#7/8 BAYLOR BEARS (22-5, 10-4) Location: Waco, Texas  Conference/Affiliation: Big 12 Head Coach: Scott Drew (Butler, 1993) Roster | Stats | Game Notes (PDF)	#7/8 BAYLOR (22-5, 10-4) at OKLAHOMA STATE (13-13, 6-8) Feb. 21, 2022 • 8:00 p.m. CT Stillwater, Okla. • Gallagher-Iba Arena (13,611)  LIVE STATS: Stat Broadcast WATCH: ESPN Talent: Jon Sciambi (pxp), Fran Fraschilla (analyst), Kris Budden (reporter) LISTEN: Learfield / 1660 AM & 92.3 FM in Central Texas Talent: John Morris (PBP), Pat Nunley (Analyst) SIRIUS XM: Sirius 84, XM, 84, Internet 84 Baylor Social Media:
	OKLAHOMA STATE COWBOYS (16-16, 6-8) Location: Stillwater, Okla. Conference/Affiliation: Big 12 Head Coach: Mike Boynton  (South Carolina, 2004) Roster | Stats | Game Notes

By Jerry Hill
Baylor Bear Insider 
            Five days before hosting ESPN's College Gameday, the seventh-ranked Baylor Bears (22-5, 10-4) will go on the road to face Oklahoma State (13-13, 6-8) in a "Big Monday" matchup at 8 p.m. at Gallagher-Iba Arena in Stillwater. 
            It's a quick turnaround for a Baylor team that used a shorthanded six-man rotation in Saturday's 72-62 win over TCU, when guards Adam Flagler and LJ Cryer both sat out with injuries. 
            "People are a little sore, this and that, but we know we have a big game coming up," said freshman forward Kendall Brown, who had 13 points, five rebounds and five assists in the win over TCU. "We just have to fight through it and do what we do."
            While sophomore Jordan Turner got in for three minutes off the bench, the rest of the minutes were divided between a six-player rotation of freshmen Jeremy Sochan and Brown, seniors Matthew Mayer, James Akinjo and Flo Thamba and junior transfer Dale Bonner. 
            Five of the six scored in double figures, led by Sochan with 17 points, matching his season-high. On top of Flagler and Cryer, the Bears lost 6-8 junior forward Jonathan Tchamwa Tchatchoua to a season-ending knee injury nine days ago and also have walk-on guards Mitchell Paul and Kijana Love out with injuries. 
            "Some bad mojo going on right now in the Ferrell Center," Baylor coach Scott Drew said. "But, it's a little bit like the book in the Bible, Gideon. People keep dropping off, and these guys keep persevering. We play with a culture of JOY (Jesus, Others, Yourself), and these guys have honored it."
            Against OSU, the Bears are trying to avenge a 61-54 home-court loss to the Cowboys on Jan. 15, when they got down by 18 in the first half. Kansas transfer Bryce Thompson scored a game-high 19 points, while Baylor was held to a season-low 54 points and shot just 31% from the field. 
            "Obviously, they handed it to us the first time," Drew said. "They're really athletic, can really get after you defensively. They turned us over, got a lot of easies, so we've got to play a lot better."
            Brown (10.0 ppg, 4.9 rebounds) says he definitely remembers the loss to OSU, "it's not a good feeling the way we started."
            "We just have to get back to work," he said, "and when we play them again, it should be a different outcome."
            Oklahoma State is on NCAA probation and ineligible for postseason, but the Cowboys have won two of their last three games are coming off an 82-79 overtime win at home over Kansas State. 
            Thompson (10.9 ppg) and Avery Anderson III (11.8 ppg) lead a balanced OSU offense that ranks fourth in the Big 12 in scoring offense at 70 points per game. 
            With four games left in the regular season, Baylor is tied for second with Texas Tech (21-6, 10-4) and 1 ½ games behind sixth-ranked Kansas (22-4, 11-2). The Bears host the Jayhawks on College Gameday for the second-straight year. 
            "Big Monday's a great opportunity, there's no problem being focused for that," Drew said. "It's a tremendous honor to have College Gameday here. Last time was one of the best atmospheres ever. Didn't like the outcome, but everything but the outcome was really good. Hopefully, we can everything a little bit better, because coaches always want to improve, and then have a better outcome. And then we'll go from there."
            Monday's game will be broadcast by ESPN, with Jon Sciambi, Fran Fraschilla and Kris Budden calling the action. On Saturday, the College Gameday show begins at 10 a.m., with host Rece Davis joined by analysts Jay Bilas, LaPhonso Ellis and Seth Greenberg. 

