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Elonu, Texas A&M defend home floor against Baylor

Jan 15, 2009 - 7:02 AM COLLEGE STATION, Texas (Ticker) -- Chinemelu Elonu and some timely free-throw shooting made sure Texas A&M and Baylor would end this year's matchup in a more timely fashion.

Elonu had 17 points and 16 rebounds and Bryan Davis also scored 17 as Texas A&M hung on for an 84-73 victory over No. 21 Baylor in a Big 12 Conference matchup on Wednesday.

Donald Sloan and Josh Carter each scored 15 points for the Aggies (15-2, 1-1 Big 12), who improved to 11-0 at home this season.

Last season, the two teams played the longest contest in Big 12 history - a five-overtime, 116-110 Bears' victory.

There would be no extra periods this time around as Elonu gave the Aggies the advantage inside.

The junior forward had 13 points and nine rebounds - six offensive - during the first half and the Aggies went into the break on a 9-2 run to take a 39-28 advantage into the locker rooms. Elonu finished with 11 offensive rebounds.

"From a coaching standpoint, when you get outrebounded like that in the first half and don't get to the loose balls, that's disheartening," Baylor coach Scott Drew said. "One thing you always pride yourself on is for your team to play hard and, for some reason, we didn't match their intensity on the clock for the first 20 minutes."

The momentum carried over into the second half as Derrick Roland and Sloan made consecutive 3-pointers to push the Texas A&M lead to 45-29 with 18:23 left to play.

It was an uphill battle the rest of the way for Baylor, which eventually cut the deficit to 73-65 on Henry Dugat's 3-pointer with 4:26 remaining.

However, the Bears could not get any closer than six the rest of the way as the Aggies went 10-for-10 from the foul line in the final 61 seconds to help seal the victory.

Texas A&M scored 18 points off 11 Baylor turnovers and shot 47 percent (29-of-62) from the field.

"The second 20 minutes, I thought we did a better job, but at the end of the game, the biggest thing that surprised me was the points off turnovers," Drew said. "They had 18 points off our turnovers and we only had two (off their turnovers). Normally, we do a better job of causing turnovers and scoring off of them."

Tweety Carter scored 16 points and LaceDarius Dunn added 14 for the Bears (13-3, 1-1), who only made 5-of-16 from the arc.