By Michael Haag | Sports Editor, Braden Murray | LTVN Sports Director
Former walk-on and senior forward Austin Sacks proved why he deserved the scholarship he was given on Saturday.
Sacks drilled an isolated 3-pointer with 13 seconds left to cap off No. 12 Baylor men’s basketball’s 79-62 win over No. 25 Oklahoma on Tuesday night in the Foster Pavilion.
After checking in with just 30 seconds remaining, Sacks’ shot made him the Bears’ (18-6, 7-4 Big 12) leading scorer off the bench for the first time in his career.
“Until this year, he hadn’t scored,” Baylor head coach Scott Drew said. “And all of a sudden, it’s like the dam broke and he’s on fire. It’s funny, he goes in and I have four players on the court, calling out what play to run for him.
“And obviously, the iso was the best one.”
That’s a scholarship player right there 🎯#SicEm | #CultureofJOY pic.twitter.com/57uNwveHkC
— Baylor Men’s Basketball (@BaylorMBB) February 14, 2024
The 17-point win marked Baylor’s first double-digit win in Big 12 play so far. The Bears have also now won four of the last five games following a three-game skid.
Junior guard Jayden Nunn put up a season-high 27 points on 8-of-12 shooting from the floor and 6-of-9 shooting from beyond the arc. Nunn is averaging 16.3 points per game over the last four games. By comparison, he averaged 9.3 points per outing prior to that.
“You just see all the behind-the-scenes work that he’s been putting in lately, just trying to be more consistent knocking down shots,” freshman guard Ja’Kobe Walter said of Nunn. “Every day, he’s getting those shots.
“And just today, I think you can see it on the court. We just all smile every time he hit a bucket because you just know, like, that’s what Jayden has been doing. And now that’s his identity.”
All five starters scored in double figures for the Bears, which is the first time that’s happened since Feb. 12, 2022, against Texas. Baylor also limited itself to five turnovers, matching a season-low.
The Bears, ironically, were coming off a three-point loss at then-No. 4 Kansas, a game in which they tied a season-high with 21 turnovers.
“I think 16 [assists] and five [turnovers] is a lot more true to what we’ve been, taking care of the basketball, than the 21 [turnovers] we had up at Kansas,” Drew said. “So hopefully, we left the turnover issue up there.”
The Sooners (18-7, 6-6 Big 12) tied the game at 20-20 with 6:48 left in the first half, but Baylor outscored Oklahoma 20-7 to take a 13-point lead into the break. Nunn hit a trio of threes in that stretch as part of his 18 first-half points.
Nunn shouted out his teammates for giving him the ball while he was hot.
“They just really show that they trust me and they’re looking to get me open, and really showing that they’re not selfish,” Nunn said. “But the defense that [the Sooners] were in, they were just trying to not let me shoot again. But my team is good enough to just create on their own as well.”
Oklahoma couldn’t trim its deficit to any lower than 12 the rest of the way, and Baylor clinched its 11-straight regular season win over the Sooners. The Bears have now won 13 of the last 15 overall matchups.
OU head coach Porter Moser said Baylor’s 1-3-1 zone made it tough for the Sooners’ offense to operate. Moser said the Bears’ length and ability to talk on defense made it hard for his offense score.
“They played a lot of it and they played hard,” Moser said. “I think that’s the key to a zone too, is you’re going to communicate and play hard. I thought they communicated and played really hard in the zone as well. That’s what stands out.”
Moser added that all five of Baylor’s starters were on fire, something Nunn said the Bears can exploit moving forward.
“It just shows that we’re unstoppable,” Nunn said. “[If] you stop me, you have to stop the other four. I feel like we’re unstoppable and I feel like we have a lot of players to cover. We have a bright future ahead of us when we’re all scoring.”
The Bears now head to Morgantown, W.Va., for a bout with West Virginia, which will tip off at 5 p.m. on Saturday in the WVU Coliseum. The contest will be broadcast on ESPN2.
