Top-Seeded MBB Falls to No. 8 North Carolina in the Round of 32

Saturday, March 19

Fort Worth, Texas

11:10 AM

Baylor

27-7,14-4Big 12

North Carolina

26-9,15-5ACC

OT 1

North Carolina

Baylor

Top-Seeded MBB Falls to No. 8 North Carolina in the Round of 32

3/19/2022 2:26:00 PM | Men's Basketball

Box Score Final Book (PDF)

Bears erased a 25-point deficit to force overtime against the Tar Heels

By Jerry Hill
Baylor Bear Insider
            FORT WORTH – As unrealistic as it might have seemed at the time, trailing North Carolina by 25 midway through the second half, defending national champion Baylor wasn't ready to give up the title the Bears won almost 11 months ago.
            A comeback for the ages started with the Tar Heels' Brady Manek ejected for a flagrant foul, was sparked by a press that forced 10 turnovers down the stretch and capped by a three-point play by James Akinjo that tied the game at 80-80 and sent it into overtime.
            After running out of time in regulation, top-seeded Baylor (27-7) ran out of gas in the OT period, missing 10-of-11 shots from the field and falling to the eighth-seeded Tar Heels, 93-86, Saturday afternoon at Dickies Arena in the second round of the East Region.
            "Rudy Tomjanovich said it best, never underestimate the heart of a champion," Baylor coach Scott Drew said. "I thought our guys really displayed that, having a chance to have the largest comeback in NCAA history in the last 10 minutes. . . . You get down 25, it's easy to fold. These guys don't. It's a joy to coach them every single day.
            "We might be losers on the scoreboard today . . . but I'm proud of these guys and how they represent Baylor University."
            Riding the hot hand of RJ Davis, who hit four 3-pointers and scored 17 first-half points, North Carolina (26-9) led 42-29 at halftime. Manek, a grad transfer from Oklahoma, hit two 3-pointers and scored 13 points in a 15-4 run that pushed the Tar Heels' lead to 67-42 at the 10:47 mark.
            "RJ had a lot to do with it. Credit him, he made shots in the beginning and got them rolling," Drew said of Davis, who had a career-high 30 points to go with six assists and five rebounds. "And then after that, Manek really shot it well. You take out those 56 points . . . but credit to them."
            Battling for a rebound after a missed Matthew Mayer 3-pointer, Manek was called for a flagrant 2 foul for an elbow to Jeremy Sochan's face and automatically ejected from the game with 10:08 left.
            Baylor reeled off 11 unanswered points, including back-to-back 3-pointers by Adam Flagler, and got back within 67-53 on a pair of free throws by Akinjo after a technical foul on North Carolina's Armando Bacot for tripping Sochan.
            "We knew that as a team, we weren't going to give up," said Flagler, who scored 21 of his team-high 27 points in the second half. "We decided to apply pressure a lot more and be assertive out there. Once we got into those diamonds and traps, we were able to get some stops and get some easy looks and got the run going."
            UNC stopped the bleeding, at least temporarily, when Leaky Black found Dontrez Styles on a backdoor cut at the end of the shot clock. Flagler had a three-point play that whittled the deficit to 13 points for the first time since early in the second half.
            Mayer then turned in a big play on the other end when he took a charge from Caleb Love that fouled out the UNC guard with 6:15 left. Love hit six 3-pointers and scored 23 points in the Tar Heels' 95-63 rout of ninth-seeded Marquette in Thursday's first-round game, but finished with five points and made 1-of-6 shots from the field on Saturday.
            "I didn't know that was one of the biggest comebacks in March Madness history," said Mayer, who hit two 3-pointers and scored 10 points before fouling out in overtime. "But that just kind of shows what we've been dealing with all year. We've had a ton of adversity. We've had three guys with big injuries. This team fights."
            Still trailing by nine with less than 2 ½ minutes to play, the Bears continued the late run with a Dale Bonner 3-pointer and a three-point play by Akinjo that got it back to 76-73. Bacot, who was just 7-of-15 from the line, left the door open by missing three free throws in the last 39 seconds.
            Sochan drained a banked 3-pointer, then Akinjo tied it up at 80-80 with 15.8 seconds left when he hit a floater on a drive to the basket and drained the free throw after being fouled by Davis.
            "Baylor's a great team," first-year UNC head coach Hubert Davis said. "They're the defending champions, and they did not want to go home. They stepped up their effort, but we stepped up our effort as well."
            Baylor had all the momentum, outscoring the Tar Heels, 38-13, in the last 10 ½ minutes, but Styles slowed down that train when he buried a corner 3-pointer to open up the overtime period.
            "Styles has made two 3's all year (2-of-14), and he banks that first one home at the end of the shot clock," Drew said. "As a coach, you're like, 'That's not good.' But, these guys don't go away."
            After the Bears tied it up again at 84-84 on a rebound and putback by Sochan, who had his second double-double of the season with 15 points and 11 rebounds, Bacot hit two free throws to give UNC the lead for good.
            Baylor missed its last seven shots from the field and was just 1-of-11 in the overtime period, getting outscored, 13-6.
            "I didn't want to go home," said Davis, who essentially put the game away with 1:18 left, when he hit an off-balance scoop layup and follow free throw to push the Tar Heels' lead to 91-84. "There was no time to be tired. Our mindset was, gather my teammates together and regroup, contain our composure and let's get this win."
            Baylor lost its first neutral site non-conference game since Nov. 8, 2019, ending a string of 16-consecutive wins.
            Akinjo finished with 20 points, five assists, four rebounds and three steals, while Bonner hit two 3-pointers and scored eight points. Manek scored 26 points in the first 30 minutes of the game, with the 6-10 Bacot recording a double-double with 15 points, 16 boards and three blocks while shutting down the Bears' Flo Thamba.
            In a matchup of teams that have combined for 17 national championships, North Carolina will play fourth-seeded UCLA (27-7) in the region semifinals next week in Philadelphia.
            "Our theme was, 'What is impossible with man is possible with God,''' Drew said. "To win back-to-back conference championships with three season-ending injuries, that's phenomenal, along with all the other injuries these guys have overcome. I know Adam will be excited to finally rest his body and get 100% healthy. He hadn't been 100% healthy in six weeks or so. But, it just shows you the toughness the guys have."