WACO, Texas — Baylor went to the Final Four last season when Brittney Griner was a freshman. This time, the Lady Bears are a No. 1 seed for the first time with freshman starting point guard Odyssey Sims.
The Big 12 champions are very good — and still very young.
The 6-foot-8 Griner is among seven sophomores for the Lady Bears (31-2), who open the NCAA tournament against SWAC champion Prairie View (21-11) on Sunday night at home, where they are 19-0 this season.
The only of their top seven scorers who doesn't have at least two seasons left after this is starting guard Melissa Jones, their only senior who plays significant minutes.
"Yeah, we're young, but that's not an excuse when games are on the line," said Sims, who is averaging 13.5 points. "We aren't considered freshman, sophomore, senior out there. Everybody is just considered a basketball player."
They may be young, but these baby Bears have already had quite a bit of experience.
Baylor is 8-1 this season against teams ranked in the final AP poll, the lone loss by one point at two-time defending national champion Connecticut the first week of the season. The Lady Bears also had an 11-point win at home against Tennessee, another No. 1 NCAA seed.
"Getting to play them earlier, that helped show us where we were," Griner said.
In the first game Sunday at Waco, Conference USA champion Houston (26-5) plays West Virginia (23-9) from the Big East. The two winners play Tuesday night.
The Cougars, in their first NCAA tournament since 2005, had won 17 games in a row before losing in the C-USA tournament semifinals to Tulane. West Virginia opened the season with a 16-game winning streak and was 19-1 before losing eight of its last 12 games.
Baylor is hosting NCAA games for the first time since 2002, when the Lady Bears were a No. 2 seed and lost in the second round to Drake.
That was when coach Kim Mulkey was still trying to establish a consistent winner for a program that had won only seven games and was last in the Big 12 the year before she arrived in 2000. The Lady Bears are now making their ninth consecutive NCAA appearance, a span that includes the 2005 championship among five times they advanced to at least the round of 16.
"I'll say this again, we're still young," Mulkey said. "We've got a point guard that's never experienced the NCAA tournament, we've got sophomores that didn't get to play and start throughout the NCAA tournament last year. You've got only one senior that's still not 100 percent."
Baylor is still an overwhelming favorite against Prairie View. The Lady Bears are 13-0 in the series, winning those games by an average of 47 points.
Jones still doesn't have full vision in her right eye because of a swollen optic nerve sustained when she hit her head going for a loose ball three weeks ago. She missed only one game, and has averaged 7.5 rebounds and 4.8 assists in the four games since, including the entire Big 12 tournament.
Sophomore post players Destiny Williams, a starter, and Brooklyn Pope were sitting out last season after transferring to Baylor. Shanay Washington started 32 games as a freshman last season, but played only five games this year before tearing the ACL in her left knee in practice.
The injury to Washington, who will have three seasons left after a medical redshirt, came after returning senior two-year starting point guard Kelli Griffin quit a week before the season started. That escalated how quickly Sims become a regular.
"Statistically, she is a freshman. But she is a senior point guard with everything she does on the floor," first-year Prairie View coach Toyelle Wilson said.
In a lineup with four seniors, freshman Siarra Soliz leads Prairie View at 13 points a game.
Houston finished its 16-0 Conference USA schedule with an overtime victory over Tulane in the final regular season game, then lost to the Green Wave in the tournament semifinals.
"I got asked and I am sure the kids got asked many, many times, 'Did you think getting beat ... was maybe a blessing in disguise?' No, I don't believe that is ever a good thing," coach Todd Buchanan said. "Now having said that, I think with the things that we were going through as a basketball team, basketball family, trials, tribulations, etcetera, I think it could have been a blessing in disguise to get us back to Houston and get our hearts right and our minds right."
With All-Big East guard Liz Repella among four senior starters, West Virginia peaked at sixth in the AP poll in mid-December and stayed there for a month before the slide that had them unranked by the end of February.
"That one stretch, I didn't like going into games. I enjoyed practicing because we practiced well and were focused, and then we got into the games it seems like we lost focus and intensity and that type of stuff," coach Mike Carey said. "Since the Big East tournament, I thought we have been practicing very well and staying focused."