No. 2 MBB Routs UCA, 93-56

Tuesday, December 29

Waco, Texas

3 pm

Baylor

7-0,1-0Big 12

Central Arkansas

1-7,0-0Southland

Central Ark.

Baylor

No. 2 MBB Routs UCA, 93-56

12/29/2020 5:23:00 PM | Men's Basketball

Box Score MBB_07_UCA

MaCio Teague led the Bears with 20 points

By Jerry Hill
Baylor Bear Insider
            Even at full strength, Central Arkansas was going to have a hard time containing an explosive Baylor team that came in averaging 93.7 points per game.
            With two of its starters out, including leading scorer Rylan Bergersen, UCA (1-7) didn't have a chance.
            Playing their first game in eight days, the second-ranked Bears (7-0) overcame some first-half defensive lapses and knocked off the rust, rolling to a 93-56 win that was every bit as dominant as the final score would indicate.
            "Coming back from Christmas, you're always worried about how the team is going to play and respond," said Baylor head coach Scott Drew, whose team has won six of its seven games by at least 30 points.
            "We weren't as good as we wanted to be defensively, in the transition defense, specifically. I thought we really got off to a great start and held them scoreless for seven or eight minutes. That was a big key to the game and us feeling that we're back playing the way we're capable of playing."
            Junior guard Davion Mitchell, who dished out a career-high 12 assists in 24 minutes, had five in the Bears' 15-0 run at the start of the second half that stretched the lead to 68-35. Mitchell, whose previous high was 10 assists versus Kansas State last February, already had seven by halftime.
            "That's Davion," said senior guard MaCio Teague, who scored 15 of his game-high 20 points in the second half. "That might be new to you guys, but in practice he's always downhill, coming off ball screens, making reads. He's a really talented player getting other players involved, and everybody loves playing with him for that reason."
            One of the team mottos is "sharing the sugar," which the Bears did to the tune of 25 assists on 37 made baskets. Mitchell's 12 assists were spread out among seven different players, including a pair of alley-oop dunks by Jonathan Tchamwa Tchatchoua and another one that Teague finished.
            "We've got great passers and playmakers and a lot of good shot-makers," Drew said. "Everyone knows, when you're open, you want the ball. And the job of the person with the ball is to share the sugar. For us, it's good to have guys who can pass and obviously make shots."
            Baylor scored at least 80 points for the seventh-consecutive game for the first time since 1994, shot 50 percent overall and an efficient 43 percent (13-of-30) from outside the arc. Jared Butler scored all 17 of his points in the first half, hitting 6-of-9 overall and 3-of-4 from 3-point range, helping the Bears take a 53-35 lead into the break.
            "We played pretty good defense," said UCA coach Anthony Boone. "It's just that when they're open, we help on drives and they kick it out, and those guys knock them down. I think we shot the ball pretty good from the outside, too, it's just they have the size to go with it to get some of the points in the paint that they got. And we couldn't finish some of our opportunities in the paint."
            Junior guard DeAndre Jones picked up the slack with Bergerson out, hitting five 3-pointers and scoring 15 of his team-high 19 points in the first half. Hounded by Baylor's perimeter defense, he took just two shots in the second half, when UCA was held to 21 points and hit just 8-of-28 shots from the field.
            "They're one of the faster offensive tempo teams in the country," Drew said of the visiting Bears. "Coming off Christmas break, we probably didn't do a good enough job getting our guys sprinting and getting back in transition. . . . Second half, I thought we did a much better job with our adjustments as far as getting back and matching up and having them try to score over our length. Our defense kind of imposed its will."
            Tchamwa Tchatchoua posted his first double-double in a Baylor uniform and second of his collegiate career with 13 points and 11 rebounds, hitting all six of his shots. Scoring at least 33 points for the seventh game in a row, the BU bench outscored the UCA reserves, 46-13.
            Matthew Mayer added 13 points, while Adam Flagler hit two 3-pointers and scored 10 points in his first game back after missing the two games prior to the break. He was whistled for a technical when he hung on the rim after his first collegiate dunk.
            "He said he was a little nervous up there," Drew said of Flagler's second-half dunk. "For 16 minutes, I thought Adam did a lot of really good things. As always, he made shots, made the right reads, made the right passes – three assists, one turnover, two steals. It's great to get him back."
            In a quick turnaround, Baylor will face Alcorn State (0-4) at 2 p.m. Wednesday before resuming Big 12 play with a trip to Ames, Iowa, for a matchup against Iowa State (2-4, 0-2) at 12 noon Saturday. Alcorn State, which got blown out by Vanderbilt, 87-59, on Sunday when it returned from a holiday break, is playing its fifth-straight game on the road.