Box Score LJ Cryer scored 26 points to lead ninth-ranked Baylor to a 79-67 victory over West Virginia Monday night at the Ferrell Center in Waco, Texas.
 
Baylor, winners of 10 of its last 11 games, boosts its record to 20-6 overall and 9-4 in Big 12 play to move into a first-place tie with Kansas and Texas, which was upset tonight by Texas Tech in Lubbock. The Red Raiders will be in Morgantown for a noon game on Saturday.
 
West Virginia, in the midst of a difficult stretch of games that has seen the Mountaineers face No.'s 11, 5 and 9 in the national polls in their last three games, looked like a team on the back end of a two-game Texas road swing tonight.
 
After jumping out to an early 16-9 lead, West Virginia shot blanks when the Bears went to a 1-3-1 zone defense and didn't make a field goal for nearly nine minutes. Consequently, West Virginia's seven-point lead turned into a seven-point halftime deficit.
 
"I couldn't get them to run what we wanted them to run," West Virginia coach Bob Huggins said of his team's first-half offensive struggles against the zone. "They were just standing out there. It's really pretty simple stuff. You dive, you seal, you cut in above the seal and you're wide-open at 10 feet.
 
"After we got them to run it, we were (open)," Huggins added. "That's why I substituted so much (in the first half)."
 
But once West Virginia finally figured out the zone, it couldn't slow down Baylor's 3-point shooters, specifically Cryer, who made three in a row from behind the arc during one stretch and ended the night hitting 8 of 11.
 
"They made hard shots. We gave them some easy shots, too, but some of the shots they made were more than difficult," Huggins said.
 
Cryer's hot shooting made up for star freshman Keonte George's off night. George, who lit up West Virginia for 32 points last month in Morgantown, finished with only 6 points tonight, although he did grab nine rebounds.
 
Adam Flagler scored 13, Jalen Bridges contributed 12 and Jonathan Tchamwa Tchatchoua added 11 off the bench for the Bears.
 
Emmitt Matthews Jr. continued his strong play of late with a team-high 17 points on 7 of 10 shooting. Matthews has scored 20, 13 and 17 points in his last three games on 19 of 29 shooting.
 
Joe Toussaint came off the bench to tally 11, including 7 in a row during one stretch in the second half to pull West Virginia to within 11.
 
Baylor's biggest lead was 19 points with 2:08 remaining.
 
The Bears shot 51% to West Virginia's 45.3% and made two more 3-point field goals (14) than 2-point field goals (12) tonight.
 
"Our guys were tired. Keedy (Johnson) is playing with an eye that is basically swollen shut and Emmitt was dead tired. He played pretty much 40 minutes and I tried to get Tre (Mitchell) out to give him a break," Huggins said. "Then we had guys we normally count on to make shots didn't make shots."
 
West Virginia drops to 15-11 overall and 4-9 in conference play with tonight's loss putting the Mountaineers in a must-win position with home games coming up against Texas Tech and Oklahoma State. Tech is now out of the cellar with tonight's victory over Texas and has won its last two games and four out of its last six.
 
Huggins said he was not surprised by Texas Tech's win over a Longhorn team that beat West Virginia by 34 points in Austin two days ago.
 
"You could see that coming," he explained. "(Texas) was at the circus with us so they've been eating cotton candy and throwing rings around the bottles and all that stuff that happens when kids get all excited about stuff and don't really pay attention to the next job at hand. Texas Tech is good."
 
Tickets remain on sale for Saturday's game and can be purchased by logging on to WVUGAME.com.