Baylor Beats Texas

By Steve Habel, The Sports Xchange

AUSTIN, Texas — No. 11 Baylor didn’t play anywhere near its best basketball on Saturday, but the game it did bring was plenty to beat hapless Texas 75-64 at the Frank Erwin Center in the both teams’ regular-season finale.
Naismith Men’s College Player of the Year finalist Johnathan Motley led Baylor with 17 points and grabbed 17 rebounds despite seeing limited action because of foul trouble.
All eight players who saw the court scored at least three points for the Bears, who were without injured point guard Manu Lecomte key reserve Tyson Jolly because of a one-game suspension.
The win granted Baylor (25-6, 12-6 Big 12) the third seed in the conference postseason tournament, where they will play Kansas State, the sixth-seeded team, in the quarterfinals on Thursday in Kansas City.
Texas used a 12-2 run during a nearly three-minute stretch in the end to get to within 69-62 on an Andrew Jones 3-pointer with 1:12 to play, but Baylor did enough in the final minute to put away the game.
“We didn’t really make shots but winning like we did today shows the resilience of this team,” Motley said. “We are in a good place heading into the Big 12 tournament. We found a way to get through it today — it was a good win because of contributions from a lot of players.”
Jake Lindsey added 16 points for Baylor and King McClure hit for 12 for the Bears.
“I’m proud of our guys’ effort and intensity,” Baylor coach Scott Drew said. “The strength of our team is its leadership and chemistry, but you never know who’s going to step up and take the reins and make the plays we need to win. That’s a great thing about our guys — we have a lot of different players who can make the difference for us.”
Texas, which ended the regular season with seven consecutive losses, fell to the 10th and final seed in the 10-team conference and will battle Texas Tech, the seventh seed, in the tournament’s first round on Wednesday.
Texas was led by Jarrett Allen’s 20 points and nine rebounds. Shaquille Cleare and Jones added 14 and 12 points, respectively.
The Longhorns (10-21, 4-14) have lost 21 games for just the third time in the 111-year history of the program and for the first time since 1983-84.
“Being 10-21 at the end of the regular season is highly disappointing and no one’s more disappointed than me,” Texas coach Shaka Smart said. “We just didn’t do enough and Baylor made some really good plays. At the end of the season, we had some accumulated fatigue, but I’ve been telling the guys for a while now that you have to fight human nature.”
Despite its record, Texas heads to Kansas City looking to make some magic happen. It hasn’t won a game away from home all season and will need to win four in four days to earn an NCAA bid — the unlikeliest of scenarios.
“You have to give blows and you have to be able to take them,” Cleare said. “It’s been a struggle, but sometimes you have to embrace that struggle and learn and grow. We are not going to change our mindset — we have to believe.”
The Longhorns scored the first six points of the second half to get within 40-35, but the Bears withstood the rally and build the lead back to 10 points via two baskets and a free throw by Motley. Baylor led by as many as 17 points with 5:34 left.
“We feel confident going into the tournament because of the schedule we’ve played and the way we’ve gotten better as the season has gone on,” Drew said. “But we are not just going to the Kansas City looking for any kind of specific seed in the NCAAs — our goal is to win the Big 12 tournament.

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