LJ Cryer led four players in double figures as No. 4 Baylor trounced visiting Kansas State 74-49 in Waco, Texas, on Tuesday night, easily avoiding a third straight home loss.
Baylor (18-2, 6-2 Big 12) was playing without second-leading scorer James Akinjo (13.2 points per game), who is out with an injured tailbone, but it barely mattered.
Cryer scored 14 points. Jonathan Tchamwa Tchatchoua and Adam Flagler added 13 points each and Kendall Brown had 10. Tchamwa Tchatchoua added 12 rebounds and Brown contributed 11.
Nijel Pack led Kansas State (10-9, 2-6 Big 12) with 13 points. But Pack, who scored a career-high 35 points against Kansas on Saturday to earn co-Big 12 Player of the Week, made 4-of-12 shots. Markquis Nowell had 11 points, all in the second half.
The Wildcats, who shot 10-of-26 from 3-point range in the three-point loss to Kansas, were just 5-of-23 from long range on Tuesday.
Nowell scored all seven points in Kansas State’s 7-3 run to open the third quarter and Baylor’s lead to 14 points early in the second half. The Bears scored the next seven points, however, and eventually extended their lead as high as 29 late in the game.
After spotting Kansas State a 3-0 lead on Ismael Massoud’s 3-pointer, the Bears ripped off a 9-0 run. Their lead reached double figures before the halfway point of the first half, helped by the Wildcats enduring a 1-of-13 stretch on field goals over a span of about nine minutes.
Baylor led by as many as 21 points in the first half before taking a 39-21 lead into the locker room. Flagler led Baylor with nine points at the break, and Cryer had eight points. Tchamwa Tchatchoua had six points and eight rebounds, as the Bears out-rebounded the Wildcats 21-12.
The Wildcats were just 2-of-13 from long range in the first half.
No one from Kansas State had more than five points — or more than one field goal — as the Wildcats hit just 7-of-26 from the field. They had more turnovers (eight) than made field goals in the half.
–Field Level Media
