FORT WORTH, Texas — Ja'Kobe Walter scored 13 of his 16 points after halftime, and the freshman standout started and capped a game-winning lead for 15th-ranked Baylor with a 62-54 win over TCU on Monday night.
Yves Missi, a 7-foot freshman, also finished with 16 points and Jalen Bridges scored 15 points as the Bears (20-8, 9-6 Big 12) fell two games behind. RayJ Dennis had nine points, nine rebounds and nine assists.
With a clear path to the basket, Walter avoided a 3-point shot and instead went for a slam dunk. That sparked a 10-0 run that he capped off with a 3 and blowing a kiss to the TCU students who had shouted “Airball!” after a previous failure. That gave Baylor a 42-31 lead with 13:48 to go and was part of a larger 19-2 outburst in which he also hit another long-range shot.
Jameer Nelson Jr. had 11 points and Emanuel Miller 10 for the Horned Frogs (19-9, 8-7), who made 33% (17 of 51) of their shots. That included 10 straight misses at the end of the first half and a stretch of nine straight misses over 7 1/2 minutes after halftime.
The poor shooting performance came just a day shy of a month after TCU won 105-102 in triple overtime at Baylor.
Baylor led 25-23 at halftime after not scoring a single point in the final 4:57 of the half. The Frogs thought they had tied the game due to a shot by JaKobe Coles at the buzzer that bounced off several sides of the rim before falling through, but a replay review showed the ball was still at his fingertips as the clock expired was.
While the Frogs missed 13 of their last 14 field goals of the first half and the last 10 after Miller's three-point play with 8:58 left, they led 23-21 after Nelson made two free throws with 6:11 left.
The Bears weren't much better, missing 10 of their last 11 shots, not one after Dennis had a layup with 5:24 left to tie the game at 23-23. Two free throws from Jayden Nunn with 4:58 left were the last points of the half.
BIG PICTURE
Baylor and TCU entered the game with identical records and a three-way tie for fourth place in the Big 12. The top four teams receive byes into the quarterfinals of the Big 12 Tournament. TCU had lost 3-0 at home to top-15 teams this season.
NEXT
Baylor completes its home schedule with two games in three days, Saturday against seventh-ranked Kansas and Monday against Texas.
TCU is on the road for its next two games, Saturday at BYU and March 6 at West Virginia.
——
Get poll alerts and updates on AP Top 25 Basketball throughout the season. Login here.
——
AP College Basketball: https://apnews.com/hub/ap-top-25-college-basketball-poll and https://apnews.com/hub/college-basketball