By Brice Cherry

Tribune-Herald staff writer

Baylor has amassed its share of convincing wins this season, games in which the Lady Bears seemingly didn’t even break a sweat.

But this one required some perspiration.

The scrappy, underdog Samford Bulldogs made the 10th-ranked Lady Bears work Saturday night, as Baylor found its 23-point second half lead trimmed to five with 3:38 to play. But the Lady Bears survived, 61-53, thanks in part to some cool nerves the foul line.

Baylor (9-1) made 10 of 10 free throws in the final 3:01 to salt the game away.

Baylor University center Danielle Wilson scores two of her 19 points over Samford's J'Ouita Babineaux. (Jerry Larson photo)

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“That’s real big,” Mulkey said of her team’s foul shooting. “If you don’t make your free throws when they cut the lead, it gets a little bit tighter and that rim gets a little bit smaller the next time you’re up there.”

Early in the second half, Baylor appeared to be cruising toward another runaway win, taking a 43-20 lead on a Danielle Wilson putback of her own miss.

But Samford (6-3) shot its way back into the game, taking advantage of dribble penetration from its guards, who began kicking it out to the wings for open 3-pointers. The Bulldogs nailed 6 of 9 from behind the arc in the second half, including a give-me-a-break bank shot from Monica Maxwell late in the game.

“That Princeton offense (that Samford uses) is hard to guard,” Mulkey said. “Anybody that can teach that kind of motion offense always stands a chance in games no matter what the lead is, because they backdoor cut you, they shoot the 3s, they do all kinds of stuff. You’re never comfortable.”

For the third straight game, Wilson made an imposing first impression on her opponents. The 6-3 junior post showed off a nimble array of drop-step and spin moves in scoring 11 of Baylor’s first 19 points. She finished the first half with 15 — only two fewer than the entire Samford team.

“I told Danielle in the locker room, if you could bottle up what you did tonight and bring it every night, you would make us so much better,” Mulkey said. “It wasn’t just her offensive production. She held their leading scorer (Savannah Hill) to three points, she was contesting shots. She had a little bit of cockiness about her out there tonight. ... I tell her all the time, it’s OK to show a personality out there.”

Wilson, who finished with 19 points, 10 rebounds and four blocks, shrugged off Mulkey’s assessment of her swagger in her typical understated way.

“I just think I’m an into-myself kind of player,” she said. “I get it done without showing any emotion or whatever.”

Wilson made some noise with two timely rejections in the final five minutes, erasing a breakaway layup from Samford’s Emily London and stuffing a driving scoop shot from Hill.

Still, Samford sliced the gap to 51-46 on Karmen Smith’s 3-point bomb with 3:38 remaining, capping a 23-5 Lady Bulldog surge.

That woke up the Ferrell Center crowd of 5,692, who rose to their feet en masse in hopes of shaking the Lady Bears out of their doldrums.

It worked — as Baylor picked up three key offensive rebounds in the final three minutes and knocked down its free throws to push its lead back to double digits.

“You have to love being at home,” Jhasmin Player said. “We had a game just like this (against Wisconsin) in the Virgin Islands, and we lost it. We couldn’t handle ourselves correctly. But ... you had the whole however many fans in here tonight standing up and yelling. Although we couldn’t hear the play call, it got us past that next three minutes.”

Player turned in a solid all-around game with 11 points, 10 rebounds and six assists — tallying season highs in each of the latter two stats.

Rachel Allison added 13 points.

For Samford, Smith and London tied for high-point honors with 14 apiece, and Maxwell added 13. Those three guards combined to shoot 8 for 15 from 3-point land.

Samford junior guard Megan Wilderotter injured her right knee with a little over six minutes to play in the first half, howling on the court with pain. Samford coach Mike Morris said after the game that the injury appeared to be a hyperextension and not a ligament tear of any kind.

Baylor will close its current four-game home stand at 7 p.m. Tuesday against UT-Pan American.