By Jerry Hill
Baylor Bear Insider

​First glance at the box score for Baylor's game Monday night against Oklahoma, you wouldn't think that Makai Mason had a big impact, missing 12 of his 14 shots. 

​But, just the senior point guard's presence on the court was enough for the Bears to close out the game with a 9-2 run over the last 4 ½ minutes and pull out a hard-fought 59-53 victory over the slumping Sooners. 

​"No question, down the stretch, the difference between K-State and today was we win the last five minutes and we lose the last five minutes against K-State," coach Scott Drew said of the Bears (16-8, 7-4) giving up a late lead in Saturday's 70-63 loss to the Wildcats. "The eight assists and just managing the game and the tempo, I thought he did a great job. As a coach, you love tough, hard-nosed guys, but you love guys that don't mind playing when they're not 100 percent, to try to help the team. It says a lot about his character."

​Mason sat out Saturday's game with a bruised toe on his right foot, but returned Monday night to score six points and finish with eight assists and just two turnovers in 35 minutes. 

​"Thirty-five (minutes), that's pretty good," Drew said. "We didn't want to take him out because we didn't want him to get stiff. We knew he would get fatigued, but we thought that would be better than getting stiff. At Texas, that happened."

​Baylor snapped its first two-game losing streak of the year while extending Oklahoma's losing skid to five in a row as the Sooners fell to 15-10 overall and 3-9 in the Big 12. The Bears move into a three-way tie for third place in the conference standings, just a half-game back of Kansas and two back of 18th-ranked Kansas State. 

​"This game is huge. When you lose two in the Big 12, you've got to stop losing streaks right away," Drew said. "The years that we've been good, we haven't had big losing streaks. In 2010, I don't know if we ever lost back-to-back games. Out of all the time to have injuries, this was tough when you have to play Wednesday, Saturday, Monday. But really, credit our guys for persevering."

​Monday night was a battle of survival as both teams shot just 38.9 percent from the field, knocking down 21-of-54, and turned it over 10 times. 

The difference was Baylor's 3-point shooting (10-of-22). Devonte Bandoo drained five 3-pointers and scored a game-high 19 points off the bench, while freshman guard Jared Butler was 3-of-6 from behind the arc and added 11 points, five rebounds and two assists. 

​"I'm used to this role now, coming off the bench and providing a spark," said Bandoo, who was 4-of-5 from outside the arc in the first half and scored 14 of the Bears' 31 points. "When I see something, I try to see how a team is playing and shoot the ball quickly. Makai and everybody did a good job of finding me."

​Tied at 31-31 at the break, Baylor seemed to take control midway through the second half and went up 48-37 on a Butler layup with 10:49 left in the game. But, the Sooners responded with a 10-0 run and pulled within one on a pair of free throws by Christian James. 

​Kristian Doolittle hit a bucket that gave OU its first lead of the second half, 51-50, with 4:59 to go in the game. But, Bandoo nailed a trey from the corner that started Baylor's closing run and gave the Bears the lead for good. 

​Oklahoma had a chance to regain the lead when Mario Kegler was called for a flagrant foul, but James missed both free throws and Doolittle turned it over. 

​"We had opportunities there, we just didn't convert," OU coach Lon Kruger said. "Down by two, we get a flagrant foul and get nothing out of that. Then we have a couple drives, get nothing out of those. We have to take better care of the ball. Overall, we took really good care of the ball, but there were three or four times in the last four, five minutes where we turned it over and it was costly."

​Doolittle answered a pair of Vital free throws with a floater in the lane to pull the Sooners back within two, 55-53. 

​But, in the final 66 seconds, Freddie Gillespie came up with two big offensive boards that proved to be the difference. He grabbed the first one after Mason missed a drive to the basket and was tied up, but Baylor had the possession arrow in its favor. 

​And then, after another Mason miss, Gillespie came down with it and went back up for his only two points of the game to give the Bears the four-point cushion. 

​"I kind of looked left and looked right, and there was no one there," Gillespie said. "I was trying to kick it out, and then I heard Mario and Mark scream, 'Freddie, go up!' And I was like, 'Oh, OK,' so I went up and scored it. . . . I was thinking fresh clock, pass it out. But, those two were not having it, they were very adamant about me getting the two points."

​Mason then iced it with a pair of free throws with 12.8 seconds left. After scoring in double digits in 17 of his first 18 games at Baylor, he's scored just 11 points combined in the last two. 

​"Him just being on the court provides a big presence with his leadership," Bandoo said. "He's played in college for five years, so he knows the ins and outs. The other team knows he's such a dangerous threat out there, it does help. Teams really have to located him. He can attack the basket, and he's good at passing. They have to pay attention to him. When we don't have him, it's tough."

​Baylor goes back on the road for its next two, facing 15th-ranked Texas Tech (19-5, 7-4) at 1 p.m. Saturday in Lubbock and then No. 23 Iowa State (18-6, 7-4) at 8 p.m. next Tuesday in Ames.