Baylor MBB Protects Its House, Downs Texas 76-71

The phrase "any win is a good win" has never been more true than after the abortion of a basketball game we just witnessed. I hope for all of our sakes and that of the great game of basketball that the video of that travesty will be purged completely from the face of the Earth. Early on both teams looked like they were playing with a ball nobody really wanted to touch longer than they had to and the game ended with 47 fouls called. That's more than one per minute. Two players fouled out (Clint Chapman and Jonathan Holmes for Texas) and four more ended the game with four fouls. If we would have gone to overtime, I have no idea what would have happened.

The story of the game for Texas was J'Covan Brown, who seems to have that Madden CPU gear of "You are NOT going to beat me today" in him. His only problem was that his freshman running mate Myck Kabongo missed 4 FTs (he took 8) and Texas as a whole shot 7-23 from 3. At one point they were 1-12. The worst offender by far was Julien Lewis, who missed all five 3s he took and made his only three shots from inside the arc.

Still, there are things to celebrate for Baylor and if you look at the box score below, it's obvious who I am going to talk about.

Baylor MVP: Perry Jones III. I hoped before the game that he could build on his performance against OU and he did not disappoint. He showed his entire arsenal today in front of what I assume was quite a few NBA scouts, and he absolutely dominated the game for stretches, particularly early. He finished with 22 points on 7-12 shooting and 14 rebounds. The best part was that he shot 11 FTs in the game and made 8 of them. I don't know for sure, but I think that is a record for him.

CO-MVP: Quincy Miller, the freshman phenom. Miller's game largely shadowed PJ3, but in the first half, he was actually Baylor's best offensive player. He scored 6 points in a row for Baylor and 8 of 10 at one point and assertedd himself on the glass better than we've seen all season. The box shows he only had 6 rebounds, but he also had (to my recollection) several tips to guards that don't appear in the stats.

My favorite stat: Team rebounding: Baylor 37, Texas 24. Baylor dominated the boards early and often like they haven't in the last few games. It was awesome to see.

Least favorite stat: Team turnovers: Baylor 19, Texas 9. The worst offenders was recently-minted starter Pierre Jackson, who had 6. Several of those were completely inexplicable, but credit should also go to Texas's guards, particularly Julien Lewis, for their 7 steals as a unit.

Biggest surprise of the game: The attendance of 5* 2013 QB recruit Tyrone Swoopes. I know he's supposed to come to Baylor's JR Day tomorrow, but is he staying the night in Waco tonight? I don't think we're allowed to give tickets to JR recruits yet, so that means he came on his own. Nice.

Overall it was a good home win against a team that needed to beat us. Over 10,000 Baylor fans showed up today and proudly donned those god-awful neon green shirts. Sic 'em, Bears!

(Other thoughts and box score after the jump).

• Baylor starters Acy, Jones, Heslip, Jackson, and Miller logged 31, 35, 27, 36, and 34 minutes, respectively. Anthony Jones played 11 minutes and A.J. Walton 12. Our rotation has definitely shortened.
• Quincy Acy was the unsung hero of the game with a double-double (10 points, 10 rebounds). I hope Ricardo Gathers realizes how much we need that kind of player and how good he could be for us.
• Anthony Jones took one shot, made it, and then checked out for the rest of the game. I always expected more from him.
• Heslip was uncharacteristically bad from 3 today (1-5), and I think that is a testament to how good Texas's guards are on D.
• We fouled 3-point shooters twice in the act of shooting. That's twice too many.