Oregon hasn’t been good this season. The Ducks lost five of their first 10 games. But Baylor’s weekend trip west still qualified as a true road game against a proud program that’s won back-to-back outright Pac-12 championships.
Things like that can get tricky. Everybody knows it.
So it wasn’t the biggest surprise in the world late Saturday when the top-ranked Bears found themselves trailing early and by as many as 10 points in the first half. But, ultimately, Scott Drew’s team did what it’s been doing for three years now. Baylor settled down, got great and exited with a 78-70 victory that improved the reigning national championships to 10-0.
“There is pressure at the end of the day — and we have a great group of guys who decided to step forward and take the challenge,” said Baylor guard Adam Flagler, who made five 3-pointers and finished with 16 points. “It was exciting to go out in the second half and execute and get the win.”
This victory over Oregon doubled as the 400th career win for Drew, a likely future Naismith Memorial Hall of Famer who has turned Baylor into an undeniable power. The Bears are now 64-6 in their past 70 games and on a 16-game winning streak that dates to last season. In that stretch, Baylor has beaten Gonzaga, Wisconsin, Arkansas, Houston, Michigan State, Oregon, VCU, Stanford, Arizona State and Villanova (twice). Incredibly, each of those wins has come by at least eight points.
Needless to say, Baylor remains No. 1 in Sunday morning’s updated CBS Sports Top 25 And 1 daily college basketball rankings. The Bears’ next two games are against Alcorn State and Northwestern State. After that, they’ll open the Big 12 portion of their schedule at Iowa State on New Year’s Day.
