Baylor beat a top-15 team on Wednesday night, and that’s terrific. The undefeated Bears locked down Mississippi State on the final possession of the game to ice the win, holding the Bulldogs to 41% from the field and they actually won the rebounding battle for a change. For good measure, they even threw down a few electric dunks in the second half to give a partisan crowd in Dallas something to cheer about. But this 54-52 win wasn’t anything for Baylor to brag about. In fact, the play on the court at the American Airlines Center hardly resembled a marquee matchup between two ranked squads. After Brady Heslip and Pierre Jackson combined for five three-pointers in the first half, the Bears failed to make a trey after halftime and finished with almost twice as many turnovers (15) as team assists (8). With scouts from nearly every NBA franchise in the building, star Perry Jones scored just eight points, and Baylor’s big men looked frustrated all night against the beef and length of Arnett Moultrie and Renardo Sidney. Scott Drew‘s halfcourt offense was not pretty in the second half, and that was punctuated by several missed layups, missed free throws and silly turnovers near the end of the game.
You think that’s bad? Mississippi State’s Renardo Sidney committed a technical foul with his team leading by two points in the final minute, and after BU took the lead, the Bulldogs’ final possession consisted of a few passes 30 feet from the basket and a wild, contested mid-range attempt by Rodney Hood to end the game. It was blocked, but you could have guessed that. The Bulldogs scored just 19 points in the second half, one less than Baylor’s 20. Point guard Dee Bost‘s struggles from three-point land continued with a 1-5 effort, and as usual, Sidney dominated when he played but only logged 19 minutes due to foul trouble. Rick Stansbury‘s team shot seven free throws but made just three, and it also finished with just nine team assists.
It was a rough night, but let’s forget all this negativity for a moment. Despite how poorly his team played in the second half, Pierre Jackson still managed to make a play with the ball in his hands by blowing past his defender for the go-ahead layup with less than a minute to play. And even though MSU’s end-of-game strategy was perplexing, credit the Bears for their defensive stand on the final possession. They denied Bost the ball and forced the Bulldogs to panic with the clock winding down, resulting in the block and a two-point victory.
It’s also important to understand that Baylor’s problems on Wednesday night did not seem to stem from the same issues that plagued it last season. In 2010-11, the Bears flopped because they didn’t pass well and lacked steady point guard play. There was no communication in the halfcourt, and Drew never found a way to get everybody on the same page. That’s not exactly what happened against Mississippi State. There was a clear effort to share the ball, but Jones missed shots he usually drains, Baylor’s guards went cold after a hot first half, and Jackson lost his poise near the end of the game. Drew will not be a happy coach in the film room, but it’s not as if his team completely lost composure and began to play selfishly. It just had a tough second half.
The NBA scouts may have walked away unimpressed by Jones and his crew, but it’s only one game. The Bears already own several quality wins, and Jones in particular has played very well since returning from his suspension this year. Scott Drew and his players should just savor the RPI-boosting victory and move on to Big 12 play feeling good about an unbeaten record and a top-10 national ranking.