Motivated Bears advance
After two years of surprise early NCAA tournament exits, Baylor finally broke through.
Al Freeman came off the bench to score 21 points, and the third-seeded Bears defeated No. 14 seed New Mexico State 91-73 on Friday in the first round of the NCAA’s East Regional at Tulsa, Okla.
Reserve forward Terry Maston scored 19 points, Jo Lual-Acuil scored 16 and Johnathan Motley added 15 points and 10 rebounds for Baylor (26-7), which suffered upset losses to Georgia State and Yale in the first round the previous two years and will now face USC on Sunday.
The Bears had to rally after trailing 40-38 at the half. Motley said the previous losses served as motivation.
“No one wants to leave the tournament early,” he said. “Our ultimate goal was to come in and just win it, so we want to just take every game for what it is and make sure we come in and just play our hardest, play desperate, because after this, you lose, you go home. So we knew one team was going home today, and we made sure it wasn’t us.”
Ian Baker and Braxton Huggins each scored 19 points for New Mexico State (28-6). In the end, Baylor’s athletic ability, length and depth were too much for the Aggies to handle. Baylor blocked seven shots.
“We beat a lot of teams this year that we weren’t supposed to beat, we beat a lot of teams that were flatout better than us,” New Mexico State Coach Paul Weir said. “We were trying to do it against one more team tonight, and we were trying to do that with what I think we showed for 20 minutes, which is a team that just plays really hard, a team that plays together.”
Baylor took control for good with a 14-3 run early in the second half that gave the Bears a 58-47 lead and forced a New Mexico State timeout. The Bears held the Aggies to 37% shooting after the break.
Duke 87, Troy 65: Grayson Allen had 21 points off five five-pointers, Jayson Tatum had 18 points and 12 rebounds, and the Blue Devils (29-7) continued their perfect postseason at Greenville, S.C.
Duke improved to 34-7 all-time in openers and put this one out of reach early with its three-point shooting. Jordon Varnado had 18 points to lead Troy (22-25), which made its first NCAA appearance since 2003.
South Carolina 93, Marquette 73: Sindarius Thornwell had 29 points and 11 rebounds, and the Gamecocks (23-10) ended a 44-year winless streak in the NCAA tournament after trailing by one at the break. JaJuan Johnson had 16 points for the Golden Eagles (19-13), who had 18 turnovers.