Baylor made history on Tuesday night. Their 65-54 win over Oklahoma was the 23rd consecutive win this season giving the Bears the longest winning streak in Big 12 basketball history.
The Sooners played the part of the scrappy underdogs well. Oklahoma led Baylor 13-11 near the midpoint of the first half but after a Matthew Mayer 3-point shot put the Bears up 14-11 the top-ranked team in the country didn’t look back.
Oklahoma was able to make runs at Baylor but could never get over the hump. Kristian Doolittle’s jump shot at the 12:44 mark of the second half pulled the Sooners to within 39-38 but the Bears responded with a 12-2 run to put OU back down by double digits. That was pretty much the ebb and flow of the game.
Defensive pressure led to 12 Oklahoma turnovers and a 36.5% shooting percentage from the floor. Doolittle scored 18 points in the loss, followed by 11 points from Alondes Williams and 10 from Brady Manek.
Baylor passed the 1996-97 Kansas team, who had won 22 games in a row, for the longest winning streak in conference history. The Bears will host the Jayhawks on Saturday.
The good news for Oklahoma is that the toughest part of their schedule is over. With road trips still looming to Stillwater on Saturday and the Morgantown on the 29th finding twenty wins on the season won’t come easy, but it should be a bit smoother of a road than the back-to-back games they just played against #3 Kansas and #1 Baylor.
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