No. 8 Longhorns Start Hot, But Fall Asleep in Loss to No. 9 Baylor

The Texas Longhorns seemed primed to cruise to a big win over the No. 9 Baylor Bears on Saturday in Waco. But instead, the Longhorns got a taste of their own comeback medicine in what turned out to be a disappointing and critical Big 12 loss.

Entering Saturday's meeting with the No. 9 Baylor Bears in Waco, the No. 8 Texas Longhorns were still in strong position to claim the No. 1 spot in the Big 12 regular-season standings with three games remaining.

Texas, which has typically been a second-half team this season, looked every bit the part early, jumping out to a quick 14-point lead. But somehow, it was right after Baylor lost star freshman guard Keyonte George to injury in the first half that the tide completely flipped in the Bears' favor, as they controlled the rest of the game before cruising to a 81-72 win over the Longhorns.

The Longhorns (22-7, 11-5) got an impressive season-high scoring effort from forward Dylan Disu, who led all scorers with 24 points. Timmy Allen (12 points, nine rebounds) and Tyrese Hunter (13 points) provided a spark in the second half, but it wasn't enough.

Baylor (21-8, 10-6) was led by Jalen Bridges (17 points, eight rebounds) while the terrific guard play of Adam Flagler (14 points), Dale Bonner (13 points) and Langston Love (11 points) made the difference in the turning the game around for the Bears.

Baylor committed a season-high 21 turnovers, but were able to negate this by securing extra possessions with a 38-26 win in the rebounding battle while also going 22 of 29 from the foul line. 

Both teams combined for just 56 points in a defensive-filled first half before turning things around to combine for 97 points in the final 20 minutes.

The Longhorns sprinted out of the gates with a 16-0 run in the first half to take an 18-4 lead, as Baylor had gone over six minutes without scoring. Matters were made worse for the Bears when George twisted his ankle before egregiously limping in pain back to the locker room. 

But losing one of their best players hardly fazed the Bears. If anything, it seemed to give them a boos of momentum, as the Bears cut the Texas lead before taking the lead at 29-23 after an 18-0 run of their own.

The Longhorns had gone seven minutes without scoring before Disu continued his hot first half with four straight points to end the brutal drought. He finished the first half with 14 points, but Texas trailed 29-27 headed into the locker room.

After both teams experienced the hottest of hots and coldest of colds in the first half, the second half brought a bit more back-and-forth at first. But then the Bears started to use some timely shooting to build a double-digit lead that felt daunting for the Longhorns.

Disu continued his stellar scoring day with five more points, but this wasn't enough to answer four triples from Baylor in a little under a four-minute span. After Carr hit a jumper to make cut the lead to single digits at 50-42, the Longhorns went on a near three-minute scoring drought.

Unsurprisingly, it was three more points from Disu that ended the dry spell, but Texas still trailed 63-45 with about nine minutes remaining.

The Longhorns had themselves an 11-2 run in the final minutes to cut the lead to 72-64 behind six straight points from Allen. But this final sign of life proved meaningless for Texas, as Baylor was able to comfortably close things out.

Texas will travel to Fort Worth for a matchup with the TCU Horned Frogs on Wednesday.

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You can follow Zach Dimmitt on Twitter at @ZachDimmitt7

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