Tyrese Hunter scores tough buzzer-beating layup to defeat No. 9 Baylor
Texas defeated No. 9 Baylor 75-73 thanks to a buzzer-beating drive to the basket by Tyrese Hunter.
Hunter grabbed the hand off from forward Dylan Disu three-quarters of the way down the court, sped past the Baylor defense and, despite hard contact, made the leaning basket to win the game for the Longhorns.
Even more impressive, the play came just after Jalen Bridges‘ step-back three-pointer tied the game with 5.1 seconds left. Despite this, Texas drew up the game-winning play and Hunter executed it to perfection in front of an excited crowd in Austin.
“Man, I’m proud of these guys. We didn’t go through so much right now, but we are sticking to the same routine since the summer time,” Hunter said postgame. “Everybody playing hard here. Everybody still has got the belief in each other. I doesn’t matter what the outside people say. We’re here as a unit, as a team, as a family. We’re going to keep going.”
Hunter finished then game with a team-high 21 points during the win. He scored on all four of his three-point attempts and was 8 for 13 from the floor overall in 34 minutes on the court. Disu scored 19 points as well, while Max Abmas scored 15 points of his own.
The Longhorns finished the game scoring on 27 of their 52 attempts (51.9 percent) while shooting 9 for 19 from deep. Coincidentally, Texas entered halftime 9 for 11 from the three-point line and did not make another shot from beyond the arc for the rest of the afternoon. Despite this, Hunter was able to lead his squad to a massive conference win over a top-10 ranked in-state rival.
With the win, Texas improved to 13-5 after the win and earned the Longhorns their second conference win of the season. Next up for the Longhorns is a road trip to conference rival in No. 15 Oklahoma on Tuesday night, which will air live on ESPN.
Things won’t be any easier or the Longhorns coming up, either as Texas rounds out January with two more ranked opponents on its schedule in a road trip next Saturday against No. 20 BYU before a quick home turnaround the following Monday against No. 5 Houston. Follow that up with No. 19 TCU and No. 24 Iowa State directly after that — and the next three weeks could make or break the Longhorns under first-year head coach Rodney Terry.