WACO, Texas — Rico Gathers scored a career-best 23 points and 13 rebounds to lead Baylor to a 75-49 win over Texas Southern on Monday.
Chris Thomas scored 15 and Madarious Gibbs scored 10 to lead Texas Southern (1-6).
Lester Medford scored 13 and Taurean Prince had 11 points for Baylor (6-1), which is now 46-0 against teams from the Southwestern Athletic Conference.
Gathers also had a career-high four blocked shots.
TSU trailed 41-22 at the break and opened the second half falling victim to a 15-3 run that included seven points from Gathers. Medford contributed a 3 and a breakaway layup during the streak that left the Bears up 56-25 at the 16:36 mark.
The Tigers fell behind early. With the game tied at 4, back-to-back three pointers from Medford began a 14-2 run that also included a three and a layup by Prince.
Texas Southern had baskets from Thomas and Deverell Biggs to pull within 18-10 with 12:03 to play, but that was as close as the Tigers could get. Baylor closed the half on an 11-6 run capped by a three-point play by Gathers with 3.4 seconds left. Tonnie Collier hit a long baseline jumper at the buzzer that the officials reviewed for several minutes before deciding that he got the shot off in time.
After trailing by as many as 31, Texas Southern cut the lead to 20 late in the game. Thomas scored five in a 12-2 run by the Tigers that left Baylor with a 62-42 lead with 8:19 remaining.
SWAC.org
