Box Score By Jerry Hill
Baylor Bear Foundation
STILLWATER, Okla. - Baylor's first three road trips this season didn't end well, including a 28-point loss at Kansas.
But the 17th-ranked Bears seem to be getting the hang of life on the road.
After coming out flat and falling behind by 12 in the first half, Baylor took it to Oklahoma State on both ends at the start of the second half and escaped with a 69-65 victory Wednesday night before a sparse crowd at Gallagher-Iba Arena on the 15th anniversary of the plane crash that killed 10 members of the OSU family.
"We knew we weren't playing our best basketball," said 6-8 senior forward Rico Gathers, who scored 14 of his 16 points in the second half. "We just knew we had to come out strong. And that was the first thing we did, just getting the ball inside. I think I scored three buckets back-to-back, and we just went to work from there."
Bouncing back from a frustrating loss at home to top-ranked Oklahoma, the Bears improved to 16-4 and tied with OU and West Virginia at the top of the Big 12 standings at 6-2 by finishing off a season sweep of the Cowboys (10-10, 2-6).
"Nothing is easy in the Big 12," said senior forward Taurean Prince, who finished with 17 points and six rebounds. "I don't know how much we can stress that. You can tell from every game, not just us. Anybody could lose on any night. If you don't come to play, if you don't execute your game plan, you could take an `L' that night."
Trailing 32-27 at the break, the Bears went inside for three straight Gathers layups to pull within one and forced six turnovers in the first 6 ½ minutes to take their first lead since the early minutes of the game.
Ishmail Wainright hit a pair of free throws to put Baylor on top and Lester Medford drained a 3-pointer that made it 40-36, forcing OSU coach Travis Ford to call a timeout with 12:26 left in the game.
"I don't know if (Gathers) asserted himself more or anything, or what happened, but we obviously didn't defend very well. I'm not really happy about that," Ford said. "That's not the start we were looking for, at all."
After shooting 54 percent and turning it over just six times in the first half, the Cowboys missed seven of their first nine shots in the second half and had already doubled their first-half turnover total by the 13:30 mark.
"We got in a hole early in the game because we didn't come out as aggressive as we needed to be," said Baylor coach Scott Drew. "(In the second half), I thought everybody came out, you got a couple deflections and a couple steals, and it fed off itself. Rico got us going inside, and I thought his teammates did a good job finding him and setting screens to get him open."
Baylor went up by as many as six, 55-49, when Medford hit a free throw with 6:37 to play. But the Cowboys didn't go away, taking the lead back on a Joe Burton 3-pointer.
That's when the defense kicked in again, forcing back-to-back turnovers when the Bears were clinging to a one-point lead. After a steal by Al Freeman, Prince fed Wainright for a jump hook with 32.2 seconds left that gave Baylor a three-point cushion.
"I felt like I was going to take the shot," Prince said. "But when I saw Ish duck in, I gave it to him. And he makes hooks in practice, so I knew it was going in. It was a big shot by Ishmail."
OSU pulled back within one on a quick layup by Chris Olivier, who led the Cowboys with 17 points. But Prince calmly sank two free throws, and then Gathers made one to ice it after freshman point guard Jawun Evans missed a driving layup.
"Upperclassmen like Lester, Rico, TP, they've been in the grind, they've been in the war," Drew said. "And their desire to win, their desire to stay poised and not get rattled and be determined, that was the difference."
The Bears struggled to get anything going early and fell behind by double digits in the first 6 ½ minutes when Jeffrey Carroll hit a floater in the lane to put the Cowboys up 17-7. OSU stretched it to as many as 12, taking a 25-13 lead on a Mitchell Solomon baseline jumper with 7: 10 left in the half.
Hitting seven of nine free throws in the last 6 ½ minutes, Baylor clawed its way back in and trailed by just five at the break, 32-27.
"(The upperclassmen) did a good job of reiterating that we needed to get stops," Prince said. "Once we got stops, we got easies on the other end and got it inside. I just think when you know you can come back in those situations and you don't lose faith and you continue to believe in what you do, then anything is possible."
Medford added 12 points for the Bears, who finished with a slight 31-26 edge on the boards after a 44-18 difference on the glass in a 79-62 win in the first meeting. Leyton Hammonds had 10 of his 12 points in the first half for OSU, while Evans had nine points and a career-high 10 assists.
Baylor returns home for back-to-back games at the Ferrell Center, playing Georgia (11-7) in the Big 12/SEC Challenge at 5 p.m. Saturday and then Texas (13-7, 5-3) at 8 p.m. Monday in an ESPN "Big Monday" matchup.
