No. 3 Baylor beats Iowa St 75-68 for share of Big 12 title

Updated Mar. 5, 2022 8:30 p.m. ET

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WACO, Texas (AP) — James Akinjo scored 20 points and third-ranked Baylor clinched a share of the Big 12 title with its fifth consecutive win, 75-68 over Iowa State on Saturday night.

Akinjo put the Bears ahead to stay with a 3-pointer with 3:37 left, followed seconds later by a driving reverse layup. They had fallen behind after building a 25-point lead in the game's first 12 minutes.

Baylor (26-5, 14-4) had never won a Big 12 title before claiming it outright last season on the way to its first national championship. The Bears are conference co-champs this time with sixth-ranked Kansas (25-6, 14-4), which has won or shared it 20 times in the Big 12's 26 seasons.

Kendall Brown had 16 points and 10 rebounds for Baylor. Adam Flagler scored 13 points and Jeremy Sochan 12.

Gabe Kalscheur had 18 points for Iowa State (20-11, 7-11), which went from trailing 29-4 at the under-eight timeout in the first half to a 60-58 lead just before that same timeout in the second half. The Cyclones got back-to-back 3s from Tyrese Hunter and Caleb Grill before turning Baylor's turnover into a go-ahead layup by Aljaz Kunc.

That was a 56-29 spurt for the Cyclones, who were coming off a 53-36 loss to Oklahoma State in their home finale that snapped a four-game winning streak.

The game was stuck tied at 62-62 for nearly three minutes before Kalscheur made a tiebreaking jumper with 3:52 left to end a span when both teams missed four shots and each missed free throws in one-plus-one situations.

Baylor went ahead to stay on the long 3 by Akinjo 15 seconds later, and he added a driving reverse layup after big man Flo Thamba got fouled and missed the free throw.

The Bears were out to a 23-4 lead midway through the first half of their game, and had just scored the 16th of 22 consecutive points on a free throw by Sochan, when Kansas wrapped up its 70-63 overtime win at home over No. 21 Texas. Baylor and Kansas split their two meetings, including the Bears winning 80-70 at home a week ago.

Kansas will be the No. 1 seed in next week's Big 12 tournament in Kansas City, Missouri, because the Jayhawks split their games with third-place Texas Tech. The Bears lost both of their games to the 12th-ranked Red Raiders.

Robert Jones had a season-high 12 points for Iowa State, three layups and a dunk in an 85-second to end his team's long shooting drought. Izaiah Brockington had 11 points and Hunter had 13 rebounds.

BIG PICTURE

Iowa State: Despite consecutive losses to end the regular season, the Cyclones' 20 wins are already a plus-18 turnaround from last season. That is a school record and the most ever for a Big 12 team with a first-year coach. (T.J. Tozelberger). ... Iowa State shot 47.5% overall from the field, remarkable considering 14 missed shots in a row over a span of 8 1/2 minutes when falling behind in the first half.

Baylor: The Bears played their 308th game as a ranked team in Scott Drew's 616th game as their coach. They played 122 for hi before for getting ranked. ... They are 42-8 the past two seasons, the best among Power Five teams.

UP NEXT

The Big 12 tournament.

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More AP college basketball: https://apnews.com/hub/college-basketball and https://apnews.com/hub/ap-top-25-college-basketball-poll and https://twitter.com/AP_Top25

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Adam Flagler

Aljaz Kunc

Flo Thamba

Baylor Bears

Iowa State Cyclones