 

• No. 7 Baylor heads to Stillwater for a Big Monday matchup at Oklahoma State at 8 p.m. CT Monday.

• Baylor is 11-3 vs. Oklahoma State since 2016 and 16-6 vs. the Cowboys since 2012.

• Monday is the 91st series meeting. OSU leads 57-33, but BU is 21-18 vs. OSU in the Drew era.

• BU has won 6 in a row in Stillwater and is 8-2 at OSU since 2012 after being 3-24 at OSU prior to 2012.

• BU lost 61-54 when the teams played in Waco on Jan. 15. The Bears trailed 46-29 with 12 minutes left and cut it to 55-54 with 1:21 remaining, but the had turnovers on their next two possessions.

• LJ Cryer scored 15 of his 18 points during the 2nd-half comeback and Matthew Mayer added 10 points after the break, but the rest of the team had only 7 second-half points on 2-of-13 shooting.

• Baylor is No. 5 overall (top 2-seed) in the latest NCAA Top 16 bracket overall announced Saturday.

• Baylor is No. 6 in the NET rankings and ranks 2nd nationally with 9 Quad 1 wins (9-4).

• Six of Baylor's rotation players have dealt with injuries this season – Langston Love and Tchamwa Tchatchoua are out for the year, while Akinjo, Flagler, Sochan and Cryer have all missed time.

• BU is coming off a 72-62 win over TCU. The short handed Bears rotated only 6 players, as Adam Flagler (knee) and LJ Cryer (foot) were among 6 BU players unavailable due to injury.

• Baylor is 5-2 in Big 12 road games this season, while the rest of the league is a combined 21-42.

• Baylor is 19-5 in Big 12 road games over the last 3 seasons (rest of league is 80-141 in B12 road games).

• The Bears have won 15 of their last 18 games away from home – 9-0 neutral, 6-3 road.

• BU is 36-2 vs. unranked teams over the last 2 seasons (+21.1 avg margin) with all wins by 4+ points.

• BU has reached double-digit Big 12 wins for the 7th time in the last 8 seasons. BU had two seasons with double-digit Big 12 wins in the league's previous 18 seasons (2010 & 2012).

• BU has 10+ conference wins for a 9th time in the last 12 seasons after doing so 8 times in 103 years.

• Baylor has reached the 20-win milestone for a 13th time in the last 15 seasons. Prior to that, BU recorded only three 20-win seasons in the first 100 years of Baylor Basketball (1946, 1948, 1988).

• BU is playing its 305th game as a ranked team under Drew – BU was ranked in 2 of 2,197 games over the program's 97 seasons prior to Drew. Since January 2010, BU has been ranked in 290 of 427 games.

• Baylor's 38-8 Big 12 Conference record over the last 3 seasons is the best of any Power-5 team.

• Baylor's 50-7 record over the last 2 seasons is the nation's best among Power-5 teams, and the Bears' 76-11 record over the last 3 seasons is 2nd-best nationally, trailing only Gonzaga (84-5).

• BU is 17-0 this season when winning points in the paint and 16-1 when committing fewer turnovers.

• Baylor is the only High Major team ranked top-50 in scoring offense (40th) and scoring defense (29th).

• Baylor ranks top-25 nationally in scoring margin (8th, +14.5), steals (13th, 9.3), assists (18th, 16.4), offensive rebounds (17th, 12.9), turnovers forced (18th, 16.6) and turnover margin (23rd, +3.6).

• BU ranks 5th nationally in KenPom's offensive rebound pct (37.2), its 8th-straight year ranked top-10.

• Over the last 3 seasons, Baylor is 63-4 when leading at the half and 76-6 when taking a 2nd-half lead.

• BU has forced 10+ turnovers in 35-straight games, including 12+ TOs in 25 of 27 games this season.

QUICK HITS

• Baylor is on a school-record streak of 44-straight weeks top-10 ranked (top-5 ranked in 38 of those).

