No. 9 Baylor survives late comeback attempt to upset No. 8 Mississippi State 75-72

By Jackson Posey | Sports Writer

For the sixth straight NCAA Tournament, Baylor dances on. The No. 9-ranked Bears knocked off No. 8 Mississippi State 75-72 Friday afternoon at the Lenovo Center in Raleigh, N.C., to extend a first-round winning streak that began in 2019.

Freshman point guard Robert O. Wright III starred for Baylor, dropping 19 points (the fourth-highest mark of his career) on 8-for-15 shooting. The undersized Bears faced plenty of questions in the face of a relatively towering opponent, but put them to rest with a dominant offensive rebounding performance: 15 to 7, which paired nicely with a 14-8 turnover margin.

Baylor opened the game with an aggressive full-court press, forcing the ball out of star point guard Josh Hubbard’s hands early. Hubbard, the gravitational center of head coach Chris Jans’ movement offense, scored 14 first-half points on 6-of-10 shooting.

Hubbard was the lifeblood of Jans’ offense.

Even as the Bears missed their first four 3-pointers, they built upon savvy playmaking to build a 10-7 lead. Baylor is shorter than Mississippi State in the aggregate but found consistent paint touches when it mattered. Jalen Celestine lobbed a backside pass to Langston Love in the paint, where the guard converted an easy post isolation on the 5-foot-10 Hubbard. Two minutes later, Norchad Omier got the Bears back on the board with an and-1 reverse-layup.

The first half swung like the tense pendulum of an old grandfather clock. Seven lead changes and six ties littered the first sixteen minutes as time ticked away. By halftime, Baylor built a game-high 37-32 lead on the strength of nearly every margin stat. Turnovers, assists, rebounds, offensive rebounds, second-chance points, points in the paint, fastbreak points — all of the indicators favored the Bears.

The one outlier was shooting percentage. Mississippi State, the nation’s No. 314-ranked 3-point shooting team, led from beyond the arc (31.3% to 25.0%) and overall (46.2% to 39.4%) on seven fewer shots.

The Bears held firm in the second half behind Wright’s star performance. While leading scorers Omier and VJ Edgecombe struggled (the pair combined to shoot 7-for-21 from the field), the freshman point guard scored 19 points, three rebounds and two assists, the first time he’s achieved that stat line in regulation.

Baylor’s lead hovered between six and 10 points for nearly the entire second half — until, just inside the eight-minute mark, Claudell Harris Jr and Riley Kugel hit back-to-back 3-pointers to cut it down to five. Celestine responded with his first triple of the game, which Kugel eventually answered.

Cameron Matthews quickly stripped Love, setting up Hubbard for a potentially game-changing 3-pointer on the other end. But the Second Team All-SEC honoree missed, leaving the margin at five. Wright showed off some fancy footwork in the lane to take a 67-60 lead ahead of the under-four timeout.

Harris found himself all alone on the run for his easiest layup of the night, then dove all-out on the full-court press to force a loose ball — and, ultimately, a 10-second violation. However, the Bulldogs couldn’t capitalize as Edgecombe reached in for a highlight-reel rejection of 6-foot-10 forward KeShawn Murphy.

Momentum, though, was finally mounting for the Bulldogs. Harris ripped Wright, then assisted Hubbard on a 26-footer that barely twitched the net. Two-point ballgame. One possession later, Harris drew a 3-point foul on Celestine and knocked down all three shots. The lead, once in double figures, was down to one.

With eighty seconds to play, Baylor clung to its 71-70 lead. The Bulldogs were on an 8-2 run and had only allowed one field goal, a scramble drill layup off a long offensive rebound, in the previous 2 1/2 minutes.

Then came Edgecombe.

The projected top-5 pick took a top-of-the-key handoff from Omier into the open paint, flying into space for an and-one layup. Reviews, however, judged the foul to be on the drive, sending Baylor to another halfcourt set.

Again, Edgecombe drew a foul, this time on an attempted steal. It was Wright who finished the streak, finally taking the Bears into the bonus on the third foul of the possession, which took 36 seconds. He hit both to bump the lead to 73-70.

Murphy careened a hook shot into the basket with 29.5 seconds to play. Mississippi State boasts four players as tall or taller than Baylor’s tallest starter, the 6-foot-7 Omier: Murphy, Matthews, RJ Melendez and Michael Nwoko. Expected to play a critical role, the quartet scored just 20 points on 6-for-14 shooting.

Baylor ran 15 seconds off the clock before Mississippi State cornered Wright and forced a five-second call. The possession arrow favored the Bears. Five more seconds ran off before the Bulldogs fouled Edgecombe, who converted both halves of the one-and-one to take a three-point lead.

Harris missed the barn on a 28-footer, which fell out of bounds just before time expired. A missed free throw and ill-fated full-court shot later, Baylor secured a 75-72 victory to advance to the second round for the sixth consecutive NCAA Tournament.

The Bears will continue their March Madness run against No. 1 seed Duke at a to-be-determined time Sunday at the Lenovo Center in Raleigh, N.C.