Texas men’s basketball came out with a momentum that has been concealed since the last time it took on Baylor and finished with a buzzer-beater layup. However, this story does not have a happy ending for Texas — instead, it is a repetitive tale of giving up a substantial lead.
Texas crumbled to No. 11 Baylor 93-85 in Waco and once again came out as an inferior team in the second half.
Since the jump, Texas had been a force on both ends of the court. An offensive lead was built within the first minute with junior guard Tyrese Hunter scoring two three-pointers followed by graduate guard Max Abmas with another, all before Baylor could get points on the board.
The Longhorns were not only able to find scoring opportunities through the Bear’s defense, but it looked like they had completely dissected it, which left Baylor having to make multiple adjustments. Abmas, who had one of his best games since the early marks of the season with 33 points, seemed unstoppable in terms of Baylor’s defense. The Bears started to put bigger players on Abmas to prevent his almost faultless three-pointers, but he ultimately found ways around them like drawing them into the basket and passing back to the three-point line for his teammates to convert.
After this game, Abmas has now moved into the eighth spot for DI men’s basketball career-leading scorers with 3,072.
Texas held the lead for over 80% of the game; however, that still wasn’t enough to seal a win and gave Baylor their biggest comeback win of their season.
A few minutes into the second half the Bears had initiated a comeback and with eight minutes left, they had gone on a 14-2 run and tied the score at 68 and lead for the first time one minute later. The Longhorns concise, consistent and clean first half turned to chaos after losing graduate forward Dylan Disu to a knee injury and graduate forward Brock Cunningham after fouling out, receiving a flagrant on his fifth.
Everything seemed to be a complete flip for Texas with their 55.3% shooting from all around the first half tuning into 31.7%, while Baylors went from 55.4% to an impressive 70.2%. At one point in the half Texas was 0-11 attempts from the floor.
Another aspect that ultimately brought Texas to its knees was free throws. The Longhorns gave up 34 points off of fouls alone. In comparison, Texas had 16 points from Baylor fouls.
As the end of the Big-12 road is nearly here for Texas, they must do something substantial in order to have a good standing, or any standing in the NCAA tournament. With that, Texas will take on Oklahoma on Saturday at 1 p.m. at the Moody Center for their final matchup of conference play.
