Baylor Men's Basketball to Face Connecticut in Big 12-Big East Battle
WACO, Texas – Baylor men's basketball will headline the 2024 Big 12-Big East Battle when the Bears travel to take on the two-time defending champion UCONN Huskies on Wednesday, Dec. 4, the Big 12 announced Thursday.
Game times and network assignments will be announced at a later date. The meeting will mark the first between these two programs since 1965, a 96-88 UCONN win in Waco.
The Huskies are coming off a second-straight national championship, while the Bears are coming off a fifth-straight NCAA Tournament appearance. BU is the only team in the nation to be a No. 3 seed or higher in the last four NCAA tournaments, and one of just four teams in the nation to win at least one game in each of the last five tournaments. The Bears are 2-3 against defending national champions under Scott Drew.
After a win over the eventual NIT Champion Seton Hall Pirates in the 2023 Big East-Big 12 Battle, Baylor will enter the 2024 cross-conference showdown with a 14-3 record against Big East teams under Drew.
BU is looking for its first win over a Big East team on the road in the Drew era, currently sitting at 0-2. It boasts a perfect 6-0 mark at home and an 8-1 record at neutral sites against the conference. A win over the Huskies would give the Bears a win over nine of the 11 Big East squads, already with victories against Xavier (3-1), Creighton (2-1), Providence (2-0), Villanova (3-0), St. John's (1-0), Georgetown (1-0), Butler (1-0) and Seton Hall (1-0).
BU won its inaugural Big East-Big 12 Battle matchup when the No. 11-ranked Bears hosted No. 19 Butler at the Ferrell Center on Dec. 10, 2019. Baylor led the game wire-to-wire, and Mark Vital had a block in the final seconds to seal a 53-52 victory.
Baylor is 14-4 all-time in conference challenges, the best record of any Big 12 team. The Bears hold the best record of any team at 8-2 in the Big 12/SEC Challenge, a 3-1 mark in the Big 12/Pac-10 Hardwood Series and a 3-1 record in the Big East-Big 12 Battle.