No. 21 Bears Even Conference Record, Top Raiders 81-74 in Lubbock

LUBBOCK, Texas — The Baylor Men’s Basketball Team (13-5, 3-3) went into one of the toughest road environments in the Big 12 and decisively handled the Texas Tech Red Raiders 81-74.

Keyonte George scored 27 points, including 18 in the second half, to lead Baylor to its third straight conference win. 

LJ Cryer and Jalen Bridges had outstanding first halves, each scoring 14 points on their way to 18 and 14 respectively on the night.

Just days after shooting the lights out in Waco, the Bears continued their shot-making streak on the road, even sharing some of the magic with the hosts for the first half.

Baylor scored 48 points in the first frame on 7-for15 from deep and 51% shooting from the floor. Not to be outdone, Texas Tech hit 58% of their shots and matched the BU 7-for-15 from three figure, yet they only scored 40.

The difference for Baylor came on the offensive glass and forcing turnovers. The green and gold tallied seven offensive rebounds and converted that into 10 second-chance points. The five steals the Bears tallied paired very nicely with that to build 10-point leads twice in the half. 

A key catalyst of the half for Baylor was Jalen Bridges. He grabbed a pair of offensive boards and a steal to go along with his 14 first-half points on 6-for-7 shooting.

This version of Bridges is exactly what Baylor hoped for on the offensive end when they brought the transfer in this past offseason.

By halftime, the Raiders narrowed the gap by a bucket to make it 48-40, but it felt clear that at least one team would fall off the hot-shooting pace in the second period.

It seemed that Tech would be the team that fell off as Baylor grew their lead to 16 points with just under 11 minutes to go after being up 48-45 just a minute into the half.

However, Texas Tech would make a late push, drawing as close as 79-74 with just under one minute left. 

George would step up and hit a pair of free throws to ice the game and get the Bears’ conference record back to .500.

Key stats for the Bears include just three total turnovers, 12 offensive rebounds, 16 second-chance points and 26 points in the paint.

Up next is another road trip, this time to Norman, Oklahoma on Saturday for a 3 PM tip-off against the Sooners (ESPN 2) who are 2-3 in conference as of the writing of this article.