No. 10 Baylor Rides Balanced Offense to Upset of No. 5 Kansas in Big 12 Action

No. 10 Baylor has kept its hopes for a Big 12 regular-season title alive thanks to an 80-70 victory over No. 5 Kansas on Saturday night at the Ferrell Center.

This was the second time these two heavyweight programs have met in the past three weeks. Kansas dominated the first meeting, 83-59, at Allen Fieldhouse on Feb. 5. Head coach Bill Self's squad was riding a four-game winning streak coming into this matchup.

The Bears got a much-needed win over one of their key conference rivals. Their last two losses were against Kansas and Texas Tech (83-73 on Feb. 16). They are now 12-4 in Big 12 play, one game behind Kansas in the loss column with two games left in the regular season.

Fresh off shooting 64.1 percent from the field and scoring 102 points against Kansas State on Tuesday, the Jayhawks' offense went cold against a much better defense. They only made 34.3 percent of their attempts, including 7-of-28 from three-point range.

Ochai Agbaji did his best to carry the unit with 27 points. David McCormack and Christian Braun both recorded a double-double in the loss. 

This game initially looked like it would be a blowout for Kansas after taking a 21-9 lead midway through the first half. 

Baylor settled in at that point, closing the first half on a 22-11 run to close the deficit to one point. Kendall Brown gave the Bears their first lead of the game with a dunk to open the second half. 

The Jayhawks cut the lead to three with just under two minutes to play, but the Bears scored seven unanswered points to seal the victory.

Flo Thamba was the star of the game for the Bears with a career-high 18 points. 

Notable Game Stats

• Flo Thamba (Baylor): 18 points (8-of-13 FG), 9 rebounds
• James Akinjo (Baylor): 12 points (8-of-9 FT), 6 assists
  
• Jeremy Sochan (Baylor): 17 points (5-of-9 FG), 5 rebounds
• Ochai Agbaji (Kansas): 27 points (8-of-21 FG), 6 rebounds
• David McCormack (Kansas): 10 points (4-of-11 FG), 13 rebounds
  
• Christian Braun (Kansas): 17 points (6-of-13 FG), 10 rebounds

Thamba, Sochan Step Up for Bears in Marquee Win

It's a testament to how well head coach Scott Drew has done at building depth on the roster that Baylor has been able to stay in the Top 10 of the Associated Press poll for most of the season, despite dealing with injury issues this season. 

It was only two weeks ago that Jonathan Tchamwa Tchatchoua suffered a season-ending knee injury in an 80-63 win over Texas on Feb. 12. 

Thamba and Kendall Brown are the only two players on the roster who have appeared in all 29 games.

Thamba did his best to keep Baylor's offense afloat early in this game when it was struggling. 

Freshman Jeremy Sochan provided a huge spark off the bench. The England native dropped 17 points and grabbed five rebounds. He has now scored at least 17 points in two of the past three games.

This wasn't the best performance for the Bears, but they were able to grind out a win over one of the top teams in the nation. 

Baylor did most of its work on the offensive end inside the three-point line. It went 25-of-44 on two-pointers, compared to 3-of-14 from behind the arc. This was the team's first game with at least 80 points since Feb. 12 (four games). 

If they can get LJ Cryer back healthy before the NCAA tournament begins, the Bears will be one of the most difficult teams to beat. The sophomore guard sat out his third straight game with a foot injury.     

Cold Shooting Dooms Jayhawks

If the theory about a team needing to peak at the right time is true, Kansas looked to be well on its way to making a deep run in the NCAA tournament before Saturday night. 

Per ESPN's College Basketball Power Index, Kansas entered this week ranked No. 1 in strength of record that measures how successful a team has been relative to its schedule. They rank fourth in adjusted offensive efficiency and 33rd in adjusted defensive efficiency, per KenPom rankings. 

One reason to be encouraged coming out of this game is that Kansas has not shot this poorly in a loss all season. The closest it came was a 39.1 field-goal percentage in a 76-62 win over Oklahoma State on Feb. 12.

Agbaji has shot 51 percent from the field (44.5 percent from behind the arc) this season, but he made just eight of his 22 attempts on Saturday. 

Even on a night when he was struggling, at least by his own standards, Agbaji was a one-man wrecking crew for Kansas early in the second half. He scored 10 of the team's first 12 points coming out of the intermission. 

Christian Braun was the only Jayhawks starter who made at least 40 percent of his field-goal attempts. Dajuan Harris Jr.'s late-season struggles continued against Baylor. He went scoreless in 31 minutes and missed all six of his shot attempts.

One positive is that Harris had seven assists with just one turnover. The sophomore has never been a dominant scoring guard, but he had been shooting 45.7 percent from the field coming into this game.

In his last three games, Harris has scored a combined total of eight points on 4-of-16 shooting. 

The strength of this Jayhawks roster is offense. They entered Saturday ranked 14th in points per game (80.0) and 18th in offensive rating (112.9), per Sports-Reference.com. 

A one-game sample against Baylor isn't reason for panic. As long as Self can get his team to regroup, especially with a favorable schedule to end the regular season heading into the conference tournament, this loss will only be a blip on the radar of the 2021-22 season.    

What's Next?

Kansas will play its final road game of the regular season against TCU on Tuesday at 8 p.m. ET. Baylor will take on No. 20 Texas at the Erwin Events Center on Monday at 9 p.m. ET.