
No. 20 MBB Pulls Away From Gardner-Webb, 77-62
11/12/2023 6:39:00 PM | Men's Basketball
Five players finish with double-figure points
By Jerry Hill
Baylor Bear Insider
WACO, Texas – Scott Drew was a freshman at Butler University the last time the Baylor men's basketball team didn't make at least one 3-pointer in a game.
But that amazing streak of 1,032 consecutive games – since going 0-for-8 in a Southwest Conference matchup against Texas Tech on Feb. 21, 1990 – came to an end on Sunday
Playing their third game in six days, the 20th-ranked Bears (3-0) went 0-for-9 from outside the arc and struggled to put away a pesky Gardner-Webb team until late in the second half, pulling away for a 77-62 victory before a Ferrell Center crowd of 8,037.
"We were just talking about that in the locker room. It surprised all of us," said freshman Ja'Kobe Walter, who scored a team-high 14 points but went 0-for-4 from 3-point range. "We're a great shooting team, and we're just going to get back in the lab, get some shots up. I don't think it'll happen again, but we just had that mindset (of) 'We've just got to get stops.' When you don't hit shots, you've got to get stops on the defensive end. And that's what we did."
Baylor took only two 3-point attempts in the second half and none in the last 6 ½ minutes, even with the crowd chanting for it down the stretch. Drew said you "get used to tuning it out" in road games when "you don't want to hear what people are saying."
"My wife says that's a problem at home," Drew said.
With both teams playing their third game of the week – Gardner-Webb lost 86-68 at 14th-ranked Arkansas Friday night – they combined to go just 2-for-26 from outside the arc. The Runnin' Bulldogs (1-2) shot 1-of-10 in the second half and 2-of-17 for the game.
"We knew everybody's got tired legs . . . meaning us," Drew said. "And they had just played Arkansas, so they had tired legs. We could have shot 15 more and maybe made two or three of them. But this team really did a great job getting to the paint and getting to the free throw lane."
That started three seconds into the game, when freshman 7-footer Yves Missi threw down a dunk off an alley-oop pass from point guard RayJ Dennis.
"That's something we actually worked on this morning," Missi said. "Just have to thank all my teammates and thanks to Coach."
Making his first start, Missi had four first-half dunks and finished with 11 points, eight rebounds and five blocks in 26 minutes. The Bears had three other players in double figures, with Jayden Nunn scoring 12, Langston Love 11 and Josh Ojianwuna with 10 points and eight boards.
"He gives you so many options at the rim," Drew said of Missi. "Not many people can go up and catch balls where he catches them."
Sixth-year grad student Jonathan Tchamwa Tchatchoua didn't play on Sunday after starting the first two games, but "has taken over that kind of player-coach mentality," Drew said, helping the two young big men.
"Because he competes so hard, it makes those guys get better," Drew said of Missi and Ojianwuna, "because if they don't, they get embarrassed. The second thing is he does a great job of coaching them, pointing out things that they can do. He's been like a big brother to them, allowed them to have the growth that they've had."
In a back-and-forth first half that included 12 lead changes, Gardner-Webb took its biggest lead, 32-29, on back-to-back layups by Isaiah Richards and Darryl Simmons II. But the Bears closed the half on an 11-2 run, including three free throws by Walter with 0.7 seconds left, to take a 40-34 lead into the locker room.
Five minutes into the second half, the Runnin' Bulldogs went back on top, 48-45, with a 10-3 run that was capped by a DQ Richardson fast-break layup. But the Bears took the lead for good with 13 minutes to play when a Missi block on the defensive end led to a Dennis layup.
A three-point play by Walter completed a 12-2 run and stretched Baylor's lead to 57-50 with 9:02 left, and then Ojianwuna had an offensive rebound and putback to push the Bears' lead to double digits for the first time, 63-53.
"There are some teams you can play that aren't very disciplined, aren't very well-coached and you can win by 40," Drew said. "And it teaches you that you can take some bad shots. . . . This team, if you take a bad shot, they make you pay. This game translated to what you see, more similar to the Big 12, minus obviously the size. Each possession does matter. And you can't just waste it, or you're going to pay for it on the other end."
Another streak ended on Sunday, with Dennis failing to score in double figures for the first time in 52 games, dating back to the last 14 games of the 2021-22 season at Toledo. The fifth-year senior was 4-for-12 from the floor and finished with nine points, four rebounds and four of the Bears' seven assists.
Completing a three-game homestand and a stretch of four games in eight days, the Bears will host Kansas City (2-0) at 9 p.m. Tuesday in the back end of a doubleheader at the Ferrell Center. The 19th-ranked Baylor women (1-0) host No. 5 Utah (2-0) in the early game at 6:30.