By Jerry Hill
Baylor Bear Insider
            FORT WORTH – On a day when six other top-20 teams lost on the road, the top-ranked Baylor Bears found themselves down by nine early in the second half Saturday in a hostile environment at Schollmaier Arena. 
            Overcoming its largest deficit of the season, Baylor used a 17-0 second-half run and rode the hot hands of Adam Flagler, James Akinjo and LJ Cryer to avoid the upset trend with a 76-64 win over the upset-minded TCU Horned Frogs and is now one of just two remaining undefeated teams in the country (USC). 
            "If you're able to go on the road in these environments, face these teams and get a win, you're doing something right," said Baylor coach Scott Drew, whose team won its national-best 21^st-consecutive game and 30^th in a row against unranked teams. "You've got to credit the players for being able to beat great teams on the road."
            Playing its first game in 18 days – the last three games were canceled or postponed because of health and safety protocols – TCU (10-2, 0-1) closed the first half on a 14-2 run in the last four minutes after Baylor freshman Jeremy Sochan left with a sprained left ankle. 
            Sophomore guard Mike Miles scored 18 of his game-high 26 points in the first half and sparked that closing run to give the Horned Frogs a 37-31 lead at the break. 
            Eight seconds into the second half, Chuck O'Banion drained a 3-pointer that gave TCU its biggest lead of the game, 40-31. But, Akinjo said the Bears "never panicked."
            "We're the No. 1 team, and everybody is going to see how you respond to situations like that," said Akinjo, who scored 12 of his 20 points in the first half "When we got down, we never panicked. I was just trying to keep us all poised. That's my job at point guard."
            Miles answered a Flagler 3-pointer with a rare four-point play when he was fouled by Matthew Mayer on a made 3-pointer. But, he injured his left wrist on another Mayer foul with 17:51 left and scored only four points the rest of the way, missing three-straight free throws and four of his last six shots. 
            "It was tough. I couldn't really flick it on my shot," Miles said. "That's why my two free throws were short. I've got to get an X-ray, but hopefully it's not anything serious."
            Akinjo and freshman Kendall Brown kicked off a 17-0 run by the Bears with back-to-back layups in a stretch that Flagler capped off with two of his six second-half 3-pointers to push Baylor back on top, 53-44. 
            "I started to find a little bit of rhythm (in the second half)," said Flagler, who hit 6-of-9 from outside the arc and scored 18 of his team-high 22 points in the second half. "Guys like James, Kendall, LJ, they were finding me. Credit to them. Once I got going, we've got a great, selfless team, and they're going to keep looking for whoever's hot."
            Scoreless in the first half, Micah Peavy scored seven-straight points in a span of 80 seconds and pulled the Frogs back within one, 54-53, on a baseline jumper with 11:04 left. 
            After back-to-back treys by Flagler, TCU never got closer than four the rest of the way. The Horned Frogs scored only two points in the last five minutes, turning it over three times and missing four of their last five shots from the floor. 
            Cryer hit four 3-pointers and scored 15 points to give the Bears their third double-figure scorer, while O'Banion and Damion Baugh added 12 and 10 points, respectively, for TCU. 
            Leading the nation in offensive rebounds, the Horned Frogs scored eight second-chance points off 12 offensive rebounds and won a tight battle of the boards, 32-28. But, Baylor shot 52.6% from the floor (30-of-57), 48.1% from 3-point range (13-of-27) and scored 26 points off TCU's 18 turnovers. 
            "Coach (Jamie) Dixon's teams always compete and are always real physical," Drew said. "On the glass, you had two elite teams getting after it. I know there was a lot of banging. Credit both teams for playing hard. I thought we executed really well in the second half. It starts with James and Adam. They did a great job taking care of the ball and getting high-percentage shots."
            Baylor, which became the first team to start consecutive seasons 15-0 since Syracuse in 2010-12, returns home to host 25^th-ranked Texas Tech (11-3, 1-1) at 6 p.m. Tuesday at the Ferrell Center. A short-handed Red Raiders' team upset sixth-ranked Kansas, 75-67, Saturday in Lubbock.