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Baylor downs Texas men's basketball team, hurts Horns' Big 12 title hopes

thomas jones, austin american-statesman
·4 min read
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Texas' Jabari Rice is fouled by Baylor's Jonathan Tchamwa Tchatchoua in the first half of the Bears' 81-72 win Saturday at the Ferrell Center in Waco. The loss was a costly one for the Longhorns, who are trying to keep pace with Kansas atop the Big 12 standings.
Texas' Jabari Rice is fouled by Baylor's Jonathan Tchamwa Tchatchoua in the first half of the Bears' 81-72 win Saturday at the Ferrell Center in Waco. The loss was a costly one for the Longhorns, who are trying to keep pace with Kansas atop the Big 12 standings.

WACO — Texas’ hopes for a regular-season Big 12 title didn’t die on the banks of the Brazos River on Saturday, but they certainly suffered a blow.

Baylor shook off a slow start and stifled an explosive Longhorns offense for much of the game while cruising to an 81-72 win at the Ferrell Center. While the No. 9 Bears strengthened their case for possibly a No. 2 seed in the NCAA Tournament, Texas will try to patch up some areas of concern before Wednesday’s trip to TCU.

Baylor outrebounded Texas 37-25, and the Longhorns turned it over 15 times.

“It was really a lot of self-inflicted situations," interim head coach Rodney Terry said. "We did a good job of rebounding early and taking care of the ball early, but we got away from that."

More:Senior Timmy Allen opens up on the challenges of this season as Texas makes trip to Baylor

The Longhorns’ first regular-season Big 12 title since 2008 remains a possibility, but they’ll need a win on another road trip against another ranked foe. Kansas hosted West Virginia on Saturday afternoon, and a Jayhawks win would give them a one-game lead over Texas in the conference race.

Before Texas (22-7, 11-5) visits TCU on Wednesday, Kansas will host Texas Tech on Tuesday. For the Longhorns’ regular-season finale to have any bearing on the Big 12 title hunt, they eeds a win against TCU or an upset loss by Kansas. Baylor (21-8, 10-6) still has slim hopes of claiming at least a share of the conference crown.

Texas entered the game as the highest-scoring team in the Big 12 at 79.4 points per game, but no Longhorn other than forward Dylan Disu could get into a scoring groove until late in the game against a rabid Baylor defense. The 6-foot-8 Disu dropped in a variety of layups and short jumpers as well as a trio of 3-pointers while scoring 24 points, his highest output since joining the Horns two years ago. The Hendrickson graduate fell just a few points short of his career high of 29 points set in 2021 while playing for Vanderbilt.

“He spent a lot of time this past week getting his shots up, and we’ve asked him to shoot the basket,” Terry said, referring to Disu. “It was good to see the ball go through the net for Dylan.”

Disu didn’t get much help until late in the game, when Baylor held a 63-45 led with just over nine minutes left. No one joined Disu in double figures until Tyrese Hunter nailed a 3-pointer at the seven-minute mark. Hunter ended with 13 points, Timmy Allen scored 12, and Marcus Carr had 11.

More:Bohls, Golden: The Big 12 homestretch is here, but how will the Texas men, women finish?

Texas’ vaunted bench, the most productive in the league, accounted for just five points — all from Jabari Rice — on a combined 1-of-7 shooting and totaled two rebounds.

“We didn’t have it today (from the bench),” Terry said. “They had the effort, but they didn’t have that point production. Today just wasn’t our day.”

Jalen Bridges scored 17 points to lead a Baylor team that shot 50% from the floor despite playing most of the game without freshman phenom Keyonte George, who clocked just six minutes before suffering an apparent ankle injury and missing the rest of the game.

Texas roared out to an 18-4 lead before Baylor’s defense clamped down and helped the Bears claw back into the game. The Longhorns went scoreless for more than seven minutes as Baylor reeled off a 25-5 run. Disu kept the Horns within shouting distance by scoring 14 points on 6-of-11 shooting in the first half.

"We tried as a group to pick up that energy and lock in on defense," Bridges said about the Bears' first-half run. "That changed the game for us."

Take away Disu’s first-half fireworks, and Texas hit just 3 of 17 from the field while falling behind 29-27 at halftime.

More:A nice ring to it: Texas athletics on pace for a Directors' Cup threepeat

Texas will face another dangerous road trip Wednesday, traveling to Fort Worth for a matchup with a TCU squad looking to strengthen its NCAA résumé.  According to ESPN’s Joe Lombardi, No. 24 TCU (19-10, 8-8) entered Saturday's game against Texas Tech as a projected No. 6 seed in the NCAA Tournament. TCU had lost five of six games before facing the Red Raiders, but four of those losses came with star guard Mike Miles sidelined by a hyperextended knee. Miles returned to action last week and scored 24 points in the Horned Frogs’ 83-82 win over Texas Tech on Saturday.

In the first meeting between the teams, Texas overcame an 18-point deficit in the first half to beat TCU 79-75. Timmy Allen scored 15 points for the Longhorns, and Disu had one of his best games in a Texas uniform with 14 points on 7-of-7 shooting.

This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Baylor downs Texas men while damaging Longhorns' Big 12 title hopes