No. 1 MBB Slides into Sweet 16 after 76-63 Win over No. 9 Wisconsin

Sunday, March 21

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No. 1 MBB Slides into Sweet 16 after 76-63 Win over No. 9 Wisconsin

3/21/2021 4:06:00 PM | Men's Basketball

Box Score MBB_26_Wisc

Bears through to Sweet 16 for fifth time in last 12 years, first since 2017

By Jerry Hill
Baylor Bear Insider
            INDIANAPOLIS – This has to be what's so exasperating about facing a top-seeded Baylor team that seems to have an endless supply of weapons.
            On a day when MaCio Teague didn't score in double figures for just the third time all year and Jonathan Tchamwa Tchatchoua picked up three first-half fouls, Matthew Mayer gave the Bears (24-2) the lift they needed with 17 points, six rebounds and three steals in a 76-63 win over ninth-seeded Wisconsin Sunday afternoon at Hinkle Fieldhouse.
            "Matt was huge with Jon in foul trouble," said Baylor coach Scott Drew, whose team earned a spot in the Sweet 16 for the fifth time in the last 12 years and first since 2017. "You've got to have depth and you've got to have multiple scorers. We have a lot of people capable of getting us 20, and it's not your night every night."
            Baylor, which also got 16 points apiece from the backcourt duo of Davion Mitchell and Jared Butler, will face fifth-seeded Villanova (18-6) in the South Region semifinals at 4:15 p.m. CDT Saturday at Hinkle Fieldhouse. The Wildcats knocked down 15 3-pointers to cool off 13^th-seeded North Texas, 84-61, after the Mean Green's first-round win over fourth-seeded Purdue.
            While Mayer gave the Bears an offensive spark, it was their defense that was the difference in the game. Baylor scored 16 points off the Badgers' uncharacteristic 14 turnovers.
            "I think it all starts with Davion up front, and then we have guys that are all bought in to try to apply as much ball pressure as possible and make things as difficult as possible," Drew said. "You're never going to shut out a great team like Wisconsin, but you just want to make things as difficult as possible. Very similar to football, if you've got a great quarterback, you'd better put a lot of pressure on them."
            After falling behind 5-0 in the first two minutes, the Bears reeled off seven unanswered points and took their first lead, 9-7, on a pair of free throws by Mayer. He then had bookend plays in a 9-0 run with go-ahead 3-pointer and a driving layup that made it 20-11.
            "They dropped coverages, something we love to see," said Mitchell, who was 6-of-8 overall and 2-of-3 from outside the arc. "We kind of got used to it. We used to do it in practice. We had to switch it up a little bit, so we just tried to take advantage of what the defense gave us. And we did that today."
            In a span of less than 10 seconds, Baylor went through the downer of Micah Potter's end-of-the-shot-clock 3-pointer and a buzzer-beating trey by Adam Flagler that gave the Bears a 42-29 halftime lead.
            "We did a great job answering today," Drew said. "That was a big momentum play with Adam's 3 before the half. It was a great pass by Davion, too, to pitch ahead instead of just chucking it up like a lot of times people do."
            The Badgers (18-11) chipped away at the lead and got within seven a couple times, but could get no closer as the Bears hit 18-of-23 from the line and sealed it with four-straight free throws by Flagler and Butler in the last 30 seconds.
            "We knew those guys were going to go on a run," Mitchell said. "We tried to limit their transition, limit their shots, limit their threes. . . . We did a really good job stopping the momentum, scoring back-to-back."
            Four players scored in double figures for Wisconsin, led by D'mitrik Trice with 12 points. Trice and Brad Davison, who scored a combined 50 points in the Badgers' first-round win over North Carolina, were a combined 8-of-28 from the field and scored 20 points.