Box Score By Jerry Hill
Baylor Bear Insider
            Three years ago, when Baylor climbed to the No. 1 spot in the Associated Press poll for the first time in program history, West Virginia handed the Bears a 21-point road loss in Morgantown. 
            Not this time. 
            Riding the hot hand of Jared Butler, who hit four of his first five from 3-point range and scored 16 of his game-high 21 points in the first half, the top-ranked Bears (23-1, 12-0) dominated 14^th-ranked West Virginia, 70-59, Saturday afternoon before a sellout crowd of 10,305 at the Ferrell Center to tie a Big 12 record with their 22^nd-consecutive win. 
            "I say this all the time, it's just God's work in our program," said Butler, who was a sizzling 8-of-11 overall and 5-of-7 from outside the arc while adding five rebounds, four assists and two steals. "We've got a great group of guys, and I think the sky's the limit for us. We just try to win the next game, that's it. Go 1-0."
            Baylor had to do it this time without junior guard MaCio Teague, the Bears' second-leading scorer at 14.4 points per game, who was out with an injury to his right wrist that he suffered in Monday's 52-45 win at Texas. 
            "It's a situation where we're waiting for the inflammation to go down and waiting for him to be able to be effective," coach Scott Drew said of Teague, who had a streak of his own stopped at 90-consecutive games played. "He's one of our tougher kids. It will be day-to-day, and we'll see how he progresses. When he's ready and he can help us, he'll be back out there."
            Despite playing without Teague, the Bears had their best shooting percentage in a Big 12 game this season (51.8), knocked down 6-of-18 from 3-point range and also dished out their most assists in a conference game this year (21). 
            Davion Mitchell chipped in with 13 points and a career-high nine assists, while sophomore forward Matthew Mayer scored a season-high 13 points and career high-tying eight rebounds. 
            "I try to keep the same mentality every game, which is to come in and be aggressive," said Mayer, who drove baseline for an impressive dunk Logan Routt in an 8-0 first-half run, "because when I have I have a timid mindset, I usually let it affect me when I have a bad play. I just keep going. I think it was a good opportunity. I just tried to pick up what MaCio does for us every night, which is a lot."
            Butler said his intent wasn't necessarily to try to make up for Teague, but he did bury a 3-pointer just 21 seconds into the game, drained three more in the first half and had 16 points to give the Bears a 33-22 lead at the break. 
            "I told myself that I can't change my game," he said. "I can't force shots now that he's not playing. We've still got (Devonte) Bandoo. So, I just tried to still play my game, and Davion found me a lot of times and my teammates found me a lot of times, and I hit the shot. I didn't try to change my game, but luckily it just worked out that way."
            Still facing a double-digit deficit, even after closing the half with an 8-0 run, West Virginia (18-7, 6-6) had things go from bad to worse in the second half. The Mountaineers missed their first 11 shots from the field and trailed by as many as 28 (53-25) before a short-range jumper by 6-9 freshman Oscar Tshiebwe at the 10:14 mark. 
            "Second half, we turned it over the first three times. That makes it pretty rough," said West Virginia coach Bob Huggins, whose team has lost three in a row in falling into a tie for fourth in the league standings. "The first half, we just didn't do anything that we set out to do. We have incredible fascination with dribbling the ball, but I haven't seen a game yet where you get points for that."
            It took a late flurry by junior college transfer Taz Sherman for the Mountaineers to avoid their most-lopsided loss of the season. Scoreless in the first half, Sherman hit five 3-pointers and scored all 20 of his points in the last 10 minutes. 
            Baylor's 22-game winning streak matches the longest in Big 12 history, set by a 1996-97 Kansas team that featured future NBA players Paul Pierce, Raef LaFrentz, Jacque Vaughn and Scot Pollard. 
            "I think it's a tribute to the payers, their belief, and we've been operating under joy – Jesus, others and then ourselves, focusing one game at a time," Drew said. "And we'll keep doing that."
            Baylor goes on the road to play Oklahoma (16-9, 6-6) at 8 p.m. Tuesday in Norman, Okla., before returning home to host third-ranked Kansas (22-3, 11-1) and ESPN's College GameDay for an 11 a.m. game next Saturday, Feb. 22. 
            "I don't know if there's a better honor out there for a university than to have College GameDay for football and basketball in the same year," Drew said. "I believe it's the first time since 2016 (Michigan State). Our administration did such a great job when the football GameDay crew was here. I think the community and the fans, the students, left a really good, positive feeling. Hopefully we can do the same this weekend with Kansas, because it's great having the national people know what we know about Waco and the university and everybody that's a part of it."