Box Score MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – Tonight's game came down to two things – 3-point field goals and layups. No. 5 Baylor made its 3s, West Virginia couldn't make its layups and the Bears pulled out a 77-68 victory over the Mountaineers Tuesday night at the WVU Coliseum.
 
Baylor (16-2, 4-2) shot a combined 16 of 52 from 3-point distance in its last two losses to Texas Tech and Oklahoma State. Today, the Bears connected on 12 of 27, including 6 of 11 in the second half with two coming from Matthew Mayer and Adam Flagler during a key 33-second stretch with six minutes to go.
 
Those two triples turned a one-point lead into a seven-point advantage and the Bears never looked back.
 
West Virginia (13-4, 2-3) used a 14-0 run to overcome an early 16-point first half deficit, and actually led 54-53 with 8:37 remaining. But missed layups – nine during a critical six-minute stretch – proved to be the Mountaineers' undoing.
 
In all, West Virginia missed 11 second-half layups which contributed to Baylor's 28-18 advantage in paint scoring.
 
"I thought our effort was fine, but this team for whatever reason has continued to miss layup after layup after layup after layup and we can't win like that," West Virginia coach Huggins said. "I thought we competed on the glass – we just didn't finish anything."
 
L.J. Cryer led the Bears with a game-high 25 points on 8 of 16 shooting, but it was Mayer's 20 points, four steals, four rebounds and two assists that really made the difference tonight.
 
It was Mayer's 3 from the top of the key that put Baylor ahead 53-48. He was fouled by Sean McNeil while attempting another 3 with the Bears trailing by one and Mayer made all three. Then, with 5:52 to go in a one-possession game, the 6-foot-9 wing got another triple to go down to give the Bears a 63-59 lead.
 
Guard Malik Curry was the only Mountaineer player to make field goals during the final 6:05 until Taz Sherman's 3 with 35 seconds left. The Old Dominion transfer was again WVU's leading scorer with 19 points coming off the bench to follow up the season-high 23 he produced last Saturday at Kansas.
 
"He played the best today so he played more minutes, it's pretty simple," Huggins said of Curry's performance.
 
Sherman contributed 18 while McNeil finished with 17. West Virginia connected on 7 of 21 from 3-point distance, but was just 17 of 40 from two-point range and is 30 of 85 from that distance in its last two defeats. Huggins used four different post players tonight, including sophomore Seny N'diaye, in an attempt to find a spark.
 
Surprisingly, Baylor did not block a shot.
 
"You play in a league like this that has really, really good players and terrific coaching and we're kind of playing with a bunch of bigs that really don't know our system," Huggins said. "You look at that crew down there and they've been together and that makes a heck of a difference. You look at the really good teams that we've had here have been teams that have been together and know each other."
 
Guard Adam Flagler scored 14 and forward Jonathan Tchemwa Tchatchoua contributed 10 points and seven rebounds for the Bears, which have won four of the last five against West Virginia including three out of the last four at the Coliseum.

The Bears played tonight's game without leading scorer James Akinjo.
 
West Virginia continues Big 12 play this Saturday afternoon at No. 19 Texas Tech. The game will tip off at noon and will be televised nationally on ESPN2.
 
"We've got to get ready for Texas Tech, another hard game. We've got to get better, but we've gone through this before," Huggins concluded.