DEFENSE — WVU guard Gia Coke (right) defends against Baylor’s Darianna Littlepage-Buggs on Sunday. Cooke had 14 points in West Virginia’s 70-60 victory against the 14th-ranked Bears. - Benjamin Powell

The numbers compiled by the 22nd-ranked WVU women’s basketball team were simply astonishing Sunday.

They read: 23 offensive rebounds, 30 turnovers forced and a 36-8 scoring advantage in the paint.

That’s not the amazing part, because they’re numbers you’ve seen before from Mark Kellogg’s Mountaineers, usually in those early November games against an overmatched opponent.

This came against No. 14 Baylor, the same Baylor that has been the benchmark of Big 12 women’s basketball for the last couple of decades.

And they produced a major statement with the Mountaineers’ 70-60 victory inside Hope Coliseum, one that simply said: WVU isn’t going anywhere when it comes to contending for a Big 12 championship this season.

“If we play well, it can look like that,” Kellogg said. “If we don’t play well, it won’t. I still want to make more shots. I want us to finish at a little higher clip. But, yeah, we can offensive rebound and we can turn people over. That’s not a surprise to me.

“To do that to Baylor was maybe a little different, but those are things we should be doing night in and night out if we’re at our best.”

Baylor head coach Nicki Collen had no choice but to agree.

“You turn the ball over 30 times and you give up 23 offensive rebounds, you’re not going to win,” she said. “It’s kind of amazing it was as close as it was.”

Outside of the first few minutes of the game, WVU (18-5, 8-3 Big 12) was at its best, as Jordan Harrison and Gia Cooke continued to supply defensive pressure that befuddled Baylor’s backcourt and forced point guard Jana Van Gytenbeek into six turnovers.

“They do such a good job of making you uncomfortable and mixing up when they’re going to trap and when they’re not going to trap,” Collen said. “I thought when we didn’t handle it early, they smelled blood in the water.”

West Virginia’s victory over Baylor (19-4, 8-2) was part of a chaotic Sunday that also saw No. 21 Texas Tech hold off No. 12 TCU, 62-60, meaning both Baylor and TCU remained tied for the top spot in the Big 12, but the Mountaineers and Red Raiders pulled to within a half-game and Oklahoma State is just one game behind in the conference standings.

It’s officially a five-team race and the Mountaineers still have games remaining against TCU and Oklahoma State to make their case.

As for Sunday, WVU ended Baylor’s eight-game winning streak even while shooting just 34.3% (24 of 70) from the field.

Kierra Wheeler was the star with her sixth double-double of the season with 18 points and 15 rebounds. Even though Baylor had the height advantage, Wheeler said she was more determined.

“It was just my will,” she said. “A lot of teams start aggressive on me, but I think it’s hard to keep pushing on a (center) that’s really dominant. We wanted to out-work them. I know they were a good offensive rebounding team. I kind of looked over at coach and he said I needed every rebound. That was motivation for me to just keep going after it.”

Wheeler took care of the inside, while Harrison and Cooke created havoc on the perimeter. Eventually, the Mountaineers’ offense began to click. Sydney Shaw hit three 3-pointers and scored all 10 of her points in the second half.

Harrison also had 18 points to go along with five rebounds and five steals.

WVU opened up a 47-37 lead heading into the fourth quarter and extended to as much as 15 in the final minutes.

Baylor’s leading scorer, Taliah Scott, finished with 18 points, but she was held to just three shots in the first half and nine of her points came from the foul line.

As to making another run in the Big 12, Kellogg and WVU have been in this position before in the month of February, only to have one of the top-ranked teams in the league eventually knocking them out of contention.

On this day, WVU flipped that script against the Bears.

“I thought our kids just kind of bought into the game plan and they did a good job,” Kellogg said. “To force 30 turnovers on Baylor, which I read was maybe the most by them in 25 years, that’s pretty special.”