No. 3 MBB Readies for Senior Day on Sunday against No. 18 Texas Tech

Bears are 10-0 at home this season

Men's Basketball 3/6/2021 8:09:00 AM

	3/3 BAYLOR BEARS (20-1, 12-1) Location: Waco, Texas Head Coach: Scott Drew (Butler, 1993) Roster \| Stats \| Game Notes (PDF)	BAYLOR (20-1, 12-1) vs. TEXAS TECH (17-8, 9-7) March 7, 2021 • 3 p.m. CT Waco, Texas • Ferrell Center (10, 284) LIVE STATS: baylorstats.com WATCH: ESPN Talent: Bob Wischusen (pxp), Dick Vitale (analyst) LISTEN: Baylor Sports Network \| ESPN Central Texas Talent: John Morris (pxp) and Pat Nunley (analyst) Baylor Social Media:

	18/18 TEXAS TECH RED RAIDERS (17-8, 9-7) Location: Lubbock, Texas Head Coach: Chris Beard (Texas, 1995) Roster \| Stats (PDF) \| Game Notes (PDF)

By Jerry Hill
Baylor Bear Insider
            In what could be the final game at the Ferrell Center for seniors Mark Vital and MaCio Teague, and potentially junior guards Jared Butler and Davion Mitchell as well, the third-ranked Baylor Bears (20-1, 12-1) will take a victory lap as Big 12 champions for the first time in program history.
            Baylor, which clinched its first conference title in 71 years with Tuesday's 94-89 overtime win at West Virginia, will close out the regular season with a matchup against No. 18 Texas Tech (17-8, 9-7) at 3 p.m. Sunday.
            Prior to the game, the Bears will honor Vital and Teague, along with grad transfer Mark Paterson from St. Edwards and Tristan Clark, the 6-10 senior center who retired from basketball before the season started.
            Coach Scott Drew described Clark as a "teammate who really cares about his other team members and he always wanted to be there to help."
            "When he had to tell (the other players) he wasn't going to be able to do this anymore, I know that was emotional for him from the standpoint that he's such a caring guy, a loving guy who always wants to help his teammates as much as possible."
            Vital, a semifinalist for the National Defensive Player of the Year along with Mitchell, set Baylor's record for conference victories (44-22) and is averaging 5.8 points and 5.9 rebounds per game.
            "That's why he's such a valuable player for us is he does a lot of things that might not show up in the stat box," Drew said of Vital. "When he's rebounding at that level, it really frees up other guys to get rebounds. And at the same time, it allows us to be much more effective. He might go hard and take two guys out and block you out, and now someone else gets the rebound. They call them 'Glue Guys' and other things like that, but basically he's a winner."
            One of five finalists for the Jerry West Shooting Guard award, Teague is averaging 14.9 points and 4.2 rebounds per game and shooting 46.7 percent from 3-point range. A transfer from UNC Asheville, Teague is 46-5 in his Baylor career.
            "MaCio's record at this school is unreal," said junior guard/forward Matthew Mayer. "And there's a reason for that. He's an elite scorer, he always figures out how to get double-digit points on the board, and he's really crafty on defense."
            While Teague is known more as a 3-point shooter, Drew said "he's really good on one, two, three dribbles or less, creating offense and punching gaps and driving close-outs."
            "That's something when he looked at the NBA (after last season), they wanted him to be more efficient with less bounces, and he's really done that."
            A walk-on guard who played two seasons at St. Edward's, Paterson has appeared in seven games this season and scored nine points, hitting his only 3-point attempt of the season in his last game against Kansas State on Jan. 27.
            In the regular-season finale, Baylor is facing a Texas Tech team that has won three in a row and coming off two-straight blowout victories over TCU and Iowa State. The Bears have won four in a row against the Red Raiders, including the Jan. 16 matchup in Lubbock, when they used a late 17-6 run to erase a one-point deficit and pull out a 68-60 road win.
            "Defensively, both of us are very similar," Drew said. "We'll try to use some things that are effective against us defensively. I know there are two sets that come to mind that we've got to defend differently. Hopefully, this is a game where points are going to be hard to come by, so as many transition buckets as we can get (offensively), we definitely want to do that. They've got a lot of weapons, so we've got to make sure they're not getting their best shots."
            Following the game, there will be a ceremony honoring the Big 12 championship, as well as the seniors addressing the crowd. Sunday's game will be broadcast by ESPN, with Bob Wischusen and Dick Vitale calling the action.
            The Bears are the top seed for the Big 12 Championship that starts Wednesday in Kansas City. After a first-round bye, they will face either TCU or Kansas State at 1:30 p.m. Thursday.

