WACO, Texas — The Baylor Men’s Basketball team (14-13, 4-10 Big 12) shut down the visiting Arizona State Sun Devils’ (14-13, 5-9 Big 12) offense in key moments to finish a second-half comeback for the first time this season, winning 73-68.
Guard Obi Agbim was the steady hand late, knocking down three of his four triples in the last five minutes of the game. The Wyoming transfer finished with a team-high 16 points.
Freshman phenom Tounde Yessoufou also scored 16 for the Bears while Isaac Williams and Cameron Carr similarly reached double-figures with 14 and 13 points respectively.
Recovering from a 40-32 halftime deficit, this was the Bears’ first win this season when trailing at halftime. Baylor had been 0-12 heading into Saturday.
As per usual, the visiting team had a player score at least 20 points, this time being Arizona State Guard Anthony Johnson, who went for exactly 20 points. However, the Baylor defense did a great job shutting down the rest of the Sun Devils in the second half.
ASU scored just 28 points and turned the ball over seven times in the final 20 minutes.
“We didn’t have nearly as many mental mistakes, and we didn’t have nearly as many breakdowns,” said Baylor head coach Scott Drew after the game, “Defensively, we were really good besides fouling them at the end… our defense was tremendous.”
The Bears were far from perfect, shooting just 6-for-13 from the free throw line, losing the turnover battle 13-11, as well as losing the rebounding battle 30-26.
But the Bears worked hard enough defensively and shot the ball at 57 percent from the field to make up more than the difference.
Coach Drew also made sure to praise the crowd both on the court after the final horn and in his press conference, saying, “I don’t think this happens if our crowd doesn’t show up and give us the energy they did.”
As for the flow of this game, things were back and forth early on before being tilted in favor of the visitors just before halftime. ASU went on a 13-3 run to take a 40-30 lead, and the Bears were in danger of letting things get out of hand.
A Cameron Carr jumper just before the halftime horn kept the deficit to single digits and foreshadowed that Baylor was sticking with the fight, something that was sorely lacking in Manhattan the Bears’ last time out.
A 14-4 start to the second half regained the lead for Baylor, and the game settled back into a close, blow-for-blow affair.
The difference in the game was made when Baylor put together an 11-2 stretch to turn a 59-55 deficit into a 66-61 lead thanks to a pair of Agbim threes and buckets from Carr and Yessoufou.
Baylor showed a lot of grit and a lack of quit that is a tribute to Coach Drew and the way he runs his program. With the Bears in danger of their first losing season since 2006-07, Drew’s squad found a way to grab another win and keep some postseason hope alive, no matter how unlikely it may be.
Those postseason odds can be greatly improved by a win over No. 4 Arizona on Tuesday. The Wildcats are coming off a win at No. 2 Houston.
Baylor vs. Arizona is set to tip off at 8 p.m. and will be broadcast on ESPN 2.
