Emanuel Sharp scored 17 points, 11 of them in the second half, as No. 7 Houston continued its recent dominance over Baylor with a 77-55 win on Saturday afternoon in a Big 12 Conference clash in Waco, Texas.
The Cougars (15-1, 3-0 Big 12) took charge of the game with a decisive first-half run in which it turned an eight-point deficit into a 12-point advantage and led by seven at halftime. Houston then began the second half with a 19-5 burst and was never challenged through the final minutes, winning its ninth game in a row and expanding its nation-leading road victory streak to 16 consecutive contests.
Joseph Tugler added 12 points and 11 rebounds for the Cougars while Isiah Harwell also had 12 points, Chris Cenac Jr. hit for 11 and Kingston Flemings pitched in 10 points. Houston held the Bears to 36.6% shooting from the floor and forced 16 turnovers that it turned into a whopping 31 points.
Baylor’s Cameron Carr led all scorers with 18 points and Tounde Yessoufou added 11 for the Bears (10-5, 0-3), who have dropped three straight games.
The Bears came out of the gate on fire, forging a 14-6 lead after Obi Agbim’s 3-pointer at the 15:10 mark of the first half. Neither team scored over the ensuing two and a half minutes.
It was that defensive effort that got Houston on track, with the Cougars piling up a 13-3 run capped by Tugler’s putback dunk with 6:34 left the half to take a 29-17 advantage.
Baylor responded with four free throws by Carr and a jumper by Isaac Williams to cut its deficit to six points. The Cougars push their lead back to 10 points when Milos Uzan canned two from the charity stripe with 2:33 remaining before Baylor got a free throw by James Nnaji and a basket by Michael Rataj, the latter with 39 seconds to play, to draw to within 33-26 at the break.
Tugler’s 10 points paced all scorers before halftime while Carr led Baylor with 10 points. Both teams shot poorly in the first half as Houston was at 30.6% while the Bears canned just 30.4% of their shots.
The second half belonged to Houston, which expanded its advantage to 46-29 by scoring 13 of the first 16 points after halftime. Sharp’s 3-pointer with 13:28 to play pushed the margin to 21 points.
