By Jerry Hill
Baylor Bear Insider
            Coming off an emotional overtime road win over West Virginia that clinched the program's first conference championship in 71 years, third-ranked Baylor was ripe for a letdown. 
            But, Jared Butler wasn't about to let that happen. 
            Showing that his legs are back after a three-week COVID pause, the junior guard drained four 3-pointers, threw down two dunks and scored 22 points as the newly crowned Big 12 champion Bears (20-1, 12-2) survived a hot-shooting second half by Oklahoma State freshman Cade Cunningham to beat the 17^th-ranked Cowboys, 81-70, Thursday night in a shootout at the Ferrell Center. 
            "I just felt like I didn't want to be complacent from winning the Big 12," said Butler, who had his 18^thcareer 20-point game, eighth this season and second in a row. "It's so easy to win the Big 12 and then come and be like, we're not going to play hard. We can lose a game, it doesn't really matter. That was the challenge I wanted to take on from a mental standpoint. I wanted to kill that mood, and no matter what we're going to win games."
            With Cunningham exploding for 20 of his game-high 24 points in the second half, and knocking down 4-of-5 from outside the arc, Baylor had to get big-time performances from Butler, MaCio Teague and Matthew Mayer to hold off an Oklahoma State team (17-7, 10-7) that had won five in a row. 
            "Being able to refocus and compete against maybe the hottest team in the conference," said Baylor coach Scott Drew, whose team recorded its 12^th 20-win season in the last 14 years, "and you know (OSU coach Mike) Boynton was going to do a tremendous job of having them prepared. I'm really proud of our guys, player-led team, they came out focused and really did a great job in making sure we got the win tonight."
            While the game could have turned into a one-on-one battle between the Big 12's top Player of the Year candidates, what it did was highlight the firepower balance of a Baylor team that is a national-best 12-2 against AP Top 25 teams over the last two seasons. 
            Despite a quick two-day turnaround from the West Virginia game, Baylor got out to a fast start and took the lead for good when Butler threw a perfectly-timed alley-oop pass to Jonathan Tchamwa Tchatchoua for a dunk and 16-15 lead at the 12:50 mark of the first half. 
            Baylor used a late 6-0 run to stretch it out to 42-28, but the Cowboys' Avery Anderson buried a second-chance 3-pointer to whittle the deficit down to 42-31. Held to four points on 2-of-8 shooting in the first half, Cunningham hit his first two shots in the second half and quickly cut it to five, then got it down to four with about six minutes to go. 
            That's when Butler said, "Not today."
            After Teague missed the front end of a one-and-one, the Bears made the Cowboys pay for a live-ball turnover by Cunningham when Butler fed Teague for a fast-break layup. And then Teague returned the favor, finding Butler for a corner 3-pointer that pushed the lead back to 69-60 with 5:02 left. 
            "I think first of all, it started with the defense," Drew said of the Bears' ability to stop OSU's runs, "because you'd get a stop and get in transition. And then, I thought whenever we needed a run, we really moved the ball and got high-percentage shots. Credit the guys of doing a great job getting stops and getting high-percentage shots when we needed it the most."
            Baylor's defense had no answer for the 6-8 Cunningham once he got it going in the second half. Projected to be the No. 1 pick in the 2021 NBA Draft, he drained 4-of-5 from 3-point range and 8-of-11 overall in keeping the Cowboys in the game. 
            "You see why he's projected to be the No. 1 pick in the draft," Drew said of Cunningham, who left the game with 42.8 seconds left with an apparent ankle injury after stepping on Davion Mitchell's foot "He was really special when he got in the groove. We tried to change things up, but give him credit. When you're making tough shots over elite defenders and an elite defense, hat's off to him. And Coach Boynton did a great job of putting him a position to be successful."
            Oklahoma State's decision to foul and put the Bears on the line backfired when Baylor made eight-straight free throws in the last 77 seconds to ice the game. Beating a Cowboy press, Vital provided the exclamation point when he did a 360 spin and hit a layup when he found himself all alone on the far end of the floor. 
            While Teague chipped in with 19 points, five assists, four rebounds and two steals, Mayer hit 4-of-7 from outside the arc and matched his career high with 19 points. 
            "(I'm seeing) what you guys are, a lot of buckets," Drew said of Mayer, who scored 18 in Tuesday's win over West Virginia. "He's really playing with confidence, he's being aggressive and he's really rebounding a lot better. Defensively, he's gotten better. That defense and rebounding has really been critical for us. And obviously, someone with his skill set at 6-9, he's very hard to defend."
             Mitchell added 12 points and seven assists for the Bears, while OSU's only other double-digit scorer was Kalib Boone with 10. 
            Baylor closes out the regular season with a matchup against No. 18 Texas Tech (17-8, 9-7) at 3 p.m. Sunday at the Ferrell Center. The Red Raiders have reeled off three-straight wins, blowing out Iowa State, 81-54, on Tuesday. 
            In addition to a Senior Day ceremony, which will honor Teague, Vital and former player Tristan Clark, Baylor will also have a postgame celebration for its first Big 12 championship and first league title since winning the old Southwest Conference in 1950. 
            "We want to leave a legacy as the best team Baylor has ever had," Mayer said. "Also, we're just competitive guys. We're not just going to come in and let somebody beat us."