Box Score No. 8 Baylor rallied from seven points down in the second half to defeat West Virginia 81-77 Monday night at the Ferrell Center in Waco, Texas.
 
Guard James Akinjo, who did not play two weeks ago in the Bears' 77-68 win in Morgantown, scored 25 points, including 18 in the second half.
 
Things went south for West Virginia with 3:47 remaining when Baylor forward Jeremy Sochan hit Sherman in the face while attempting to steal the basketball. Sherman fell to the ground and had to leave the game.
 
At the time, the score was tied 66-66.
 
"I get to see things (the media) doesn't get to see until way after the fact and I'll leave it at that so I don't get in trouble," a frustrated coach Bob Huggins said afterward. "We hung in there with one of the best players in the league laying in the locker room with a concussion.
 
"That showed a lot of strength that our other guys could come through, but we certainly don't want to do it without Taz – or try and do it without Taz," Huggins added.
 
After Sherman's departure, Mountaineer slayer Matthew Mayer hit consecutive jumpers and then a 3 with 2:20 left to put the Bears ahead 73-69. Mayer scored all 9 of his points in the final 3:27 as Baylor converted nine of its remaining 11 field goal attempts.

Sochan was the only other Bear to reach double figures with 13 while also grabbing a game-high nine rebounds.
 
The Bears (19-3, 7-2) were playing tonight's game without second- and third-leading scorers L.J. Cryer and Adam Flagler, who combined to score 39 points two weeks ago in Morgantown.
 
Tonight's defeat was one of the rare instances when a Huggins-coached West Virginia team lost despite shooting better than 50% from the floor, the Mountaineers connecting on 54.2% of their 48 field goal tries. It has happened just six times in 86 games over the 15 seasons Huggins has coached at his alma mater.
 
Baylor overcame West Virginia's hot shooting by controlling the glass and dominating the paint where it outscored the Mountaineers 24-2.
 
The Bears had a 36-26 edge in rebounding and WVU's 15 turnovers also led to 17 Baylor points. The Mountaineers left points at the free throw line as well, missing nine of its 23 attempts tonight, as did Baylor, which missed its first seven free throw attempts before connecting on 13 of its final 18.
 
Before Sochan prematurely ended Sherman's night, the West Virginia senior had made 10 of 15 from the floor, including 6 of 11 from behind the arc.
 
"(Losing Sherman) was huge," said teammate Sean McNeil, who finished with 16 points on 6 of 9 shooting. "Obviously, he was playing really well for us tonight and I haven't seen him since he went down, but it obviously hurt us real bad."
 
No other Mountaineer player reached double figures and a third reliable scorer still remains elusive now 21 games into the season.
 
Freshman guard Seth Wilson's 3 ahead of the first-half horn gave WVU a 39-31 advantage at intermission, and its biggest lead was 10 early in the second half. Freshman guard Kobe Johnson also saw 14 minutes of court time tonight and finished with 3 points.
 
The loss was West Virginia's sixth straight - the most since the Mountaineers dropped seven in a row to conclude the 2013 season.
 
"It's tough, everybody's frustrated – players and staff – and losing isn't fun," McNeil said. "But we've had a lot of good practices and a lot of good walk-throughs, especially today, and I thought we competed really well. It's just that the outcome isn't what we wanted."
 
"I'm proud of our guys, they competed their behinds off and got very few breaks," Huggins said. "At the end we were kind of running out of people."
 
Baylor sweeps the season series for the fourth time since West Virginia joined the Big 12 in 2012.
 
"We've lost games, but we've lost games to good people – we haven't lost to any bad people," Huggins said. "Now we've got the second half of the schedule and we've just got to go win. I hope and pray Taz is okay, because I know how much this means to him."
 
West Virginia (13-8, 2-6) returns to the Coliseum to face 14^th-ranked Texas Tech this Saturday in a game that will tip off at 2 p.m. and will be televised nationally on either ESPN or ESPN2. Television coverage will be announced later this week.
 
Tickets remain on sale and can be purchased by logging on to WVUGAME.com.