Baylor
Kansas State
No. 19 MBB Continues Homestand Against Kansas State
1/6/2023 11:12:00 AM | Men's Basketball
KSU's Jerome Tang makes his first trip to Waco after 19 seasons with BU
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BAYLOR BEARS (10-4, 0-2 Big 12) Location: Waco, Texas Conference/Affiliation: Big 12 Head Coach: Scott Drew (Butler, 1993) Roster | Stats | Game Notes (PDF) |
rv/rv Kansas State (13-1, 2-0) vs. 19/16 BAYLOR (10-4, 2-0) Jan. 7, 2022 • 5:00 p.m. CT Waco, Texas • The Ferrell Center (10,284) LIVE STATS: Stat Broadcast WATCH: ESPN+ Talent: Ted Emrich (pxp), King McClure (analyst) LISTEN: Learfield/ ESPN 1660 AM / 92.3 FM in Central Texas and on the Varsity Network App. Talent: John Morris (PBP), Pat Nunley (Analyst) SIRIUS XM: Sirius 83, XM 83, Internet 83 Baylor Social Media:    |
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TCU (13-1, 2-0 Big 12) Location: Manhattan, Kan. Conference/Affiliation: Big 12 Head Coach: Jerome Tang (Charter Oak State College, 2007) Roster | Stats | Game Notes (PDF) |
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By Jerry Hill
Baylor Bear Insider
It always warms Scott Drew's heart when one of the "Baylor Family" comes back in the summer to train beside and help mentor the current players.
Saturday's homecoming will be a little tougher, though, when longtime Baylor assistant coach Jerome Tang brings his Kansas State Wildcats (13-1, 2-0) to the Ferrell Center for a 5 p.m. matchup against the 19th-ranked Bears (10-4, 0-2).
Now in his first season as K-State's head coach, Tang was on Drew's staff from the start and spent 19 years at Baylor, helping the Bears win 397 games, make 13 postseason appearances and win the 2021 national championship.
"All of us put blood, sweat and tears to build this program," said Drew, whose coaching tree also includes North Florida's Matt Driscoll, Grant McCasland at North Texas and Oral Roberts' Paul Mills, "so they're your family for life and you want success for them and their families.
"The tough thing will be competing with him and knowing after the game that either he's going to be in a bad mood or I'm going to be in a bad mood. That part's not fun because you don't like playing family."
Tang admits that "there are going to be emotions" walking into the Ferrell Center, because "there's obviously a strong connection there."
"In my prayers, I can figure out how to separate the emotion so I can be the best version of myself for our team," he said, "because that's the most important thing – the game, our players. That's what I'm really trying to focus on. But you can't ignore the elephant in the room."
Tang's Wildcats are off to their best start in 13 years, opening league play with an 82-76 overtime win at home over 24th-ranked West Virginia and then upsetting No. 6 Texas, 116-103, Tuesday night in Austin.
"I love the group we have right now, and they've really bought in to caring about winning and what it takes to win," Tang said. "Whichever guys' night it is, then let it be that night. When a guy gets hot, you should get him the ball. That's what good players do for each other."
Completely turning over the roster, K-State brought in 10 transfers, including starters Keyontae Johnson (18.4 ppg, 6.9 rebounds), Nae'Qwan Tomlin (11.6 ppg, 5.6 rebounds), Cam Carter (6.9 ppg) and Abayomi Iyiola (4.9 ppg). Markquis Nowell, who transferred from Arkansas-Little Rock last year, is averaging 29.5 points, 9.5 assists and 5.0 steals in conference play.
"They're fun to watch. He has them really playing hard," Drew said. "A lot of people don't know because they had so much turnover, he's brought in so many new guys. Keyontae Johnson was the SEC Preseason Player of the Year (at Florida) a couple of years ago.
"You get three NBA guys that are professional players on your team, you've got a squad. He's done a great job, they play the right way, they play hard. We'll cheer for them the rest of the year, but not tomorrow."
While K-State has reeled off six-straight wins since a 76-64 loss at Butler, Baylor is trying to avoid its first 0-3 start in league play since Drew's debut season in 2003-04. After opening with a 77-62 road loss at Iowa State, the Bears let a 17-point first-half deficit slip away and lost to 17th-ranked TCU, 88-87, on a shot with 4.0 seconds left.
TCU got back in it with 23 fast-break points, consistently getting by Baylor's transition defense, and scored 52 points in the paint.
"Did we have transition defense?" Drew said. "The first thing, we plan on getting back. And second of all, hopefully we do a better job communicating. But film doesn't like, and our effort wasn't good enough to win in transition defense. . . . To be honest, when you play younger guys, sometimes that's an adjustment from high school to college. Especially when you play guys who are in their fourth, fifth, sixth year of college."
