Cyclones Stun No. 7 Bears on Senior Day, 73-58

WACO, Texas — The No. 7 Baylor Men’s Basketball team (22-9, 11-7) offered up a lackluster performance against the Iowa State Cyclones (18-12, 9-9) in the regular season finale, losing 73-58.

On Senior Day, Adam Flagler led the Bears with 20 points. LJ Cryer followed him up with 13 and Dale Bonner scored eight. 

Flo Thamba, Jonathan Tchamwa Tchatchoua, Jordan Turner, and Zach Loveday were honored pregame along with Flagler and Bonner as a part of the Senior Day festivities.

Through the game, Flagler was the only Bear with an efficient shooting day, going 7-for-11 while the team as a whole shot 35.8% from the field and 55.6% from the free throw line. Both were good for the 2nd-worst mark of the season. 

It all started with an ugly first half today. There was a lot of physical play being allowed, and the Bears were slow to adapt. 

Baylor shot just 28% from the field, 20% from deep and 50% from the charity stripe in the first period.

The Cyclones caused a lot of that poor shooting with physical defense, and they built a 14-point lead by knocking down two or three buckets at the other end for each score they gave up.

ISU also dominated the glass, snatching up 22 rebounds in the half to Baylor’s 13, though that might be more a product of the green and gold’s shooting woes.

Luckily for the Bears, Dale Bonner brought some grit to the offensive end of the floor late in the half with a pair of tough drives and a triple.

By the halftime horn, the Iowa State lead was 11 points, and the Bears felt like they had plenty of fight in them for the second half.

That fight showed early on with a 10-0 run from the green and gold, narrowing the Cyclone lead to 36-32. 

However, the visitors responded with a knock-out punch in the form of an 11-0 response. 

With the lead back at 15 and about 12 minutes left in the game, the Bears could not muster a response before they had to resort to taking more chances on the defensive end. 

Due to that, the lead ballooned to 20 in the final two minutes before the final horn sounded with 73-58 on the scoreboard.

The Baylor Basketball program will now turn toward the future in many ways. First, to put this loss behind the current team. Second, to prepare for the Big 12 tournament next week in Kansas City. At the time of writing, the Bears have locked up the 4th seed and will play either TCU or Iowa State, depending on the Frogs’ result against Oklahoma.

*The Bears could actually grab the 3rd seed with a Texas Loss and Kansas State win.

During the senior recognition postgame, Adam Flagler and Scott Drew both made sure to note that they are hungry to play better and play through the end of March.

This was surely not the way that Scott Drew wanted to send his seniors out at home or finish Big 12 play in the Ferrell Center with the program on schedule to move to the new Foster Pavilion next Spring.