times on Friday against Nebraska. 

Digging a Hole

Instead, Baylor dug an early hole. They fell behind by nine before finding their way onto the scoreboard with a bucket from Darianna Littlepage-Buggs.

They’d pull within six in the second quarter, but that was the closet they would get in a first half that was incredibly one sided toward the higher-seeded Blue Devils.

Two of Duke’s starters were in double figures before halftime with Delaney Thomas, and Toby Fournier both nearly outscoring Baylor’s entire offensive output in the first half.

Duke’s lead swelled to more than 20 points before the halftime break, but the Bears could not find any answers for Duke’s vicious defense as they struggled to take care of the ball.

Baylor had a whopping 17 turnovers in the first half, zero made three-pointers, and only 16 points to Duke’s 38 at halftime. 20 of which came in the paint. It was dominance in every sense of the word.

The 22-point deficit, Baylor’s largest of the season, felt like 222 points compared to how the two teams played in the first half.

Same Old Second Half

If Baylor was going to make a miraculous comeback, they needed to clean things up and quickly.

It was not to be. Baylor could never string together enough stops and scoring opportunities to even cut into the Blue Devil lead.

Their deficit fell below 20 just once in the second half, and that was on two early possessions where Taliah Scott was fouled on a three, and Bella Fontelroy made a layup to pull the Bears within 17.

After that, it was all Blue Devils again. A quick 8-0 run put the Blue Devils back up by 25, effectively ending any chance that Baylor had at mounting a comeback.

Now What?

The season is over now, and the questions start to surround the program.

How can they find their way to restoring the dominance that they had become accustomed to when Kim Mulkey was in charge?

That’s a good question. For now, any answer they come up with does not matter until camp begins next fall.

What it is time for, however, is to start putting those answers into practice to prevent something like Sunday’s game from happening again.