Ja’Kobe Walter poured in 26 points as No. 10 Baylor bounced back from a pair of neutral court games against marquee teams with a dominating 107-48 win over Mississippi Valley State on Friday in Waco, Texas.
The Bears (10-2) returned home after losses to Michigan State and Duke and put their stamp on Friday’s game with an overwhelming start, hitting six 3-pointers while building a 20-0 lead over the first six minutes. Jayden Nunn had three of those 3-pointers in the opening run and Walter had two. The 20-point run was Baylor’s longest of the season.
That early run made the rest of the game just a matter of the Bears’ margin of victory. Nunn and Langston Love totaled 15 points each and Jonathan Tchamwa Tchatchoua tallied a season-high 10 points for Baylor, which shot 67.2 percent from the floor and made 19 3-pointers — one off the program’s all-time record.
Reginald Reynolds led the Delta Devils (0-12) with 14 points while Rayquan Brown had 13.
Mississippi Valley State finally got on the board with a free throw by Brown at the 13:56 mark of the first half and didn’t score from the floor until Brown’s breakaway dunk with 12:37 to play in the half.
Another basket by Brown made it a 24-5 deficit with 11:54 remaining, but that was quickly answered by the Bears’ 13-point run, culminated by another Walter 3-pointer as Baylor’s advantage was 37-5.
The Bears built as much as a 35-point lead in the half before Mississippi Valley State scored the final five points to make it 50-20 at the break.
Walter had 14 points to lead all scorers while Nunn added 12, all on 3-pointers. The Bears made 11 shots from beyond the arc before halftime.
Brown’s seven points paced the Delta Devils in the half in which they shot 30.4 percent from the floor and committed 12 turnovers.
It was the final game for the Bears’ men’s team in venerable Ferrell Center, the gold-domed arena that’s been the home for Baylor basketball since 1988. The Bears finished with a 401-169 in the facility over 35-plus years. Baylor next moves into the new Paul and Alejandra Foster Pavilion, with the first game Jan. 2 against Cornell.
–Field Level Media