STORY LINES
• No. 3 Baylor has clinched its first conference title since the 1950 Southwest Conference co-championship.
• The conference title is the 6th in program history and the 4th outright title (1932, 1946, 1948, 2021).
• The Bears will honor 4 seniors prior to Sunday's game (Vital, Teague, Paterson, Clark).
• Baylor is 10-0 at home this season and looking for its undefeated home season since 1947-48 (9-0).
• BU has clinched the most wins (12) of any Big 12 team, despite having 4 games canceled.
• Sunday is the 142nd series meeting dating back to 1937. Baylor is 22-9 vs. Texas Tech since 2006.
• BU has won 4 in a row vs. Tech in Waco, including last season's 71-68 overtime win on March 2.
• Baylor won 68-60 at Texas Tech on Jan. 16. Baylor trailed 45-44 with 7:14 left before going on a 17-6 run over the next 4:23 to pull away late. Davion Mitchell led BU with 17 points.
• The Bears' 20-1 start ties the best 21-game record in program history (2019-20).
• Baylor rolled to an 81-70 win over No. 17 Oklahoma State on Thursday, its 6th ranked win this year.
• BU won 94-89 in overtime Tuesday at No. 6 West Virginia, improving to 4-0 vs. top-10 teams this season.
• BU held its first 9 Big 12 opponents below 70 points before allowing 72, 71, 89, 70 in the last 4 games.
• BU is 6-1 vs. AP Top 25 teams this season, including 4-0 against AP Top 10 teams.
• BU is 12-2 vs. AP Top 25 teams the last 2 seasons, the nation's best record vs. ranked teams.
• BU leads the nation in 3-point percentage (.420) and is top-7 nationally in scoring margin (3rd, +20.0), scoring (4th, 85.2), effective FG% (3rd, 57.8), steals (7th, 9.4), turnover margin (4th, +6.0), turnovers forced (7th, 18.1), defensive turnover pct. (3rd, 25.5) and offensive rebound pct. (4th, 37.1).
• Baylor became the first team since UNLV in 1990-91 to win its first 17 games by 8+ points.
• BU has led by at least 10 points in 19 of 21 games this year, but just 2 of 4 games since the pause.
• Baylor has led by at least 4 points in all 51 games over the last 2 seasons (double-digit leads in 43 of 51).
• Baylor is 24-1 at home over the last 2 seasons, with the lone loss by 3 points to Kansas on 2/22/20.
• Baylor's 27-4 record in Big 12 play over the last 2 seasons is the league's best record in that span.
• BU is 14-3 in Big 12 road games over the last 2 seasons (rest of league is 57-97 in B12 road games).
• Baylor finished 7-1 in road games this season, BU's best road record since going 13-1 in 1947-48.
• Jared Butler (Cousy Award finalist), MaCio Teague (West Award finalist), Davion Mitchell & Mark Vital (Naismith Defensive POY Semifinalists) were all recognized as national award candidates last week.
• Butler leads the Big 12 in 3-pointers made (2.8/game), 3-point percentage (.443) and steals (2.2), ranks 2nd in assists (5.0), 3rd in scoring (17.1) and 5th in assist-to-turnover ratio (1.79).
• Teague leads the 5 West Award finalists in career ppg, assists, steals, 3-pointers, FTM and FT%.
• Vital holds the BU record for career Big 12 wins at 44-22. The previous record was A.J. Walton's 39.
• Five Baylor players are shooting at least 41% on 3FGs and averaging at least one 3FG made per game: Mitchell (46%), Mayer (45%), Butler (44%), Flagler (42%) and Cryer (41%).
• Baylor is 46-5 since Teague and Mitchell became eligible at the start of 2019-20.
• Baylor has been top-5 ranked for 26-straight weeks. BU was top-5 for 12 weeks all-time prior to this streak.

