By Jerry Hill
Baylor Bear Insider
 
WACO, Texas – Not that he minded the company, but the last place Scott Drew wanted to be Saturday night was sitting in the locker room with Baylor VP and Director of Athletics Mack Rhoades for the last 11-plus minutes of the 18^th-ranked Bears' game against No. 12 Iowa State.
 
Ejected for the first time in his coaching career, after picking up a second technical with 11:20 left, Drew could only watch the game on television in the Foster Pavilion locker room as Baylor had another – shocker – down-to-the-wire game that had all the drama of a soap opera.
 
After the visiting Cyclones went on a 20-0 run that included 10 free throws, Baylor answered with a 14-4 run of its own and pulled out a hold-your-breath 70-68 victory when VCU transfer Jayden Nunn went the length of the court and hit a bucket through contact with 2.0 seconds left.
 
"What's crazy is, we work on that end-of-the-game situation every day in practice," said Nunn, who missed three free throws in the last 20 seconds that would have pretty much iced the game. "And I'm always the one getting downhill and scoring. When we were doing it, I'm like, 'It's just like practice. I do this every day in practice.' The coaches always tell me, 'Just go.'''
 
Oh, but this one was far from over.
 
When Nunn missed the and-one free throw, Tre King got the rebound and the Cyclones got off a desperation shot, but the refs ruled the clock had started early and put 1.2 ticks up on the board. That was enough time to set up a well-executed out-of-bounds play, with Milan Momcilovic draining a 3-pointer from about 30 feet that would have given the Bears another gut-punch loss.
 
This time, the call went the way of Baylor (16-5, 5-3), as the replay review showed that the ball was still in Momcilovic's hands when the clock went to 0.0. It was that close.
 
"I thought we had time. Obviously, it's a bang-bang play," said Iowa State coach T.J. Otzelberger, whose team fell to 16-5 overall and tied for second in the Big 12 with Baylor at 5-3, a half-game behind No. 8 Kansas (18-4, 6-3). "You don't know if the clock started at the right time or whatever, but it seemed like everything lined up and we were just a tenth of a second, or whatever it was, late."
 
That was the difference in winning and losing – one-tenth of a second, maybe less.
 
"This feels great. It's the best feeling in the world," said Nunn, who scored 16 points, hitting 2-of-3 from outside the arc but only 6-of-10 from the line. "I just want to thank God for just putting me in this position and giving me this opportunity."
 
Nothing in the first 20 minutes gave any indication that this one would go down to the wire, or even be close.
 
Shooting a sizzling 63.6% from 3-point range (7-of-11), the Bears led by as many as 15 and were up 40-28 at the break, even when Iowa State's Keshon Gilbert banked in a 3-point shot at the buzzer.
 
"I joked out there, but we're changing whoever put the backboards in," Drew said of his postgame radio interview. "Everybody we play uses them. We don't get any banked-in half-courts, 3-pointers, any other thing. So, we'll fix that problem."
 
Baylor still had a double-digit lead before Drew picked up his second technical with 11:20 left in the game. Coupled with a foul on Caleb Lohner, the Cyclones made four-straight free throws to pull within six, 54-48.
 
"You pour so much into it," Drew said, "and if you're the reason you lose, there's no worse feeling. And I thank  God he didn't make me feel that tonight, because I know if we'd have lost and those technical . . . those points, they add up. I've got to do better. We'll send in the tape and see if the officials have to do better. And then, go from there."
 
With the Bears going almost six minutes without a point, Iowa State took its first lead since the midway point of the first half, 55-54, on a putback by Momcilovic. Jalen Bridges finally ended the Cyclones' 20-0 run when RayJ Dennis found him open for a corner 3-pointer that made it a 61-57 game with 7 ½ minutes left.
 
"We were just trying to come up with ways to stop the bleeding," said Bridges, who hit 4-of-5 from distance and finished with 14 points, four rebounds, three steals and two assists.
 
"That's something that's great about this team, guys like RayJ and (Jonathan Tchamwa Tchatchoua) – leading in the huddle after Coach Drew got kicked out. But that's what we do. Today is just a testament to how much work we've put in."
 
Dennis knocked down a 3-pointer to make it a two-point game, and the Bears missed the front end of back-to-back one-and-ones that would have tied it up. Going back on top with a 7-0 run, Baylor took a 68-64 lead on four-straight free throws and another trey by Dennis, who finished with a team-high 18 points.
 
Sandwiched in the middle of that stretch was a defensive stop by the Bears that included freshman 7-footer Yves Missi swatting away a shot by Robert Jones.
 
"It was a big stop," Nunn said, "and I feel it gave us momentum on the offensive end as well. Getting stops like that always help ln the offensive end because defense leads to offense."
 
Iowa State had little to show for Baylor turning it over three times in a span of 70 seconds, but the Cyclones tied it up at 68-68 on a floater by Tamin Lipsey after Nunn missed two free throws with 19.7 seconds left.
 
"I was, for sure, mad," Nunn said, "because I had just come in before the game and made 40 (free throws) in a row. I was mad, but I just tried to not let it get to my head. Just tried to look at it (like) the next play. Just move on to the next play and don't think about the last one."
 
And ultimately, Nunn made the play that counted.
 
"Jayden is really good at getting to the rim," Drew said. "The only thing Mack (Rhoades) and I wanted him to do is get there quicker."
 
Rhoades had Drew's back after the game, saying the three-man crew of referees were "an embarrassment to the league." On top of the three techs called on Baylor's bench, there was a 10-2 foul differential at one point and the Cyclones shot 14 more free throws than the Bears in the second half (26-12).
 
"Scott said it, we have the best basketball league in the country," Rhoades said in a postgame session with the media. "The officiating did not match that, period, end of story. We have some great officials, but this particular crew tonight did not match the level of this game, and that shouldn't happen in this league. And I'm going to fight for our program, I'm going to fight for our school, I'm going to fight for our coaches and I'm going to fight for our student-athletes."
 
Gilbert led Iowa State with 24 points, hitting 5-of-6 from 3-point range, while Curtis Jones and Momcilovic had 11 and 10 points, respectively.
 
Continuing a two-game home stand, Baylor will face 15th-ranked Texas Tech (16-5, 5-3) at 8 p.m. Tuesday at Foster Pavilion. The Red Raiders, coached by former Baylor assistant Grant McCasland, have dropped their last two games.