Baylor is done. End of story. In fact, every game but this one may have never happened. Just hours before gametime word leaked that Perry Jones III was ineligible--not for violating team rules, but for accepting impermissible benefits. At first glance the violations appear minor (essentially Jones' rent was lent to him by his AAU coach and he went to a San Diego Chargers game), but there's usually more to the story. Baylor's obviously appealing (not that it will matter for this year). This sort of attention is not the kind of press a school that only recently started attracting major blue-chip recruits wants to come across the wire. No one is saying Scott Drew is dirty, but the media rarely overlooks NCAA investigations (on the contrary, the media usually starts them). For proof see John Calipari.
Back to the game at hand. Without Jones the Bears looked just abysmal on both ends of the floor. Their defense has been questionable all season, but allowing Oklahoma to shoot almost 60% and to put up 84 points is straight bad. Cade Davis lit up the porous defense for four threes and 24 points including 14 first half points.
Baylor kept the game close for the first ten minutes, but with just under ten minutes in the first half Oklahoma started a 21 to three run that really put the game out of reach. Baylor never got the deficit back to single-digits. While this one of Baylor's worst showings, it was also one of Oklahoma's best. The Sooners have looked absolutely terrible for much of the season, even dropping a game to Division II Chaminade. With a second round match-up against Texas looming I wouldn't bet on the Sooners pushing the current win streak to three, but winning a game in the conference tournament will be something for Capel and his team to hang their hats on.
Loading comments...