Bears Bully Their Way Past Pokes on Senior Night, Win 71-61

WACO, Texas — The Baylor Men’s Basketball team (17-12, 9-9 Big 12) overcame a terrible first-half shooting performance with good defense and clutch nights from seniors to top the Oklahoma State Cowboys (14-15, 6-12 Big 12) by a score of 71-61 on Senior Night.

Jeremy Roach scored a season-high 21 points to lead all scorers while Norchad Omier — stop me if this sounds familiar — registered another double-double, this time scoring 10 and rebounding 13 missed shots. Meanwhile, Jayden Nunn earned his 13th double-figure scoring game of the season with 11 points and some gritty defense. 

The biggest contributor of the underclassman was Robert Wright who buoyed the Bears through their dismal first half offensively. The point guard scored 12 of his 16 in the first frame. 

Dismal may not properly cover how poorly the Green and Gold shot during the first 20 minutes of play. Baylor made just 24% of their field goals including a 2-for-17 performance from three. The charity stripe was not much kinder, with the Bears going 8-for-15 before halftime. All of those figures combined for Baylor to score a terrible 0.765 points per possession in the first half.

Luckily for the home team, they found a way to finish that first period on a 9-0 run and take a 26-24 lead into the locker room.

When the break was over, the run largely continued with the Bears going on a 12-0 streak to make the “middle 10 minutes” a 24-5 run (last four minutes of half one and first six minutes of half two). 

Both teams improved offensively after the break, and the Cowboys whittled the Baylor lead down to just four points with just 90 seconds to play. However, with Roach leading the Bears Senior Night was destined to end on a happy note. 

The former Duke Blue Devil efficiently eviscerated the Pokes’ defense making six of his eight shots including three of his four triples. This was Roach’s best showing as a Bear since at least the St. John’s game in November, is not his best in Green and Gold period.

Not to be overshadowed by the old guys and the high-scorers, Marino Dubravcic put together a valuable six minutes of game time for Scott Drew. The freshman forward from Croatia did not score but he finished with a +10 plus/minus. That mark was third-best on the team and showed that he could keep his head above water to help get Omier some rest — a highly valuable skill to such an injury-riddled team.

Baylor now has two days to prepare for the last road trip of the regular season when they head up I-35 to face rivals TCU on Tuesday. That game tips off at 7:00 p.m. and a stream will be available through ESPN+.