Bears Fall Late and in Brutal Fashion to the Frogs, 88-87

WACO, Texas — The No. 19 Baylor Men’s Basketball team (10-4, 0-2) let a late lead slip away to the visiting No. 17 TCU Horned Frogs (13-1, 2-0), losing their second straight Big 12 game 88-87 Wednesday night.

Keyonte George’s 27 points were not enough to overcome a career-high 33-point effort by Mike Miles and the Frogs despite the Bears holding a 17-point lead at one point in the first half. 

The Bears also held a five-point lead with just under two minutes left, but a Miles three, a Miles dish to Chuck O’Bannon for the go-ahead bucket, and a Xavier Clark block saw the Frogs escape Waco with a win.

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The game-clinching block by Xavier Cork

After the game, Baylor head coach Scott Drew was very frank about the shortcomings of his team tonight.

“Our transition defense was atrocious. That was the game for us. I thought we did a good job on the glass… I thought offensively 16 assists is good. But at the end of the day, we can’t have 15 turnovers... and then we can’t give up 23-to-2 fast break points.”

The desire to win and improve looked to be present in the Bears on the court today, especially during their scorching first half. Keyonte had 16 of his 27 and the Bears shot 61.5% from the field and 9-for-13 from deep. 

However, they had no answer for Mike Miles gunning down the lane in transition or breaking the Baylor press.

TCU center Eddie Lampkin also caused defensive problems for the green and gold grabbing four offensive boards on the way to his 15-point final statline.

“We do the drills every single day,” BU guard LJ Cryer said in the postgame press conference, “I don’t know why it’s not translating right now. I guess we’ve got to do a little more.”

On the other end of the court, things cooled off greatly in the second half for Baylor. They shot just 28.6% after the break. 

“Offensively we don’t get as much at the rim as we used to,” said coach Drew, “so we’ve got to get some transition buckets or get some easies. When you’re shooting jump shots you can go on draughts.”

A good example of that would be Cryer and Adam Flagler, who both scored 13 points tonight, but shot just 3-for-13 combined in the second half.

Drew also spoke on the performance of the younger players on the roster, like Josh Ojianwuna and Langston love who had 11 and 10 points respectively. 

“Right now we’re playing more freshman in than anyone in the league [by] minutes, so they’re going to get better the more they get used to the competition.”

The Bears will look for the whole roster to improve over the next few days and weeks as they dive deeper into conference play. 

Still, the focus will be on what is directly in front of them. And after this tough loss, that is former Baylor Associate Head Coach Jerome Tang’s Kansas State Wildcat team. 

The Cats are 2-0 in the Big 12 and coming off of a huge win Tuesday night in Austin. Baylor vs KSU will tip-off from the Ferrell Center at 5 PM on Saturday (ESPN+).