By Jerry Hill
Baylor Bear Insider
FORT WORTH, Texas – Jared Butler admits that there are times when he puts pressure on himself to "live up to this name people put on me" and the expectations as a preseason All-American.
Bouncing back from his worst game of the season, the junior guard drained four second-half 3-pointers and scored a season-high 28 points in helping No. 2 Baylor come back from a one-point halftime deficit to blow out TCU, 67-49, Saturday afternoon at Schollmaier Arena.
"At the end of the day, it's about what my Lord and Savior says about me, not about what any person or ESPN rating or any draft says," said Butler, who added four assists and a team-high eight rebounds and five steals while going 4-for-8 from outside the arc. "That was the biggest mindset I had coming into this game."
The Bears (11-0, 4-0) picked up their first win in Fort Worth in four years and posted their school-record 11th win in a row by double digits to stay tied with fourth-ranked Texas (10-1, 4-0) atop the Big 12 standings.
After its lowest-scoring half of the season, Baylor rode the hot hand of Butler in exploding to 40 second-half points, shooting 50 percent overall and 5-of-9 from 3-point range.
"First half, when we weren't making shots, if you're a team that's selfish or immature, then you let those missed shots affect your defense and everything else you do," Baylor coach Scott Drew said. "In the second half, our shots fell and we played better. But, you look at it, we held them to 33 percent first half, 33 percent the second half. That's what good teams do is the defense is there, no matter what."
In the first half, Baylor had problems finding offense from anyone outside of Butler, who hit 6-of-9 from the floor and scored 12 points. The rest of the team was a combined 6-of-18 and scored just 15 points.
The Bears still held a slim lead and were holding for a last shot before TCU freshman Mike Miles hit a 65-foot bank shot at the buzzer to give the Horned Frogs (9-4, 2-3) a 28-27 lead going in at the break.
"Especially in the game of basketball, you've got to have a short memory," Butler said. "They hit the shot at the end of the half. It definitely could have been a momentum swinger, but we put that away and said it's a new half, and the rim got open for us. It was much-needed for us to grind for some big shots."
Any momentum TCU had went out the window when Davion Mitchell drove inside for a layup on the first play of the second half and started a 7-0 run that gave the Bears the lead for good.
"Second half, they just took it to us," said TCU coach Jamie Dixon. "They've got guys that have been through it and are playing well, with a lot of confidence. They're very good."
RJ Nembhard hit a 3-pointer that brought the Frogs back within three, 45-42, with 10:20 left in the game. But, Butler drained a long-distance 3-pointer and fed MaCio Teague for a dunk in an 8-0 run that stretched it to a double-digit lead.
After missing all four of his 3-point attempts in Wednesday's 76-61 win over Oklahoma and going 0-for-3 from outside the arc in the first half on Saturday, Butler buried four of his five shots from distance in the second half and went over 1,000 points for his career (1,008).
"Everyone is going to have those off nights," said Davion Mitchell, who had 10 points and six assists, with most of those going to Butler. "Coming in, he wasn't really worried about those last few games. Every game is new to him. He came in and played hard. Even defensively, he was really good. He let the game come to him."
Teague scored nine of his 12 points in the second half, while Mark Vital went 5-of-6 from the line and finished with nine points and six rebounds. The Baylor bench, which had scored 30-plus points in all but one game, was outscored by the TCU reserves, 10-6.
Miles was 0-for-3 in the second half and finished with a team-high 17 points for the Frogs. TCU won the rebounding battle, 38-32, getting six points and 11 boards from 6-11 center Kevin Samuel, but Baylor finished with more second-chance points (14-9).
"As a coach, sometimes we've got to guard ourselves, because winning in the toughest conference in the country on the road or at home isn't easy," Drew said. "With us, as long as we defend, rebound, play for each other, play with joy, personally as a coach I can live with the results."
Baylor returns home to face No. 14/16 West Virginia (9-4, 2-3) at 8 p.m. Tuesday. The Mountaineers lost a heartbreaker to Texas, 72-70, on Saturday when Andrew Jones hit a 3-pointer with 1.8 seconds left.