By Jackson Posey | Sports Writer
Michael Crichton’s sci-fi thriller “Jurassic Park tells the story of an eccentric mathematician, Dr. Ian Malcolm, who appears to die in the wake of a dinosaur attack — until, sometime before the book’s sequel, he’s apparently brought back to life. It was an impossible comeback, one which didn’t quite make sense but made for a better story.
Baylor men’s basketball followed a similar script at Foster Pavilion on Saturday. The Bears fell behind by 21 points against No. 11 Kansas, lost star freshman VJ Edgecombe to an injury — and somehow, miraculously, came back to life, securing an 81-70 victory in a thriller for the ages.
“Ahhhh!” Baylor head coach Scott Drew screamed into the stadium microphone after the game. “You guys (the fans) were awesome! You guys were awesome! Thank you very much!”
The Bears won the second half 60-30 after losing the first half by 19. The 21-point comeback marked the largest deficit Kansas has ever faced in a loss. Jayhawks head coach Bill Self, deadpanning, blamed the complementary citrus.
“I honestly believe that the oranges that we ate at halftime that Baylor provided was probably the reason we sucked [in the second half],” Self said. “It was the fruit. You thought that was a joke, but no, it was really the fruit.”
Both teams started slow, as the rim — apparently unaware the game had started — remained closed. They shot a combined 3-for-10 with four turnovers in the game’s first four minutes.
Meanwhile, as the other eight players were struggling to create separation, Edgecombe went blow-for-blow with Kansas’ consensus All-American big man, Hunter Dickinson. Before anyone else’s shots fell, they rolled, scoring 12 of the game’s first 13 points.
“When VJ and Rob (Wright) and (Jayden) Nunn are in the game together, they get downhill about as well as any three guards we’ve played, with individual moves,” Self said. “They’re fast, they can lift you, get their shoulders past you to get downhill.”
Dickinson hit a jump shot at 13:50 to take a 10-9 lead, then subbed out of the game. He’d been dominant; the rest of Kansas’ roster had two points on 1-for-3 shooting. But in the three minutes he sat, the Jayhawks blazed to a 13-1 run.
That run eventually stretched to 22-3 as Kansas extended its lead to 30-12. Edgecombe hit a 3-pointer to stop some of the bleeding, but it was too little, too late. With a 38-17 deficit a minute before halftime, Edgecombe had 12 points on 4-of-6 shooting; the rest of the Bears were 2-of-18 for five points and 11 turnovers.
“We were all embarrassed,” Drew said of the mood in the locker room at halftime. “We didn’t want that feeling for the second half.”
Down 40-21, the Bears flipped a switch. Big man Norchad Omier, who’d been held to one point and three turnovers in the first half, recorded five points and three rebounds in the first 90 seconds alone. Baylor scored nine straight before the Jayhawks could blink.
“We didn’t guard anybody in the second half,” Self said.
Graduate forward Jalen Celestine scored his first points of the night, draining back-to-back 3-pointers to cut the lead to 44-38. Kansas’ Dajuan Harris Jr, a game-time decision, missed back-to-back free throws to guarantee the home crowd free cupcakes. Edgecombe scored again. Led by Robert O. Wright III, who scored 20 second-half points, the Bears cut the lead down to four.
Then Edgecombe went down.
The star freshman, in the midst of his hottest streak of the season, was helped off the court by an assistant coach, struggling to put weight on his left leg. The injury left the Bears with just six healthy rotation players.
In most circumstances, that would be a drive-killer — but Wright didn’t care about “most circumstances.” The freshman point guard kept drawing contact in the paint and kept hitting his free throws. As a team, Baylor finished 25-of-28 from the line. In less than seven minutes, Baylor had turned a 19-point halftime deficit into a one-point lead.
“We really just wanted to do whatever to take the win,” Wright said. “When he went down, we just knew we had to fight to the end.”
Baylor only led for 28 seconds before the comeback’s wheels started falling off. Dickinson reclaimed the offensive boards, giving Jayhawk shooters ample time to find their bearings again. Once Omier picked up his fourth foul, the train only accelerated: the Bears allowed a 13-2 run in less than four minutes of game time.
Ever since the turn of the calendar, Wright has been this team’s Mariano Rivera, a dominant closer whose cutter (or, in Wright’s case, transition dribble-drive penetration) is virtually unstoppable. His craft around the rim gave the Bears enough juice to mount another comeback. In a three-minute span, he scored or assisted on 12 points, including a kickout to Celestine for the go-ahead 3-pointer.
For the second time in a half, Baylor was back from the dead — this time, with a 66-63 lead they’d never relinquish.
“If you don’t believe in miracles, I think that second half [is evidence],” Drew said.
Wright kept pushing the pace on offense. So did junior center Josh Ojianwuna, who locked up Dickinson down the stretch and incited his fifth foul on an over-the-back call. The preseason Big 12 Player of the Year failed to score in the final 10 minutes of the game. The Jayhawks lost the final six minutes, 26-7.
The win moves the Bears to 6-4 in Big 12 play. The next two weeks won’t get much easier, as Baylor prepares for road tests against No. 22 Texas Tech on Tuesday and No. 6 Houston the following Monday.
