After No. 2 Baylor’s first loss of the season Saturday night, a 71-58 defeat at No. 17 in Kansas, coach Scott Drew acknowledged that the COVID-19 protocols that brought the Bears aside for 21 days has, is his basketball team’s “kryptonite”.
“We were the number 1 shooting team in the country and we will return to that,” Drew said. “But even Superman has kryptonite. And I think COVID protocols are ours.”
Baylor, who shot 43.2% of the three-point series at stake, went 6-for-26 behind the arc. The Bears shot just 8-for-25 from behind the arc in their first game, a Tuesday win in Iowa State.
It was Baylor’s first week back after six consecutive postponements due to COVID-19 issues within the program and the Big 12 protocols. The Bears trained last Sunday for the first time in almost three weeks.
“Anyone who has had COVID will know that you are probably not 100 percent when you return,” Drew said. ‘For people who have not done so [have COVID] and was unable to exercise or practice, I would think it is rust or other parts of it. The last thing is, it’s a chemical game, just like football. You can practice with quarterbacks and runners anything you want, until you practice with the line and the receivers – this is also a timing. At the end of the day, you have to make shots. And normally when the legs go, it’s hard to make 3s … It’ll all come and we’ll get into that rhythm again.
“Again, two plus two equals four. A lot of people keep taking breaks, but they may not have people who have COVID, and if that’s the case, they work every day, they do not have blizzards, they ‘They practice again. Their return time is much faster than other teams. “
Bayer guard Jared Butler, the Bears’ Wooden Award nominee, went off the field just 2-for-9 and scored five points before conceding. MaCio Teague (18 points) and Davion Mitchell (13 points) had pieces where they got to the offensive point in a rhythm, but they shot a combined 12-for-35 off the floor.
Marcus Garrett bore most of the responsibility for protecting Butler, who had 30 points in the first meeting between the two teams earlier this season.
“First you have to give credit to Marcus,” Drew said. ‘Secondly, our staff, we need to work better to put him in better positions. Thirdly, you will have nights where you do not shoot well. And that was tonight.
“They did a great job of improving guys and getting better,” Drew later added. “Guys on the rotation are much sharper and cleaner, what do you expect. We had three weeks where we got worse and they had three weeks where they got better, so we have to catch up.”
The game was the bulk of the first half back-and-forth, with Kansas earlier leading by seven points before Baylor fought back. Kansas led by three points at halftime, and Baylor never came close in the second half. David McCormack dominated the paint in the first half and finished with 20 points and three rebounds before doubling, while Garrett contributed 14 points to the attacking point and Christian Braun had 11 points.
McCormack’s first half of 14 points immediately set the tone; Kansas will use its size advantage against Baylor’s foreland and the Bears will have to adjust. They delayed him after rest, but it was too late.
“Let’s give him credit for really helping Kansas, especially the last six, seven games they’ve really played at a high level,” Drew said. “They did an excellent job of giving him the ball. But he did a great job of being strong, demanding it, being physical, completing it … He deserves a lot of credit for that.”
Kansas dominated the backcourt and outscored Baylor 48-28 – including 14 offensive setbacks that turned into 17 second-half points.
“I feel like we were locked up,” Garrett said after the game. “We knew we had to jump back and defend to win the game. It was a big thing that we emphasized all week.”
Kansas has now won six of its last seven games, with the lone loss extended on Tuesday in Texas. The Jayhawks held seven consecutive opponents to less than one point per possession, and Baylor’s 58 points on Saturday were the lowest the Bears had scored all season.
After Kansas looked like an early playoff in the NCAA Tournament, Kansas as well as any team in the Big 12 that enter the post-season play.
“We ended up 12-6 in a ridiculously hard league when we sucked for three weeks,” Kansas coach Bill Self said. ‘You take the three weeks out of it and we have consistently performed well. Of course you can not do that. But to play the entire game and play it all twice, many teams across America would love to be 12- 6 in the toughest league in America. ‘
Baylor could drop for the first time all season in next week’s AP poll of No. 2 in the country, and the Bears have a tough three-game game to end the regular season: Tuesday in West Virginia, home against Oklahoma State Thursday, home against Texas Tech on Sunday.
“At the end of the day, they came here and outscored us in certain aspects of the game, and we lost,” Teague said. “We need to be tougher than that. We just need to be better.”
ESPN’s Myron Medcalf contributed to this report.