MORGANTOWN — Nobody likes a crier and West Virginia has certainly seen enough of Baylor guard L.J. Cryer this season.
Baylor’s junior guard showed off some impressive shooting skills to lead the ninth-ranked Bears to a 79-67 victory over the Mountaineers on Monday inside the Ferrell Center.
He finished with 26 points and his teammates got in line behind him.
Baylor hit 14 3-pointers in all and shot 26 of 51 (51%) from the field, as WVU’s defense was a non-factor for a second consecutive game.
Cryer was coming off a 23-point game against TCU on Saturday and was also efficient in the Bears’ victory in Morgantown earlier this season, making 5 of 8 for 13 points.
He basically doubled his efforts this time around, and Baylor (20-6, 9-4 Big 12) moved into a first-place tie with Texas at the top of the Big 12 standings.
“They made hard shots,” WVU head coach Bob Huggins said on his radio postgame show. “We gave them some easy shots, but they made hard shots. Some of the shots they made were more than difficult.”
It was a first half that saw WVU (15-11, 4-9) hang with the Bears, who have won the last five meeting against WVU, but the Mountaineers struggled against Baylor’s zone defense.
WVU went through a stretch of 8:51 over the first 20 minutes without a field goal, prompting Huggins to change his lineup.
“I couldn’t get them to run what we needed to run,” Huggins said. “They were just standing out there. I couldn’t get them to do what I was asking them to do. That’s why I kept substituting, trying to get somebody to do what I asked them to do.”
Out came guard Erik Stevenson and forward Tre Mitchell — both have struggled to score as of late anyway — and Huggins took a hard look at backups Pat Suemnick and Seth Wilson.
Both had their moments. Suemnick came up with an impressive block that kept Jalen Bridges from getting an easy reverse lay-up and a 3-pointer from Wilson ended WVU’s field-goal drought that cut Baylor’s lead 31-27.
But the three-headed monster known as Baylor guards Adam Flagler, Keyonte George and Cryer combined for 19 first-half points and George also added seven rebounds and five assists.
And while WVU’s shooters struggled, Baylor made six of its first 11 3-point attempts.
That carried over to the second half, as Cryer connected on two more threes to open up a 42-31 early in the second half and when Bridges scored on a bank shot with 15:19 remaining, Baylor’s lead was up to 49-37.
It was just a matter of time from there, a sight the Mountaineers have seen too much of during their two-game road trip.
Following a 34-point loss at Texas just two days earlier, Baylor took advantage of WVU’s weary legs.
Cryer hit another three — he was an efficient 8 of 11 from behind the arc — and Flagler added one, too, to force Huggins to call a timeout facing a 55-39 deficit.
WVU fell to 2-7 in true road games this season, but the two losses against Baylor and Texas were the most costly.
The Mountaineers had built some momentum in recent weeks, winning five of seven, including three against national-ranked teams, but this road trip against two of the top teams in the Big 12 showed just how far the Mountaineers have to go in order to compete with the best.
West Virginia’s only real offensive threat was forward Emmitt Matthews Jr., who scored 13 of his 17 points in the second half and Joe Toussaint came off the bench to add 11 points.
Matthews has scored 50 points over his last three games.
Flagler added 13 points and Bridges, who transferred from WVU this summer, had 12 for the Bears.
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