Box Score By Jerry Hill
Baylor Bear Foundation
Al Freeman spent countless hours in the gym this summer, putting up one shot after another and working on the "little things."
That extra work has obviously paid off.
The Baylor sophomore guard recorded his second straight 20-point game, hitting 7-of-11 overall and 4-of-7 from 3-point range, in lifting the 20th-ranked Bears to a 77-60 win over the visiting Jackson State Tigers Friday night at the Ferrell Center.
"Whenever you spend that much time and effort working on your game, you're going to improve and get better," Baylor coach Scott Drew said of Freeman, who's averaging 17.7 points and shooting 63.3 percent after averaging just 4.8 as a redshirt freshman. "You can't put a ceiling on people like that. What's really been impressive with Al is his efficiency. He did it on both ends of the court."
With Jackson State (1-2) hitting its first six shots from the floor, the Bears (2-1) fell behind 12-2 in the first 3 ½ minutes before getting a lift from sophomores Johnathan Motley and Terry Maston.
The 6-7 Maston gave Baylor a much-needed inside presence, scoring six quick points in a 10-0 run, with Freeman nailing a 3-pointer off a dish from Lester Medford that tied it at 14-14.
"I was seeing where Rico was open and they weren't getting him the ball," said Maston, who had his first double-double with a career-high 11 points and 10 boards. "So I told them, `Hey, look for me here. When the zone shifts and we get ball reversals, just look for me.' They were throwing it in, and I was capitalizing off of it."
The game of runs continued as the Tigers scored the next eight points and went up 22-14 on a 3-pointer by Paris Collins, a San Antonio, Texas, native who played with Baylor senior Taurean Prince at Earl Warren High School.
After that, Baylor's defense kicked in, holding Jackson State scoreless for more than 10 minutes as the Tigers missed 13 straight shots.
"Defense is all about heart and effort, and I definitely think we turned up our energy on the defensive end," Freeman said. "We respected them, but I don't think we realized they could shoot the ball as well as they could. They came out with a lot of confidence, a lot of energy. And when you get guys that are playing hard and have confidence at the same time, they can do some dangerous stuff."
The Bears gained the lead for good on an offensive board and put back by Rico Gathers, who had his 25th career double-double with 12 points and a season-high 16 rebounds. Gathers finished off a 13-0 run with a free throw that stretched the lead to 27-22 before Collins knocked down a jumper to end the drought.
Up by five at the break, Baylor took a double-digit lead, 48-37, on a King McClure 3-pointer with 11:56 left. The freshman guard was 3-of-5 from outside the arc and was one of five double-figure scorers, pumping in a season and career high-tying 11 points.
"I tell him when he gets in the game, `If you get half of a wide-open look, let that thing go,''' Freeman said of McClure. "When he's in that corner and you kick it to him, that's a bucket and an assist in our column. You have to guard him, because he can knock down three or four in a row. And once he sees his first one go in, he can really get going."
The Bears went up by as many as 21 (65-44) before another 10-point run by the Tigers that cut the deficit to 65-54 with 3:06 left on a Yettra Specks trey.
Prince finished with 13 points, five rebounds and three steals, but was 0-for-2 from 3-point range and had five of the Bears' 18 turnovers.
"Early on, T.P. had a couple of 3's he could have taken and ended up taking tougher shots," Drew said. "Sometimes, you overanalyze, but there's that happy medium. Again, it's just getting used to playing. Ironically, we faced a lot of zone the last two games and normally we're pretty good against zones."
Baylor continues its six-game home stand with a matchup against Savannah State (3-0) at 7 p.m. Monday that will be televised by FOX Sports Southwest.
