Ish Wainwright returns home and helps Baylor beat West Virginia 80-70 in Big 12 quarterfinal

If Baylor’s Ish Wainright could pick the place to have one of his best games of his career…

“On the flight up here, I couldn’t go to sleep,” Wainright said.

Wainright returned to the city where he grew up and helped the Bears to an 80-70 victory over West Virginia in a Big 12 Tournament quarterfinal.

Wainright, who started his prep career at Raytown South High before finishing at Montrose Christian in Maryland, contributed seven points and six rebounds — season highs — and chipped in an assist and steal in 15 active minutes.

At least 46 family and friends in the Wainright camp saw it. That’s how many tickets he was able to bargain from teammates.

“There were more, I can assure you,” Baylor coach Scott Drew said.

They saw Wainright, a sophomore swingman, get playing time as fouls piled up against the Bears. He hadn’t played more than 11 minutes in the last seven games.

“Coach told us at the beginning of the season you never know when your name is going to be called,” Wainright said.

The message: Practice hard and stay ready. Wainright has done that, and Thursday he was particularly happy with his work on the boards.

“We’re a big team, but they’re big,” Wainright said. “They’re a nice rebounding team, too.”

Baylor leads the Big 12 in rebounding, and West Virginia is the league’s top team in thefts. But there was no advantage for either side those departments on Thursday.

Unlike the two regular-season meetings, when Baylor opened early leads and won huge, this game was tight from the outset, and the back-and-forth game turned with 5 minutes remaining

Mountaineers guard Daxter Miles was picked by Baylor’s Taurean Prince, and Rico Gathers finished the transition with a slam.

Moments later, West Virginia guard Jevon Carter lost control of the ball. It wound up in Lester Medford’s hands and he took all the way, giving the Bears a 71-66 edge.

West Virginia never recovered.

“Huge,” Drew said. “It’s one thing to get a turnover, it’s another to get a turnover and conversion, and for us to get easy baskets, keep the momentum, that puts pressure on the other time. Those were huge plays.”

The Mountaineers kept it close by shooting it well — they were nine of 17 on three-pointers before missing their last seven — and defending. Baylor missed nine of its 10 three-pointers in the first half.

“But we were up two (at halftime),” Drew said. “You had to feel good about that situation.”

West Virginia coach Bob Huggins didn’t.

“We’re not a great shooting team,” Huggins said. “We get a lot done from effort and enthusiasm, and we didn’t get to 50-50 balls.”

West Virginia again was without All-Big 12 guard Juwan Staten and valued senior guard Gary Browne. They’ve missed action in recent weeks because of injuries and didn’t play on Thursday.

“They could have played, but they weren’t 100 percent today,” Huggins said. “It wasn’t the right thing to do.”

This story was originally published March 12, 2015 at 5:17 PM with the headline "Ish Wainwright returns home and helps Baylor beat West Virginia 80-70 in Big 12 quarterfinal."