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Jerrells, Baylor overcome Beasley, Kansas State

Feb 24, 2008 - 5:23 AM WACO, Texas (Ticker) -- Curtis Jerrells help Baylor overcome career performances from Michael Beasley and Bill Walker.

Jerrells scored 17 of his 24 points in the second half to lead the Bears to a 92-86 victory over No. 25 Kansas State in the Big 12 Conference on Saturday.

Kevin Rogers added 18 points as Baylor (18-8, 6-6 Big 12) snapped a four-game losing streak with a blistering second-half shooting performance.

"I'm very proud of the team effort," Bears coach Scott Drew said. "We did a great job in the second half holding them to 37 percent (shooting), and then us only missing two free throws and shooting a high percentage at 58 percent, where we really moved the ball and took high-percentage shots. Much needed win; it feels great."

The Bears hit 18 of their first 26 shots after the intermission to overcome the 1-2 punch of Beasley and Walker, who combined for 75 of the 86 points scored by the Wildcats (18-8, 8-4).

Phenomenal freshman Beasley poured in a season-high 44 points and redshirt freshman Walker added a career-high 31, but they got little help from their teammates.

"I don't know if there's a better two-man performance that I've seen personally than what Beasley and Walker put on, but the big thing that I look at is our bench," Drew said. "Our bench had 32 points and their bench had five, so again it was a great team effort."

Jerrells took control for Baylor in the last 10 minutes, putting the Bears ahead for good at 71-69 with 9:20 to play.

That ignited a 16-7 run that Jerrells capped with a 3-pointer for an 85-76 lead with 3:41 to play. Jerrells scored 12 points in the spurt.

Kansas State fought back and sliced the deficit to 87-85 with 1:50 to play as Beasley hit six free throws and Walker buried a 3-pointer in a 9-2 run.

Jerrells answered with two free throws 29 seconds later and the Wildcats got no closer thereafter.

"That's what great players do," said Kansas State coach Frank Martin of Jerrells. "We guarded ball screens a certain way all year, and we changed it for this game because we didn't want Curtis Jerrells to get going. But he made some hard shots with Michael Beasley in his face, and I haven't seen many people do that."

Freshman LaceDarius Dunn scored 16 points for Baylor, which shot 62 percent (18-of-29) in the second half and connected on 10-of-18 from the arc overall.

Kansas State went into the locker room at intermission with a 44-38 lead courtesy of 28 points by Beasley - the highest scoring half by a player in conference history. Walker had 12 points in the opening half and combined with Beasley to outscore Baylor at the break.

"All week Coach's been talking about playing as a team, and when we went into halftime, those two guys were beating us by themselves," Jerrells said. "It takes a team, and you see that we had five guys in double figures, and we just outplayed them as a team tonight."

Beasley also grabbed 13 rebounds to give him 23 double-doubles for the season.

"We came out ready to win and they made some tough shots," Beasley said. "I was just playing, trying to help my team. I really don't want to talk about my points because it obviously wasn't enough to win."