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No. 21 Baylor beats Texas Tech 86-68

Mar 3, 2010 - 4:18 AM By BETSY BLANEY Associated Press Writer

LUBBOCK, Texas(AP) -- Tweety Carter always seems to come up with what No. 21 Baylor needs.

He did it again Tuesday night when the Bears beat Texas Tech 86-68, their sixth win in seven games.

"All year long Tweety's given us what we need," Bears coach Scott Drew said. "If we needed scoring, he gives us scoring. If we need assists, he takes care of the ball. I thought between him and Epke (Udoh), they really controlled things from the inside and outside."

The Bears (23-6, 10-5 Big 12) got off to a slow start and trailed by 11 points in the first half but came to life right after the break.

Carter knows sputtering first halves must change.

"We can't continue to start like this," said Carter, who had nine assists and two steals. "When we huddled up, I think their lead was up to 12 or 11 or something like that. We knew we had a run in us but at the same time we were lucky to cut it down to one at half and get back into the game."

Baylor used a 14-5 run to go up 51-43, then built its largest lead, 76-58, on a dunk by Udoh with 5:29 remaining.

Texas Tech whittled its deficit to 81-68 on a jumper in the lane by Mike Singletary with 2:32 remaining but the Red Raiders could get no closer.

Carter was 7 of 12 from the field, including 3 of 6 from behind the arc.

Singletary scored 20 points to lead Texas Tech (16-13, 4-11).

Baylor, which has its most conference wins since the Big 12 began in 1996, had five players score in double figures.

The loss was the Red Raiders' sixth straight overall and their fourth consecutive at home. The last time Tech lost four straight conference games at home was in 2000.

The Bears owned the boards, outrebounding the Red Raiders 39-23.

Udoh scored 17 points, Josh Lomers added 13, Quincy had 12 and Anthony Jones got 10.

Udoh, who averaged 4.4 blocks per game coming in, had one against Texas Tech.

Carter said he couldn't be as effective without Udoh.

"When Ekpe is knocking down jumpers like that it's easy for me and it's easier for everybody to just spread out," he said. "He's a big threat on offense. Coach called some great plays, got Ekpe the ball early, got the bigs the ball and got them touches."

The 14-5 run that broke the game open in the second half included four points from Udoh, a 3-pointer by Carter and field goals from Lomers, Jones and LaceDarius Dunn.

"When we got active and we got aggressive, we were able to get some transition baskets," Drew said. "When we got transition baskets going it really opened things up for us."

The game was similar to when the Red Raiders lost at Baylor by the same margin two weeks ago, Texas Tech coach Pat Knight said.

"We just quit again like we did in the second half up there when they jumped on us," he said. "We beg and plead with our guys, and you can't make dumb mistakes with bad passes and bad shots against a good team. Our guys are careless."

The Bears were nearly flawless from the free throw line, missing only three of 24 attempts.

Baylor started slowly and fell behind as Tech made six of its first seven shots.

The Red Raiders used a 14-2 run, including five points from Singletary and four from D'waylon Roberts, to lead 22-11 with just over 10 minutes left.

The Bears gradually came to life, chipping into their deficit with a 14-4 run that included seven points from Carter to trail 26-25 with just over 6 minutes remaining in the half.

"Tweety was huge all game but especially early on offensively," Drew said. "When (Tech) had that big run, he was able to help get us back into the game and in the second half he did a tremendous job finding people."

Tech cooled off as the half progressed, finishing 14 of 28 from the field, including 4 of 10 from beyond the arc. The Red Raiders led 38-37 at halftime.