Bridges leads No. 14 MBB over No. 18 BYU, 81-72.
Senior forward pours in 25 to lead Bears over Cougars
Every time it appeared as though 18th-ranked BYU might pull away and record this victory, the No. 14 Baylor Bears responded.
“You’ve got to be tough in this league,” said Baylor coach Scott Drew after his team overcame a nine-point deficit in the second half to defeat the visiting Cougars, 81-72, on Tuesday night in front of a sold-out Foster Pavilion. “It takes resilience and toughness to get back up when you’re down. You won’t be winning many games if you don’t.
With 54.0 seconds remaining, Jalen Bridges made two free throws and scored 17 of his season-high 25 points, giving the Bears (13-2, 2-0) some much-needed breathing room.
“Jalen was amazing,” stated Drew. “(Bridges) was out tonight when these men came upon him. He was also very aggressive and did a fantastic job of reaching the free throw line.”
In fact, it turned up to be the game-winning play as Baylor outshot BYU 12-3, 0-2, going 21-of-28 overall and going perfect 4-for-4 on the Cougars’ two technical fouls.
“I tried to take advantage of the fact that they had a bigger player on me,” said Bridges, who shot 8 for 9 from the line and 3 for 6 from three. “When you’ve got guards like (Jayden Nunn), like RayJ (Dennis) that can just find me when I’m open, makes life easy for me.”
With a Trevin Knell 3-pointer at 9:37 in the first half, BYU took advantage of some bad shooting by the Bears to go up 20–13 in a back-and-forth contest that saw 16 lead changes and eight ties. At one point, Baylor was 4-for-18 from the field and had only made one of its first seven attempts.
The Bears regained the lead 24–22 thanks to a three-point play by Bridges and back-to-back treys by sophomore Langston Love and freshman Ja’Kobe Walter. However, Jaxson Robinson’s layup and free throw with 1.1 seconds remaining completed a three-point play that put the Cougars ahead 39-33 and helped them end the half on a 13-3 run.
In the first two and a half minutes of the second half, Knell made two 3-pointers to immediately increase the advantage from six to nine points, giving the Cougars their worst deficit of the game, 45-36.
But Baylor replied again. Love drained one of his three 3-pointers to give the Bears a 46-45 lead after they scored ten straight points. Love came off the bench to score 15 points, going 3-for-4 from beyond the arc and 4-for-4 from the charity stripe.
Bridges stated, “Today we spoke about endurance in our chapel, and I think Langston is the one that most exemplifies that more than Langston Love. Everything he has experienced. He suffered a pec ailment even in the off-season. He seemed to be unable to get a break. just to watch him perform live, hitting shots and setting up huge plays for us. It’s incredible.”
With just under nine minutes remaining, Baylor seized the lead for good on a Nunn layup, giving the Bears a 58-57 advantage after seven lead swaps.
“We were aware that our careless errors were simply defeating us,” said Nunn, who concluded with 11 points, 3 assists, and 3 steals. “We started taking the lead after we had covered them. Actually, defending was only the beginning. Our attack was really built for us by the defense.”
The Bears held the visiting Cougars at bay in the final minutes by going 6-for-6 from the line. In a crucial moment, Love and Bridges each made two clutch free throws after Hall fouled out and the BYU coach was called for a technical foul.
“The first year at this level of competition, there’s going to be a little bit of regression,” Pope Francis stated. “We’re facing top-25 teams for the next eighteen games. Being in our first year of this league allows us to kind of grow into this and find things out, which is one of the nice things about it. And we’ll do so.”
As one of five Baylor players to score in double figures, Bridges received 16 points from rookie Ja’Kobe Walter, 15 points off the bench from Love, and 11 and 10 points from Nunn and Dennis, respectively.
With 15 points apiece, Knell and Spencer Johnson led the Cougars (12-3, 0-2) in the game. Dallin Hall added 13 points before fouling out late in the contest.
This Saturday at 7 p.m. on ESPN, Baylor will play its second straight game at home against Cincinnati (12-3, 1-1). The Bearcats, one of the four newcomers to the Big 12, defeated BYU 71-60 to start their season before falling short by one point against No. 25 Texas 74-73.
With the K-State team headed by Jerome Tang defeating West Virginia 81-67 in Morgantown and the Texas Tech team under Grant McCasland dominating Oklahoma State 90-73, Drew and his coaching family lead the league standings alone at 2-0.