Junior guard LJ Cryer (14.7 ppg) said it was a tough film to watch, because "you never want to be pointed out, especially because of effort. When teams are beating you down the floor, it's more of an effort thing."
Adam Flagler, who's averaging 16.2 points and 4.4 assists, said the players had to "look in the mirror" after blowing a four-point lead in the last 42 seconds.
"This is a time that could make or break us," he said, "but we're choosing to allow it to push us forward."
Bouncing back from a rough 5-for-18 shooting night against Iowa State, freshman Keyonte George (16.4 ppg, 4.4 rebounds, 3.6 assists) scored a career-high 27 points in Wednesday's loss to TCU. He was 4-of-7 from outside the arc and 11-of-12 from the line.
Tang said Baylor's trio of George, Flagler and Cryer are "as good of a collection of guards as there are in the country."
"You don't stop a kid like Keyonte George," Tang said, "you just hope to make the shots difficult, and then the percentages will play out. There's never just one guy, you've got to guard five and be able to rotate five against one."
With a chance to win it on the last play of the game, George had a driving layup blocked by the Frogs' Xavier Cork at the rim.
"You look at it, (Mike) Miles hits a really tough 3, (Chuck) O'Bannon hits a real tough jumper, and we have a layup that Cork makes an unbelievable play on," Drew said. "Normally, if you say those three shots, which one are you going to bet on going in, I'm taking the layup. Key made a great move and Cork just made a great, great play."
Saturday's game will be streamed by Big 12 Now on ESPN+, with Ted Emrich and former Baylor standout King McClure calling the action.
STORY LINES
• No. 19/16 Baylor hosts Kansas State and first-year Head Coach Jerome Tang, the 49th meeting in series history.
• Tang was a member of Scott Drew's original staff at Baylor and spent 19 years on staff in Waco.
• Tang won two games as an interim coach at BU during the 2012-2013 season.
• Saturday marks the first time in his career that Scott Drew will square off against a former assistant as a head coach.
• BU leads the all-time series 25-23 with an 11-8 mark in Waco.
• The Bears have won seven-straight in the series, the longest winning streak by either team in the series.
• Prior to Baylor's win streak, KSU won six-straight, which was the longest by either team to that point.
• The Bears are looking to avoid the first 0-3 start to conference play since Drew's first year 2003-2004.
• The Bears had their 13-game home winning streak snapped against TCU, the fourth longest home winning streak in program history.
• The top nine Ferrell-Center winning streaks have all come under Scott Drew and six of the top eight have come in the last seven years.
• Baylor's 42-10 Big 12 record over the last 3 seasons is the 2nd best of any Power-5 team (Kansas).
• BU is 156-91 in Big 12 play in 13 seasons since 2010 after going 59-149 in the league's first 13 seasons.
• The Bears are the third-best offense in the Big 12 (16th best in the nation) according to Ken Pom (113.9 Adj. Efficiency rating), averaging 79.9 points per game.
• BU has won 71-straight when shooting a higher percentage than its opponent (last loss March 2, 2019 at K-State).
• Baylor is 24-8 against AP top 25 teams over the last four seasons, the nation's best mark against ranked teams. 15 of those wins came against top 25 teams away from home.
• Adam Flagler and Keyonte George were named to the Wooden Award Mid-season Top-25. BU is one of three schools with multiple players on the list (Kansas and North Carolina).
• With a career-high 27 points against TCU (1/4), George secured the second-most 20-point games by a BU freshman (5) since Perry Jones III (6).
• Baylor is 45-6 vs. unranked teams over the last three seasons.
• With its 65th consecutive week in the AP Top 25, Baylor has the nations second-longest streak (Gonzaga 123).
• BU held NWST to 48 points and improved to 44-1 under Drew when holding an opponent under 50 points (12/20).
• The Bears spent a school record 54-straight weeks top-10 ranked in the AP Poll (12/19/19 -12/5/22).
• Adam Flagler, Keyonte George and L.J. Cryer are all in the top-10 in the Big 12 in points per game, one of two schools to have multiple players and the only one to have three in the top-10.
• George scored a game-high 19 points to lift BU to a win over Washington St., its seventh-straight win over a Pac-12 foe (12/18).
• BU held the nation's best offense in Gonzaga, to a season-low 63 points in a 64-63 win in the inaugural Peacock Classic (12/2).
• Cryer set career highs in points (28), field goals (10), rebounds (4) and minutes (35) against No. 8 UCLA (11/20).
• Cryer's 23.5 points per game in Las Vegas earned his first-career Big 12 Player of the Week Award.
