By Greg DeVries
Sports Writer
The Baylor Bears lost their fifth game of the season at the hands of the Kansas State Wildcats by a score of 57-56 at the Ferrell Center on Saturday. This loss is their third in four games.
Senior Quincy Acy led the Bears in scoring with 14 points. Freshman Quincy Miller recorded a double-double with 12 points and 11 rebounds. Sophomore Brady Heslip added 13 points on 50 percent shooting.
“We’ve had some great games with K-State the last couple of years. This was just like the last one up at their place. The difference is we ended up on the losing end,” head coach Scott Drew said after the game.
Wildcat Freshman Angel Rodriguez finished with 15 points and six assists. This was a big improvement over his previous performance against Kansas where he shot 0-8 from the field and had seven turnovers. Junior Rodney McGruder also finished with 15 points.
“We’ve been in the same situation 5 times in conference play and we’ve come on the short end all five times,” Kansas State head coach Frank Martin said. “The thing I was the proudest of is that even though we missed some shots coming down the stretch there, outside of the Pierre Jackson 3, our defense was rock solid.”
With time winding down in the second half, Pierre Jackson drove the lane with the Bears down by one. He dumped the ball off to Quincy Miller in the post, but Miller was unable to finish over the tough Kansas State defense.
“I like any of our players. I have faith in all of my teammates to make the final shot,” Heslip said. “I’ll take any of them any day to shoot that shot.”
Baylor started each half with energy. They managed to score with ease, but Kansas State recovered each time to tie or take the lead. The Wildcats finished the first half on a 19-8 run.
“That’s been something we’ve needed to work on all season. We get big leads and then we let teams back in, so we just have to get better with that,” Acy said.
Losing the turnover battle also hurt the Bears. In the previous meeting with Kansas State, the Wildcats turned the ball over 20 times to Baylor’s 18. Early pressure by Baylor forced Kansas State to turn the ball over 7 times in the first 9 minutes. The Wildcats were able to make adjustments and finish the game with 13 turnovers. The Bears finished with 18.
“18 turnovers is by far too many, and that really hurt us,” Drew said.
Kansas State scored 18 points off of Baylor turnovers.
The Bears will travel to Austin on Monday to take on the Texas Longhorns. Tipoff is scheduled for 8:00 p.m. at the Frank Irwin Center.
