Men’s basketball falls flat again, downed by Baylor 75-64 in regular-season finale

By Steve Habel, Senior Editor

AUSTIN, Texas — There’s no way to push rewind in the Texas men’s basketball season, and it’s doubtful that the Longhorns even would want to go back to square one even if they had the chance.

Texas ended its regular season Saturday with another game it would likely prefer to forget, a 75-64 loss to No. 11 Baylor on Senior Day at the Frank Erwin Center. Baylor didn’t play anywhere near its best basketball, but the game it did bring was plenty to beat the hapless Longhorns, which lost for the seventh consecutive outing and fell to last place in the Big 12 Conference.

“This, for me, as been a really challenging, hard year,” Texas coach Shaka [s2If current_user_can(access_s2member_level2)]Smart said. “I’m really hard on myself and I want to get better and I want my team to get better. My motivation to make that happen is through the roof.”

Naismith Men’s College Player of the Year finalist Johnathan Motley led Baylor with 17 points and grabbed 17 rebounds, despite seeing limited action because of foul trouble.

All eight players who saw the court scored at least three points for the Bears, who were without injured point guard Manu Lecomte due to injury and key reserve Tyson Jolly because of a one-game suspension.

The win granted Baylor (25-6, 12-6 in Big 12 play) the third seed in the conference postseason tournament, where the Bears will play sixth-seeded Kansas State in the quarterfinals in Thursday in Kansas City.

Texas used a 12-2 run over a nearly three-minute stretch in the end game to get to within 69-62 on an Andrew Jones three-pointer with 1:12 to play, but Baylor did enough in the final minute to put away the game.

“We didn’t really make shots, but winning like we did today shows the resilience of this team,” Motley said.  “We are in a good place heading into the Big 12 tournament. We found a way to get through it today. It was a good win because of contributions from a lot of players.”

Texas was led by Jarrett Allen’s 20 points and nine rebounds, and Shaquille Cleare and Jones added 14 and 12 points, respectively. The Longhorns (10-21, 4-14 in Big 12) have lost 21 games for just the third time in the 111-year history of the program and for the first time since 1983-84.

Texas fell to the 10th and final seed in the 10-team conference and will battle Texas Tech, the seventh seed, Wednesday in the tournament’s first round.

“Being 10-21 at the end of the regular season is highly disappointing and no one’s more disappointed than me,” Smart said. “We just didn’t do enough and Baylor made some really good plays. At the end of the season we had some accumulated fatigue, but I’ve been telling the guys for a while now that you have to fight human nature.”

Despite its record, the Longhorns head to Kansas City hoping to make some magic happen. They haven’t won a game away from home all season and will need to win four in four days — the unlikeliest of scenarios — to earn an NCAA bid.

“You have to give blows and you have to be able to take them,” Cleare said. “It’s been a struggle but sometime you have to embrace that struggle and learn and grow. We are not going to change our mindset. We have to believe.”

Jake Lindsey added 16 points for Baylor while King McClure hit for 12 for the Bears.

“I’m proud of our guys’ effort and intensity,” Baylor coach Scott Drew said. “The strength of our team is its leadership and chemistry, but you never know who’s going to step up and take the reins and make the plays we need to win. That’s a great thing about our guys: we have a lot of different players who can make the difference for us.”

Texas led, 14-13, on a jumper by Cleare at the 12:48 mark of the first half, but Baylor took charge soon afterward, outscoring the Longhorns 9-2 over the next minute to push to a 22-16 advantage.

The Bears expanded their lead to as many as 16 points late in the first half and owned a 40-29 advantage at intermission. Motley and Mitchell paced Baylor with nine points each as the Bears shot 53.6 percent from the field and converted six of their 11 3-point attempts in the half.

Texas missed its first five three-point attempts and ended the half 1-for-7 from beyond the arc while shooting 37.5 percent as a team in the first 20 minutes of play. Allen led all scorers with 16 points in the first half and Cleare added eight as all but five of the Longhorns’ 29 points came from its two starting big men.

The Longhorns scored the first six points of the second half to get within 40-35 but the Bears withstood the rally and build the lad back to 10 points via two baskets and a free throw by Motley. Baylor led by as many as 17 points at the 5:34 mark.

“There’s nothing but uphill for here on out for us. This team has its best things ahead of it,” said Allen, who may have played his last game for Texas in the Erwin Center; he is expected by some to declare for the NBA Draft.

“For the season, we are just missing one piece for success; we are just missing the fight we need to get over the hump. You see people make miracle things happen in the tournament. We can be that team that makes miracles.”

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