A taste of the sweet life
Lecomte’s scoring burst helps Bears keep Trojans at bay
TULSA, Okla. — Baylor knew Southern California would keep coming.
Unlike Providence and SMU, the Bears had answers.
Johnathan Motley had 19 points and 10 rebounds, Manu Lecomte scored all 12 of his points in the final five minutes, and Baylor defeated USC 82-78 on Sunday night in the second round of the NCAA Tournament.
The 11th-seeded Trojans had rallied from second-half deficits to win their first two NCAA Tournament games, but Lecomte was the spark that held the Trojans at bay. The point guard from Belgium didn’t score until a four-point play that gave the Bears a 69-67 lead with 4:40 remaining. It started his run of eight points in 45 seconds, and third-seeded Baylor never trailed again.
“I just had to pick it up,” Lecomte said. “I was struggling a little bit in the first half,
and I just had to pick it up. My teammates and my coaches did a great job. They kept believing in me, they kept me in the game, they trusted me with the ball in my hands, and I just had to go out there and make plays.”
Terry Maston scored 19 points, and King McClure added 17 and for the Bears (27-7), who advanced to play seventh-seeded South Carolina (24-10), which beat second-seeded Duke, in the Sweet 16 in New York.
“We knew it was going to come down to the last couple of minutes of the game, who could make the key defensive stops,” Baylor coach Scott Drew said. “I thought we really did a better job of executing down the stretch when it really mattered most.”
Baylor, which joins Gonzaga and UCLA as the nation’s only teams that are unbeaten against non-conference opponents, is in the Sweet 16 for the fourth time in the last eight seasons (2010, 2012, 2014). And it got there despite Motley’s foul trouble. He fouled out with 1:39 remaining and the game in doubt.
“I thought if I could be out there, we had a good chance to win,” said Motley, whose double-double was his 15th this season. “And they kept telling me, ‘We got you, we got it, we’re going to finish this game,’ and they did.”
USC coach Andy Enfield said Baylor’s depth was the difference.
“They went small with Motley out of the game, and they relied on other people, and they stepped up,” he said. “Their point guard stepped up and scored down the stretch, and Maston had a big game. When your leading scorer goes out, it’s an opportunity for other players sometimes to score the ball, and that’s what they did.”
Chimezie Metu scored 28 points, and Bennie Boatwright added 16 for USC (26-10), which was trying to make its first Sweet 16 appearance since 2007.
“This was a game that was there for the taking if we would have executed down the stretch,” Enfield said.