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Manu Lecomte, Johnathan Motley help No. 6 Baylor fend off TCU

By Chad Conine, The Sports Xchange

FORT WORTH, Texas -- Baylor flexed its muscles late and stiff-armed a TCU team that's starving for a signature win.

The No. 6 Bears used an 11-2 run in the closing minutes to grasp a 62-53 victory on Saturday night at the Horned Frogs' Schollmaier Arena.

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TCU dictated the pace and battled Baylor the entire way, through 16 lead changes and seven ties.

But Baylor made the shots it needed in the closing minutes, including a 7-0 surge to establish a lead the Bears wouldn't relinquish. Guard Manu Lecomte capped the mini-run with a pull-up jumper from the elbow that put the Bears ahead 54-48 with 2:30 remaining.

Moments earlier, the TCU fans rained down an air-ball chant on Lecomte, but he had the last laugh.

"The fans made sure they let us know," Lecomte said. "It didn't matter, we just stayed aggressive, and my teammates trusted me to shoot again."

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Lecomte scored 17 points and had four assists to lead Baylor. Forward Johnathan Motley had 15 and eight rebounds and forward Jo Lual-Acuil added 11.

Lecomte saved a possible late momentum-changing turnover when he sped in to grab a loose ball. He then converted it on a fastbreak with an alley-oop toss to forward Lual-Acuil that put Baylor ahead by six with 1:24 left.

Forward Vladimir Brodziansky led TCU with 19 points and guard Kenrich Williams added 16.

Baylor (18-1, 6-1 Big 12) couldn't find its usual rhythm from beyond the arc, which was obvious when guards Al Freeman and Lecomte threw up air balls on consecutive trips down the floor with less than five minutes left.

But forward Ishmail Wainright, not one of the Bears' best 3-point shooters this season, followed by making a trey from the top of the arc to put Baylor in front 50-48 with 4:16 remaining.

"Ish is capable of making 3s," Baylor coach Scott Drew said. "For some reason, this year he hasn't made as many as we believe he's capable of. We always encourage him to shoot. It was a good look. It was a big shot."

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TCU (14-5, 3-4) failed to make a field goal for more than 4:30 late in the second half, a spell that doomed the Horned Frogs.

Baylor switched out of its usual 3-2 zone defense and played man-to-man against TCU late in the contest. It worked as the Bears held the Horned Frogs to five points in the last five minutes.

"We missed jump shots and that's going to happen," TCU coach Jamie Dixon said. "We missed layups too, which probably had something to do with their length."

Although TCU received votes in the Associated Press poll this week, the Horned Frogs have not defeated a top-25 opponent thus far this season.

Dixon said TCU has to bounce back quick after losing at Texas Tech and at home versus Baylor in the last week.

"We've got to get it done the last five minutes," Dixon said. "Now we've lost two in a row where we didn't get it done down the stretch. We have to believe we're going to get it done and we have to go get it done."

TCU trailed by six late in the first half until the Horned Frogs went on an 8-0 run to take the momentum away from Baylor.

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Guard Jaylen Fisher and Brodziansky hit 3-pointers on back-to-back trips down the floor. Then guard Alex Robinson came up with a steal and a fastbreak layup to boost TCU to a 20-18 lead with 3:36 left before the break.

Before that, TCU had hit just 5-of-25 shots from the field.

But Baylor couldn't take advantage of the Horned Frogs' slow start as the Bears went more than four minutes without scoring.

Brodziansky hit a pair of treys and led TCU with 10 points in the first half as the Horned Frogs took a 28-26 advantage to the break.

Lecomte led Baylor with nine points in the first 20 minutes. TCU held Baylor's leading-scorer Motley to five points on 2-of-6 shooting in the first half.

NOTES: Baylor has won 10 straight versus TCU, encompassing all 10 games since the Horned Frogs joined the Big 12 at the start of the 2012-13 season. TCU last defeated Baylor, 72-64, in nonconference action in 2002. ... At the beginning of this week, TCU had already surpassed its overall and Big 12 win total from last season after the Horned Frogs finished the 2015-16 campaign with a 12-21, 2-16 mark. ... Baylor F Johnathan Motley scored 32 points and grabbed 20 rebounds in the Bears' victory over Texas on Tuesday. In doing so, he became the fourth Big 12 player to post a 30-20 game in conference play, joining Oklahoma's Blake Griffin, Texas's Kevin Durant and Oklahoma State's Mario Boggan.

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