No. 23 Texas Tech basketball suffers third straight loss, falls to No. 13 Baylor: 3 takeaways
WACO — Down a big body and in need of a win, the 23rd-ranked Texas Tech basketball team fell to No. 13 Baylor 79-73 on Tuesday night in Foster Pavilion.
The Red Raiders dropped their third game in a row to fall to 16-6 overall and 5-4 in Big 12 play.
The Bears (17-5, 6-3) used a 13-0 run in the second half to finally break the game open. Baylor had several opportunities to run away with this but the Red Raiders hung around as long as they could.
Down with the sickness
For the second game in a row, the Red Raiders were without a key component due to illness. Lamar Washington, who returned on Tuesday, missed Saturday's game against Cincinnati. Warren Washington, meanwhile, wasn't 100% in the loss to the Bearcats and was unable to go against the Bears.
This gave Robert Jennings his first start of the season. Foul trouble prevented him from making too much of a dent, so the Red Raiders went with KyeRon Lindsay. Lindsay hadn't played since Jan. 1 and only saw seven minutes of action before Tuesday. He doubled that minutes total in one half of play, though he, like Jennings, was whistled for three first-half fouls.
Eemeli Yalaho also got some run with the foul trouble. He was the first of the bigs to get on the scoreboard with a free throw.
Playing with fire
Flaming twirlers were the halftime entertainment in Foster Pavilion, which was appropriate for the Red Raiders. While Tech led the majority of the first half, it also benefitted from Baylor, one of the top 3-point shooting teams in the country, going 3-of-13 from beyond the arc in the first half.
Many of those missed 3s were open looks the Bears probably should've hit. Baylor also racked up 10 offensive rebounds in the first 12 minutes of action. However, Baylor only got four second-chance points off of them.
It was enough to keep the game close most of the way, but the Bears got rolling late.
Snowball effect strikes again
Sometimes it just takes one play to set off a chain reaction. That play came with 7:29 left in the game. Out of the timeout and down 58-51, Chance McMillian pump-faked himself into a wide open 3 in the corner. The shot missed, which led to Jayden Nunn converting at the other end.
That was followed by a Joe Toussaint turnover, Yves Missi hit a pair of free throws and another bucket made it 64-51 Baylor in short order. That was part of a 13-0 run after the game was tied 51-all.
What's next?
The Red Raiders will enjoy the comforts of United Supermarkets Arena for three of their next four games. UCF will come to Lubbock for the first time as a Big 12 team on Saturday before Kansas makes the trip for Big Monday.
This article originally appeared on Lubbock Avalanche-Journal: Texas Tech basketball suffers third straight loss, falls to AP ranked Baylor
