Baylor Bears' frontcourt faces difficult challenge against North Carolina Tar Heels’ talented big man - The Dallas Morning News

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FORT WORTH — Baylor coach Scott Drew didn’t have much time to relax and enjoy his team’s 85-49 rout of 16th-seeded Norfolk State in the first round of the NCAA Tournament.

Six-time national champion North Carolina had a record-setting day in destroying Marquette in the very next game at Dickies Arena on Thursday.

“My afternoon was ruined by watching North Carolina play in just how good they were,” Drew said in his opening remarks during Friday’s media availability session ahead of Saturday’s 11:10 a.m. second-round matchup with UNC.

North Carolina’s 95-63 win was the biggest blowout in a matchup of 8 vs. 9 seeds in NCAA Tournament history. It was UNC’s largest margin of victory and the most points it has scored in an NCAA Tournament game since a 103-64 win over Texas Southern in 2017.

Playing in its 52nd NCAA Tournament, North Carolina hit 13 3-pointers, the most it has ever made in the tournament. Caleb Love made six of those, tying UNC’s single-game NCAA Tournament record.

Then you get to the area where defending national champion and No. 1-seeded Baylor (27-6) could have the most trouble. North Carolina outrebounded Marquette 52-37, and 6-10 junior forward/center Armando Bacot had 10 rebounds and set a UNC single-season rebounds record with 422.

Bacot also scored 17 points for his 26th double-double of the season. That is tied for second-most in ACC history behind a Hall of Famer and five-time NBA champion named Tim Duncan.

“Bacot in the middle is really hard to guard one-on-one,” Drew said. “He does an unbelievable job of cleaning up the glass and getting them second-chance opportunities.

“At the same time, you surround him with a bunch of guys that can make shots, really space the floor. Brady Manek, we’re obviously really familiar with. He can grow that beard to try to hide, but we know who he is. He’s a great player. He can really shoot it.”

The 6-9 Manek is a graduate student who transferred from Oklahoma, where he was the 14th-leading scorer in OU history and became the tallest player in Big 12 history to make 200 3-pointers. He had 21 points, 10 rebounds and a career-best four steals against a then-No. 1-ranked Baylor team two years ago, and Thursday he scored a season-high 28 points on 10 of 15 shooting, made five 3-pointers and grabbed a game-high 11 rebounds.

In its first-ever meeting with North Carolina (25-9), what will Baylor do to counteract the size of a team that starts three players 6-8 or taller and that ranks seventh in the nation in rebound margin? Jonathan Tchamwa Tchatchoua, Baylor’s leading rebounder and the Big 12 co-Defensive Player of the Year, is out for the season with a knee injury. Kendall Brown, a 6-8 freshman who has been a major contributor, is battling strep throat and was less than 100 percent for Baylor’s first-round game.

“Their size is really elite from the … literally, I think the two to five. You know, they have really good size,” Baylor second-team all-Big 12 guard Adam Flagler said. “But, like I said before, the Big 12 is a huge conference. And all of the teams in the Big 12 focus on rebounding. They definitely look like a couple teams [we’ve played] in the sense of their size. As long as we focus on staying true to our principles, we’ll be fine.”

Baylor will need another big game from 6-10 senior forward Flo Thamba, 6-9 freshman forward Jeremy Sochan and 6-9 senior guard/forward Matthew Mayer after those three combined for 51 points and 19 rebounds against Norfolk State. It will also be incumbent upon Baylor’s guards to help down low.

“We are real confident in our guys. We all put in a lot of work in the weight room and stuff like that,” said first-team all-Big 12 guard James Akinjo, who had a double-double with 10 points and 10 assists against Norfolk State. “We’re going to help our bigs down there with their bigs, but I think we’ve got confidence in guys like Flo, Jeremy.”

Baylor is looking for its sixth trip to the Sweet 16 since 2010, and it has already seen No. 2 seed Kentucky lose in its region. Rest assured, Baylor won’t get caught looking past eighth-seeded North Carolina, which tied its lowest seeding ever in the NCAA Tournament since the event expanded to 64 teams in 1985.

“What’s so great about March, no matter what game you watch and no matter who you probably picked in your bracket, you know it’s a one-game, 40-minute event. So anything can happen,” Drew said. “Really, I think the important thing is having player-led teams. And what I mean by that is them understanding just the parity in college basketball and how hard and how well they have to play if they want to play in this tournament. It’s not guaranteed. You can play a great team and go home.”

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