Baylor-Oregon: Three Thoughts on Baylor’s Win

Baylor knocked off Oregon 57-47. Here are three thoughts on the Bears’ win.

1) The defense played very well: Baylor had a few stupid mistakes. Jared Butler can’t help off a driving shooter to leave Payton Pritchard, and the Bears didn’t rotate quite fast enough when they were tagging the roller (having a defender away from the ball crash down to hit the roll man in the pick-and-roll).

Baylor did a nice job limiting Oregon though. The Ducks went 11 minutes without a field goal in the first half. Tristan Clark was a monster near the hoop, and Mark Vital bodied players. Pritchard hit some ridiculous threes to key Oregon’s second half run, but the Ducks scored just .76 points per posssession (PPP), which is well below the nation’s worst offense (.86).

2) Baylor’s shooting remains a massive issue: The Bears went 4-of-15 from three and 11-of-18 on free throws. Only King McClure and Makai Mason made threes. This team can’t beat good Big 12 teams shooting like that. We keep hoping the shooting will improve, but we’re 11 games into the season and things haven’t improved.

3) Get the ball to Tristan Clark: He only had 10 shots, but Baylor seems to have embraced the philosophy. He’s easily Baylor’s best player. Every time he takes a shot Baylor’s in a much better spot than they’d be otherwise. Embrace the philosophy: