By Jerry Hill
Baylor Bear Insider
            Struggling to put away last-place West Virginia all day and trailing by four with less than three minutes to go, the Baylor Bears reeled off 10 unanswered points and closed the game on a 16-5 run to defeat the Mountaineers, 82-75, Saturday afternoon at the Ferrell Center. 
            Sophomore forward Mario Kegler recorded his first double-double with a career-high 23 points and 10 rebounds and hit a 3-pointer with 2:23 left that gave the Bears (18-9, 9-5) the lead for good. 
            "We got a rebound, and I just took off running," Kegler said. "I looked back, and I was open and Makai (Mason) was pushing it. I had a good shot and I just took it. I spend so much time working on the corner 3. Out there, I just try to show it."
            Coupled with 19^th-ranked Iowa State's 75-72 loss on the road at TCU, Baylor moves into a tie for third in the Big 12 race with the loser of the Kansas-Texas Tech game and remains just two back of league-leading Kansas State. 
            "You've really got to credit Coach (Bob) Huggins with being shorthanded and having a couple new guys, or guys that haven't played much, play major minutes today," Baylor coach Scott Drew said. "They had a great game plan, they all made plays and made shots, and you're thinking, 'Man, is this their day?' Credit our guys for continually fighting and hanging there, and then finally in the last five minutes we were able to get a couple stops."
            In a game that was tied nine times and featured 12 lead changes and 69 combined free throws, a shorthanded West Virginia team (10-17, 2-12) didn't just hang with the Bears. The Mountaineers held the lead for all but 10 ½ minutes and never trailed by more than a single point until the last two minutes. 
            "It's hard when you have guys and then you don't have guys," said Huggins, whose team has lost six in a row and nine of its last 10. "We're playing a lot of young guys, new guys. These guys have been through a lot, and I think we can get this thing turned and win some games the rest of the year."
            West Virginia came out firing, jumping out to a 9-2 lead in the first four minutes when Lamont West drained a 3-pointer after a steal and slam dunk by Emmitt Matthews Jr. 
            With West and Jermaine Haley scoring 10 points apiece in the first half, the Mountaineers took a 40-37 lead into the locker room. Kegler, who missed just one of his seven shots from the floor, had 10 of his game-high 23 points in the first half. 
            "The teams that have gotten separation from them have turned them over, gotten the lead and then sped them up," Drew said. "Unfortunately for us, we never could get a lead, so they never had to speed up. Now, it puts pressure on the home team."
            Trailing by seven about eight minutes into the second half, the Bears went on an 11-3 run that included 3-pointers by Jared Butler, Devonte Bandoo and Matthew Mayer to go up 58-57. 
            Over the next five minutes, the lead changed hands seven times before Kegler's big 3-pointer from the corner put the Bears on top, 71-70.
            "I feel like we have enough guys on this team that can switch it up and play the way anybody wants to play in the country," said Kegler, who was forced to play more inside with both Flo Thamba and Freddie Gillespie in foul trouble. "We slowed the game the way we wanted and took good shots."
            Despite the foul trouble by Thamba and Gillespie, who combined for just three points and two rebounds in 23 minutes, Baylor still finished with a 37-33 edge on the boards and scored more second-chance points than the Mountaineers, 19-15. 
            A lot of that can be attributed to 6-5 sophomore forward Mark Vital, who recorded his second career double-double with 14 rebounds and a career-high 15 points. He also blocked two shots, including a monster swat of a Trey Doomes shot with 18 seconds left that provided the exclamation point for the Bears. 
            "He may be the first MVP of the league who scores seven or eight points a game, whatever he does," Huggins said. "He's unselfish, he's a great team guy, he makes big plays for them, makes plays when they need plays."
            The only time the arena got louder than Vital's block was probably a high-flying dunk by Bandoo off a steal by Butler with about five minutes to go in the game. 
            "A lot of people don't know I can dunk," said Bandoo, who had 22 points for his ninth double-digit effort of the season and fourth in the last five games. "I think that was really momentum when Jared stole the ball and we got the fast break to dunk it. The crowd did go crazy. After that, we had great momentum. Jared came down and got an and-one."
            Butler, who chipped in with 12 points, four assists and only one turnover, had a floater and follow free throw in the Bears' late 10-0 run to put the game away. 
            Four players scored in double figures for West Virginia, led by West with 15 points and Jordan McCabe with 14. Haley and Andrew Gordon contributed 13 apiece for the Mountaineers. 
            "I'm really proud of the last five minutes to win the way we did," Drew said. "That's why we've been successful this year, and the great thing is it's different guys stepping up. Makai had zero field goals, and we win a game in the Big 12. That just goes to show you, when you have zero field goals from your leading scorer, it means other people are stepping up. That's what makes a great team."
            Baylor will try to win its third in a row when the Bears host Texas (15-12, 7-7) at 8 p.m. Wednesday at the Ferrell Center. With a chance to move into the top half of the Big 12 standings, the Longhorns lost at Oklahoma, 69-67, on Saturday.