No. 8 Texas traveled to Waco to take on No. 9 Baylor in a top 10 Big 12 showdown on Saturday afternoon. The Longhorns are vying for their first Big 12 regular season championship since the 2007-08 season but face a tall task in the final three regular season matchups, starting with the Bears.

“(Baylor’s) as good a team as you’re going to play in the country,” interim head coach Rodney Terry said before the game.

Although the Bears dropped their last two games, they still feature some players from their 2021 national championship team: redshirt senior guard Adam Flagler, redshirt senior forward Jonathan Tchamwa Tchatchoua and fifth year forward Flo Thamba.

Texas has its fair share of experienced players too. Senior forwards Dylan Disu and Timmy Allen scored the Longhorns’ first 10 points, six of which came from 3-point shots from Disu. Texas was out to an early 10-4 lead.

“I thought we got off to a great start,” Terry said. “We started turning the ball over a little bit, and it kind of changed the whole momentum of the game.”

The crowd had seemingly been cut out of the game until freshman guard Keyonte George from Baylor went down with an injury. The sold-out Ferrell Center crowd could sense the Bears needed them. From the moment George left the game, Baylor rallied and outscored Texas 25-11 to close out the first half.

“I thought (the crowd) was outstanding,” Baylor head coach Scott Drew said after the game. “Especially when we started off so poor.”

Baylor’s leading scorer by the end of the game, junior forward Jalen Bridges, also noticed the crowd’s impact on the game.

“It’s unlimited energy,” Bridges said. “It was electric here.” 

The Longhorns’ early lead quickly evaporated, and they found themselves trailing 29-27 at the break.

Momentum carried into the second half for the Bears. They extended their lead to double-digits 60-43 with 10:55 left to play. Texas couldn’t get a stop on the defensive end, and Baylor made 11 of its last 13 shots.

Although the scoring onslaught eventually slowed down, the damage had already been done. The Longhorns were unable to climb back into the game as the Bears finished business in front of a rowdy home crowd, ending with a final score of 81-72.

Disu was one bright spot for the Longhorns. The forward from Pflugerville, Texas registered a season-high in points with 24. Disu and Allen were the only players for Texas that shot over 50% on the afternoon.

Sophomore guard Tyrese Hunter also had a productive day, scoring 13 points of his own. Apart from Disu, Hunter and Allen though, there wasn’t much to cheer for. With this loss, Kansas controls its own destiny in terms of winning a share of the Big 12 regular season championship even if the Longhorns were to beat the Jayhawks in their final home game of the season.

“We definitely wanted to win this game, but we’re just trying to get better with every game and get stronger as we go into March,” Disu said after the game. “We can’t dwell on this one as we talk about a lot. We got to take what we learned from this one and apply it in our next game.”

Texas’ next chance to do just that comes against No. 24 TCU on Wednesday in its last true road game of the season.