• BU is on a school-record streak of 52-straight weeks ranked in the AP Top 25 (previous record was 25). It's the nation's 3rd-longest active streak behind Gonzaga (110) and Villanova (55).

• Baylor has been ranked in all 10 spots in the AP Top 10 within the last 11 months (16 total weekly polls).

• Baylor has been ranked in all 25 spots in the AP Top 25 at some point in the last 7 years.

• Baylor has been No. 1 ranked in 4 of the last 6 seasons (Gonzaga, Duke and Kansas are only others).

• Baylor and Kansas are the only Power-5 schools to win 18+ games every year since 2008.

• Baylor has built leads of 10+ points in 29 of 33 games since the start of the 2021 NCAA Tournament (28-5 record).

• BU has built double-digit leads in 74 of 87 games over the last 3 seasons (50 of 57 last 2 seasons).

• Head coach Scott Drew is in his 19th season at Baylor with a school-record 392 career victories.

• Drew has swept AP and coaches' Big 12 Coach of the Year honors each of the last two seasons.

• For a second-straight season, Baylor was one of the nation's final two undefeated teams.

• BU went 305 days between losses, the longest in program history (March 12, 2021 – Jan. 11, 2022).

• BU had a 36-game non-conference winning streak with 813 days between losses (Nov. 8, 2019 – Jan. 29, 2022).

• BU went 1,038 days without consecutive losses before dropping back-to-back games Jan. 11 and Jan. 15.

• Baylor became the first program to start consecutive seasons 15-0 since Syracuse in 2010-11 and 2011-12.

• Baylor's streak of 9 consecutive postseasons is tied as the nation's 7th-longest active streak.

• Baylor is 93-7 when leading at halftime over the last 5 seasons (63-4 over last 3 seasons, 24-0 last season).

• Baylor has won 90% of its games when leading at the half since 2011-12 (211-23).

• BU is 76-6 when leading at any point in the 2nd half of a game over the last 3 seasons.

• Baylor is 267-104 over the last 11 seasons, averaging 24.5 wins per season since 2011-12.

• Baylor's 267 wins since 2011-12 are second-most in the Big 12 behind only Kansas (307).

• Baylor is 358-151 since 2007-08, the first year Drew's staff had a full allotment of scholarships.

• Five of Baylor's players have used or are currently using a redshirt year. Two after transferring to BU (Flagler, Tchamwa Tchatchoua), one before transferring (Bonner) and two as freshmen — Turner and Langston Love.

• Ten of Baylor's 11 starting point guards under Drew have earned All-Big recognition (16 of last 17 seasons).

• Baylor is 1 of 10 teams nationally to appear in every postseason since 2012 (7 NCAAs, 2 NITs).

• Baylor has the nation's 9th-longest active streak with at least one 3-point FG made in 989 straight games — the last time Baylor failed to make a 3-pointer was nearly 32 years ago, on Feb. 21, 1990 vs. Texas Tech (0-8).

• Baylor has won 8 tournament titles under Drew – 2007 Paradise Jam, 2011 Las Vegas Classic, 2013 NIT, 2016 & 2021 Battle 4 Atlantis, 2017 Hall of Fame Classic, 2019 Myrtle Beach Invitational and 2021 NCAA Championship.

NOTABLE STREAKS

• Baylor has taken a lead in 113-consecutive games (last wire-to-wire loss Dec. 1, 2018 at Wichita State).

• BU has won 61-straight when shooting a higher percentage than its opponent (last loss March 2, 2019 at K-State).

• Baylor has won 20-straight games when winning points in the paint (last loss March 12, 2021 vs. Oklahoma St.).

• Baylor has won 36-straight games when shooting 50% or higher (last loss March 18, 2018 vs. Mississippi State).

• Baylor has won 36-straight games when scoring 80+ points (last loss Jan. 5, 2019 vs. TCU).

• Baylor has made 2 or more 3-pointers in 141-consecutive games (last on Jan. 2, 2018 vs. TCU).

• Baylor has won 9-consecutive neutral-site games – (last loss Nov. 8, 2019 vs. Washington in Alaska).

• Baylor has won 21-consecutive non-conference home games (last loss Dec. 18, 2018 vs. SFA).

For a full version of Baylor's game notes, click here.