Basketball

Baylor Smashes Jackson State 113-78 for 6th straight win

By chris ⋅ December 31, 2008 ⋅  Email This Post ⋅  Print This Post ⋅ Post a comment

This was a case of Baylor completely outgunning and outplaying their competition. It’s good to see that. I have been worried that they had been playing down to their competition as they were wont to do the past couple years. It was nice to see them pour it on early, and keep pouring it on throughout the game.

Good news is that nobody played more than 27 minutes (Tweety Carter), and only 5 players played more than 20 minutes (Rogers, Jerrells, Dugat, and Dunn). Delbert Simpson was the only person not to log double digit minutes, so this was definitely a game that Drew got the bench players some work. Thank goodness!

Everyone that played tonight scored, and not counting Acy’s 0-4 (OUCH) performance at the free throw line, Baylor was perfect at the stripe. Kevin Rogers had a monster game going 10-13 from the field, scoring 21 points and grabbing 5 rebounds. Dugat nearly matched him with 20 points on 7-11 shooting and grabbing 3 rebounds to go with 4 assists and 0 turnovers. Carter had a great game dishing out 6 assists and doing all his damage from beyond the arc going 4-5 from 3pt land and finishing with 12 points.

While the Bears did give up 78 points to this Jackson State team, consider that a team like A&M that’s supposed to be a good defensive team (that’s what we always hear from those guys in B/CS, right?) gave up 78 points to this team, too. They beat Jackson State 96-78. When you have this many offensive possessions, you’re going to tend to give up a higher number of points. Our defensive numbers weren’t really bad, though. We held JSU to 39.4% shooting for the game (37.1% in the first half with the main rotation playing), and out-rebounded them by 10, something we haven’t been strong at this year. We also had 6 blocks on the night, 3 of those courtesy of Quincy Acy (who finished with 6 points and 8 rebounds to go with those blocks).

Why Baylor Won:
Baylor had vastly more talent, played hard and focused and never let up.  Even when the backups and bench players were in there, the pace was pushed and we kept going for the kill.  Good to see and if they can keep it up, it bodes well for conference play.  We’ll need that characteristic to stay away from losing games we shouldn’t lose.

Player of the Game:
Kevin Rogers and Henry Dugat both put up 20 or more points on fantastic shooting.  They combined for 41 points, 8 rebounds, 4 assists and zero turnovers.  They also shot a combined 71%

Who’s Up Next:
South Carolina comes to Waco Friday night and this will be our toughest test since maybe Washington State or Wake Forest.  Last year we had to come back and pull out an 8-point victory on the road.  We’ll have to play well and hard to handle them, and it’d be a great to ring in the new year with closing out the non-conference schedule with only one loss and a top 20 ranking.

Tags: Basketball, Jackson State