Box Score By Jerry Hill
Baylor Bear Foundation
After clawing back from an eight-point deficit to tie it three times, the 15th-ranked Baylor Bears couldn't ever get over the hump and couldn't get the shots to fall down the stretch in Monday's showdown between two of the Big 12's hottest teams.
Connor Lammert provided the dagger on a 3-pointer with 43.7 seconds left as the Texas Longhorns beat their fourth top-25 team this season and silenced the Ferrell Center crowd of 6,064 with a 67-59 win on the Bears' home court.
Texas (15-7, 6-3) snapped Baylor's 27-game home-court winning streak against unranked opponents and won for the sixth time in their last seven games, while the Bears (17-5, 6-3) dropped out of a first-place tie atop the Big 12 standings.
"They've got a lot of veteran seniors," Baylor coach Scott Drew said. "Those guys have been around the block. It's not like they're young pups that haven't played minutes and don't have experience. It's not like they weren't highly touted recruits. They're a good team. And Coach (Shaka) Smart has done a great job after the adjustment when Cameron (Ridley) went out. They're playing much better now than they were in the beginning of conference."
Despite the inside presence of 6-10 shot-blocker Prince Ibeh, the Bears won the battle of the boards, 34-30, and finished with a 14-5 edge in second-chance points. But the Longhorns had 21 assists on 21 field goals, scored 18 points off Baylor's 11 turnovers and held the Bears to just 35 percent shooting from the field.
"We told our guys that we're going to have to stand up to them," Smart said, "because Baylor is a tough, physical team, they're a terrific offensive rebounding team. I don't think we're the nastiest team out there yet, but we certainly made progress."
Things got chippy early in the second half when Baylor senior forward Rico Gathers fouled Ibeh and then got into a "dust-up" with UT point guard Isaiah Taylor, with both players hit with technical fouls and their third overall. Gathers picked up his fourth with about 10 minutes to go and then fouled out with 1:27 left when he tried to stop an alley-oop pass to Kerwin Roach.
"No question, (the foul trouble) had an effect," said Drew, who also had 6-9 senior Johnathan Motley foul out with 6:20 left. "We've got to do a better job of getting in position early and not get in foul trouble. We've got to do a better job of having guys get their hands up and get into better space. We've got a long way to go to get better."
Hitting 54.5 percent in the first half, Texas took its biggest lead of the night, 32-24, on a pair of Kendal Yancy free throws and went into the locker room up by six after an Eric Davis 3-pointer.
But Taurean Prince hit two free throws and drained back-to-back 3-pointers to tie it up, 37-37, five minutes into the second half, the second one coming after the double-technical fouls.
Lester Medford tied it up again on a three-point play with a layup and follow free throw, but Taylor and Shaquille Cleare had back-to-back buckets to give the Longhorns the lead for good, 47-43.
Trailing by two, Baylor had a chance to tie or take the lead, but Motley missed three of four free throws and the Bears were never able to catch them again.
The real back-breaker came on Lammert's end-of-the-shot-clock trey with 43.7 seconds left, giving the Longhorns a six-point lead. Medford answered with a trey on the other end five seconds later, but the Bears missed their last six shots, including a pair of point-blank shots by freshman King McClure in the final seconds.
"It was a matter of our wings being too low," Prince said of Lammert hitting 3-of-4 from outside the arc. "They kept throwing those (alley-oops) and getting the ball inside, and they attracted our attention. They did what they were supposed to do. They got it down low. And once we started packing it down, they started hitting outside."
Gathers finished with 20 points and eight rebounds, with Prince adding 18 points and seven boards and Medford just missing a double-double with 10 points and eight assists. Taylor had 12 points, nine assists and only two turnovers, while Lammert had 15 points and five boards.
"You had the two hottest teams in conference playing, in my opinion," Drew said, "and unfortunately it wasn't a good ending for us."
Baylor is on the road for its next two games, facing No. 12/14 West Virginia at 7 p.m. Saturday and Kansas State next Wednesday, Feb. 10.