FIRST CONFERENCE TITLE IN 71 YEARS
• Baylor has clinched its first conference championship in 71 seasons (1950 Southwest Conference).
• Baylor has won six league titles in programs history, four of them outright – 1932 (10-2), 1946 (11-1), 1948 (11-1), 1949 (9-3), 1950 (8-4) and 2021 (TBD). The 1949 and 1950 titles were co-championship..
• Baylor's best previous Big 12 finish was outright 2nd-place last season. BU also tied for 2nd in 2010 and 2017.
• Baylor's 15 Big 12 wins last season were the most ever by a team that didn't claim the Big 12 title.

QUICK HITS
• BU's streak of 35-straight AP pols ranked is the nation's 3rd-longest active streak and longest in BU history.
• Baylor joins Duke, Gonzaga and Kansas as the only programs ranked No. 1 in 3 of the last 5 seasons.
• BU is 1 of 5 Power-5 schools (Duke, Kentucky, Kansas, Michigan St.) to win 18+ every year since 2008.
• BU's defense has forced 14+ TOs in 16 of its last 18 games, including 7 games with 20+ TOs forced.
• Three members of the BU bench average 7+ ppg – Flagler (9.8), Mayer (8.6) and Tchatchoua (7.1).
• BU's bench is out-scoring opposing benches 30-16 on average and has scored 33+ points in 11 games.
• Head coach Scott Drew is in his 18th season in Waco and is BU's all-time wins leader (362-214).
• Baylor's 18-game winning streak tied the 4th-longest in the Big 12's 25-year history. The Bears set the record with 23 straight last season, while Kansas had the 2nd and 3rd-longest streaks – 22 in 1997 and 20 in 2008.
• Baylor signed the highest-ranked recruiting class in program history (No. 4) in November. BU inked 5-star Kendall Brown, 4-star Langston Love and 4-star Jeremy Sochan for the 2021-22 season.
• Baylor has won double-digit Big 12 games for the 8th time (2010, 2012, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2019, 2020, 2021).
• Baylor is 68-5 when leading at halftime over the last 4 seasons (38-2 over last 2 seasons, 17-0 this season).
• Baylor has won 90% of its games when leading at the half since 2011-12 (186-21).
• BU is 134-23 since 2015-16 when leading at any point in the 2nd half of a game (46-3 last 2 seasons).
• Baylor has won 20+ games in 12 of the last 14 seasons after recording only three 20-win seasons in the previous 100 years of Baylor Basketball (1946, 1948, 1988).
• Baylor is 237-98 over the last 10 seasons, averaging 24 wins per season since 2011-12.
• Baylor's 237 wins since 2011-12 are second-most in the Big 12 behind only Kansas (283).
• Baylor is 328-145 since 2007-08, the first year Drew's staff had a full allotment of scholarships.
• Eight of Baylor's players either have used or are currently using a redshirt year. Four after transferring to BU – Flagler, Mitchell, Tchamwa Tchatchoua and Teague, and four as freshmen — Moffatt, Turner, Vital and Dainja.
• Ten of Baylor's 11 starting point guards under Drew have earned All-Big recognition (15 of last 16 seasons).
• Baylor is 1 of 14 teams nationally to appear in every postseason since 2012 (6 NCAAs, 2 NITs).
• Baylor has the nation's 10th-longest active streak with at least one 3-point FG made in 953 straight games — the last time Baylor failed to make a 3-pointer was more than 30 years ago, on Feb. 21, 1990 vs. Texas Tech (0-8).

SERIES HISTORY
• Sunday is the 142nd all-time series meeting between Baylor and Texas Tech dating back to 1937.
• The teams have met twice annually since 1958, but this is the second meeting with both teams top-20 ranked.
• Baylor is 61-80 in the series, including a 38-27 mark in Waco and a 22-13 mark in the Scott Drew era.
• Baylor is 22-9 vs. Texas Tech since 2006, including a 13-2 record in Waco in that span.

THIS SEASON VS. TEXAS TECH
• Baylor held No. 15 Texas Tech to a season-low 18 first-half points, but the Bears trailed 45-44 with 7:14 left before going on a 17-6 run over the next 4:23 to pull away late in a 68-60 win in Lubbock on Jan. 16.
• Adam Flagler posted 15 points off the bench, including the go-ahead jumper to spark the late 17-6 run.
• Davion Mitchell led the Bears with 17 points, while MaCio Teague added 14 points.
• Jared Butler scored his only 7 points over a 70-second stretch in the final 5 minutes, including a pair of 3-pointers.