HOUSTON — The Baylor Men’s Basketball team (15-15, 5-12 Big 12) ran out of steam in an upset bid of the No. 7 Houston Cougars (25-5, 13-4 Big 12), leading for over 30 minutes before falling to the hosts by a score of 77-64.
Tounde Yessoufou registered his first career triple-double with 20 points and a career-high 12 rebounds, but both offensive and defensive execution eluded the freshman and his teammates down the stretch.
The Cougars wore the Bears down and hung close by forcing 18 Baylor turnovers, converting those into 28 points as well as grabbing 12 offensive rebounds and turning those into 19 second-chance points.
Baylor’s back was broken when Houston went on a 20-3 run after the under eight-minute time in the second half. The No. 7 Cougars turned a four-point deficit into a 74-61 lead in a five-minute span.
The Bears will be disappointed that they failed to build and maintain a larger lead through their 30 minutes in the lead. The Green and Gold made 9-2 runs to start both halves and held leads as large as 10 points in the first half and seven points in the second half.
But the turnovers lost and offensive rebounds allowed came home to roost when Baylor’s early hot shooting from three-point land cooled off.
Baylor started 5-6 from downtown before going 3-19 down the stretch, while Houston rebounded from a 38% shooting mark from the field in the first half to shoot 55% in the second half.
The Cougars that shot the best were freshman guard Kingston Flemings with 21 points, redshirt senior guard Emmanuel Sharpe with 19 points on his senior night, and junior forward Joseph Tugler with 14 points.
Three Bears aside from Yessoufou made it to double figures. Caden Powell scored 12 with valiant effort all night. Cameron Carr scored 11 and was largely a non-factor after three first-half three-pointers. And lastly, Obi Agbim scored 11 points on 4-15 shooting, including 3-11 from three.
With this loss, Baylor is guaranteed to have its lowest conference win total since the 2008-09 season, when Scott Drew’s Bears went 5-11 in the Big 12 before making a run to the NIT Championship game.
The Bears play their final regular-season game on Saturday against Utah. Baylor’s senior night matchup with the Utes will tip off from Waco at 4 p.m. and will be available to stream on Peacock.
