Texas A&M
BAYLOR
A&M Drops Baylor, 63-60
Jan 19, 2002 | Men's Basketball
January 19, 2002
Keith Bean scored 15 points and added 12 rebounds to lead Texas A&M to a 63-60 win over Baylor Saturday before 5,890 fans at Reed Arena.
The win snapped a six-game losing streak for the Aggies, who improved to 7-11 on the year and 1-3 in Big 12 play. Baylor fell to 12-6 and 2-3.
The Bears jumped out to an early 10-point lead at 17-7 to start the game as A&M hit just one of their first 10 shots. The Aggies used a late first-half rally to cut the Baylor lead to two before back-to-back 3-pointers by John Lucas and Wendell Greenleaf gave the Bears a 34-28 halftime advantage.
A 3-pointer by Dylan Leal with 13:55 to play in the game gave A&M the lead for good at 44-41, although the Aggies' lead was never more than six points the rest of the way. Baylor used a 6-0 run to tie the game at 57-57 with just over four minutes to go, but Texas A&M would score the next four points to lift them to the victory. The Bears' Matt Sayman missed a game-tying 3-pointer with three seconds on the clock.
Three other Aggies were in double figures on the night. Bernard King scored 12 points off the bench, while Jesse King added 11 and Bradley Jackson tallied 10.
Greenleaf led all scorers with 23 for Baylor.
A&M returns to action on Wednesday when they travel to Austin to face the Texas Longhorns. Tipoff at the Frank Erwin Center is set for 8 p.m. (CST).
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Postgame Quotes
TEXAS A&M FORWARD KEITH BEAN: "It feels great to get a win. I knew I had to step it up. I have to score every time I get the ball. We were telling each other that in the first half we knew we could stop Baylor's run. We weren't trying to draw fouls against Baylor's post players. We were just trying to attack the glass."
TEXAS A&M GUARD BERNARD KING: "I haven't been able to practice as much because of a nagging groin injury. I knew I was going to have weak legs and I wasn't able to penetrate to the hole. So I was trying get the ball off to some of the other guys. This was a critical game because it builds our confidence."
TEXAS A&M HEAD COACH MELVIN WATKINS: "I think this win is so important. We've been working so hard in practice. Playing at home in front of a good crowd helped. The last two or three games, Keith [Bean] has played better. We tell him to be more aggressive and I think he's finally staring to listen. I don't really want to play some of our guys for that many minutes because fatigue starts to set in and then you get mental mistakes. But we hung in there tonight. Bradley [Jackson] made a statement tonight that he can guard well. Baylor's defense caused us to do a few things different. We had to make a lot of long-court passes and that allowed them to keep up in the game. We made a good run in the second half and quit switching some of our guys to defend their smaller guys. Tomas [Ress] did a lot of things out there that don't show up in that stat sheets. His presence was definitely felt out there tonight. We know that Bernard can score, but I decided to start Andy [Leatherman] as Bernard has been nursing a groin injury. But Andy has been playing really well. We'll enjoy this moment but we've got to get ready for Texas."
BAYLOR HEAD COACH DAVE BLISS: "When you go on the road, there are a lo things that you have to do. But I think you always have to take care of avoiding fouls, making free throws and you have to rebound. And those three areas are what hurt us tonight. I always like to be ahead. The Aggies have a neat and scrappy team. Their record is more indicative of poor scheduling than a reflection of a poor team. They've played some tough road games and some tough conference games already. I thought we had gread guard rebounding. We had some inexperience out there. But I thought our freshmen played well. Wendell [Greenleaf] has learned a lot this year and the rest of our team needs to join him. Bradley [Jackson] played us like a hawk. We've only had one game this year where we haven't been ahead at the half and ended up getting beat by 30. But with about 12 or 13 minutes to play in this game we got tired and stopped pushing the ball up court as much."
