staff report
LUBBOCK — Saturday's final regular season game meant nothing when it came to seeding.
Someone forgot to tell the Red Raiders and Bears that.
Baylor and Texas Tech battled to the brink, putting up the kind of battle you'd expect from a rivalry that dates back to the old Southwest Conference days. The 11th-place Bears rallied from a 16-point deficit in the second half to take the lead, but the Red Raiders fought back with a ferocious finishing run and won 78-68 in front of a crowd of 14,432 at United Supermarket Arena. did.
“Well, the Big 12 season is over. We never disappoint. … I thought we did a great job coming back,” Baylor coach Scott Drew said. “I really give Texas Tech credit for some big successes. There were some defensive breakdowns and mistakes, and that's on us. But (Tech coach Grant McCasland's) actions and plays were They caused a lot of that. It's not an easy defeat by any means, but they deserve a lot of credit.”
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Baylor finished the regular season with a record of 22-9 overall and 11-7 in Big 12 play. The Bears will be the No. 3 seed in next week's Big 12 Tournament and will have a double-bye with an opponent to be determined starting March 14 at 8:30 p.m.
With No. 1 ranked and Big 12 champion Houston eliminated at Kansas State earlier in the day, the Bears and Jayhawks enter Saturday's game knowing where they will fit into next week's Big 12 Tournament in Kansas City. is. Baylor is locked in as the No. 3 seed on Saturday, and Tech will finish as the No. 4 seed, win or lose.
But who doesn't like winning? Tech (22-9, 11-7) wasn't going to end the season as an underdog on its home court, as the Red Raiders opened the game with a 16-2 run.
Baylor made the first shot of the game on a Ja Kobe Walter jumper, but missed its next five shots and committed three turnovers as Tech ran away with 16 straight.
Pop Isaacs scored 15 points in the first half, giving the Red Raiders a 40-27 lead at intermission. Isaacs doubled Baylor's 3-point volume in the first half, hitting two from the deep side while the Bears hit just 1-of-8 as a team from behind the arc.
Baylor also didn't give up any second chances in the first half and had zero offensive rebounds.
“We pride ourselves on getting offensive rebounds,” Drew said. “I really give Tech credit for doing a great job blocking out. Again, we weren’t ready to fight hard enough to get rebounds in the first half. I thought we were more of ourselves in the second half. There's a reason we're a top 25 rebounding team. I don't know the last time we had zero offensive rebounds in the first half. I don't know if that's ever happened. No. So trust in technology.”
Baylor narrowed the lead early in the second half with several Tech turnovers, but the Red Raiders answered and extended the lead to 16 points.
However, the Bears finally started attacking the basket, both when they had the ball in their hands and when the ball bounced through the air on rebounds. Baylor had seven offensive boards in the second half.
“I thought Ray J (Dennis) did a great job getting into the paint,” Baylor guard Jacoby Walter said. “I think you saw them starting to help us when we got to the paint. We had 3-point shots and now we had a chance to hit them. We couldn't get them out in the first half. Maybe that's why we I think it's an adjustment that's been made. On the offensive end, we're moving the ball a lot more. But RayJ, when he got close to the paint, they were crashing, and that's when he kicked it out. We had chances and the shots just started falling.”
In fact, Walter's corner 3 set up by a kickout pass from Dennis gave Baylor a 54-53 lead, the Bears' first lead since 2-0.
But Tech caught fire and hit the next three 3-pointers to ignite a 14-2 run and hit shots right away to build a comfortable advantage.
“Pop (Isaacs) made a big 3 and got us back in the lead,” Drew said. “Again, I thought Mack did a good job of calling some good plays, they had some good looks. They made it and then some We made it hard. And when you start running, you get the crowd excited. It's hard, especially when you unleash that energy to come back. But again, Tech is better than us from the tip. It was also tough.”
Late in the game, Baylor was forced into a foul game. The Red Raiders led the conference in free throw shooting as a team entering the game at just under 78%, so this is almost always a losing proposition when playing at Tech. In this game, the Red Raiders made 17 of 24 shots (70.8%), advancing to the finals for the seventh time in a row.
Isaacs led all scorers with 20 points, and Darrion Williams also doubled his joy with 16 points and 11 rebounds.
At Baylor, Walter had 15 points and two steals. Jayden Nunn had 14 points and Dennis had 12 points and five assists. Despite scoring a career-high 32 points in the last game, Jalen Bridges was held to just five points on 2-of-6 shooting.
In a positive move for Baylor, Langston Love returned from an ankle injury, coming off the bench and contributing nine points on 4-of-7 shooting in 22 minutes. He beat Baylor in plus-minus at plus-11.
“When you first lose someone, it's an adjustment, and then when they come back, it's an adjustment,” Drew said. “It’s good to have Langston back because we need to start finding our rhythm and rotation.”
With the loss to Texas Tech, Baylor split with all five of the Big 12 teams it played twice: the Red Raiders, Texas, BYU, Kansas, and TCU.
