By Jackson Posey | Sports Writer
After years of dominance, Baylor men’s basketball is looking to avoid losing a season sweep to TCU for the first time since 2017-18.
The Bears entered that season on an 11-game winning streak in the series. In the eight years since, they’re 7-7, including an 0-2 mark at the Foster Pavilion.
“I thought down the stretch, they were playing free and we were playing not to lose,” Baylor head coach Scott Drew said after the teams’ first matchup this season, a 74-71 Horned Frog victory in Waco. “These are games where when you can separate, you’ve got to separate, and if you don’t, this is what happens.”
It took an overtime victory over West Virginia for Baylor to avoid a five-game losing streak after losing starting center Josh Ojianwuna to a season-ending knee injury. The Bears have struggled in his absence, though they may have found a solution in an aggressive, offensive rebound-centric approach.
Head coach Scott Drew said that offensive rebounding has “most definitely” been an increased point of emphasis since Ojianwuna went down. It shows. The Bears outworked Oklahoma State on the offensive glass, 11-6, in their first regulation win since the injury.
Getting to the line has also found deeper importance for a team newly reliant on putting opposing big men in foul trouble. That strategy, though, has proven much more effective at Foster Pavilion. In six games since the injury, Baylor is shooting 27 free throws per game at home compared to 12.7 per game on the road.
In the past six games (post-Ojianwuna injury), Baylor's home/road free throw splits have been wild.
Home: 27 FTA/gm (+5.7 than opponents)
Road: 12.7 FTA/gm (-5.7 than opponents)Small sample size, but the reason behind 81 FTA vs 38 FTA is definitely worth exploring. #SicEm
— Jackson Posey, basketball school attender ✞ (@ByJacksonPosey) March 2, 2025
TCU, meanwhile, has lost two of three following their hottest stretch of the season. Similarly to the Bears, the Horned Frogs bounced back Saturday with a win over a bottom-four Big 12 team (UCF) after a series of disappointing losses on the road against Cincinnati and West Virginia.
In TCU’s case, though, those two losses came by a combined 30 points. Most critically, the Horned Frogs struggle shooting: the team is shooting 25% from beyond the arc in 12 games since beating Baylor on Jan. 19.
The Horned Frogs are the No. 81 scoring defense in the nation — certainly above average, but not enough to compensate for a 316th-ranked offense, which manages just 68.3 points per game. That’s second-worst in the Big 12, 0.1 points ahead of last-place West Virginia.
But Jamie Dixon’s team hangs its hat on defense and does so with the best of ‘em. KenPom has TCU pegged as the No. 32 defense in the country, boosted by the contributions of junior center Ernest Udeh Jr, a Kansas transfer averaging 2.7 “stocks” (steals + blocks) per game.
The Bears are favored to win — they have a 65.8% chance, per ESPN — but they’ll have to score more efficiently to have a chance in Schollmaier Arena.
“Like every team in the Big 12, they’re better at home than they are on the road,” Drew said. “So, we got our work cut out for us.”
Tipoff is scheduled for 7 p.m. Tuesday at Schollmaier Arena in Fort Worth. The game will be broadcast on ESPN+.
