WACO, Texas – The No. 9 Baylor Bears hit 13 three-point buckets and never trailed in handing the Sam Houston State Bearkats a 79-45 loss on Wednesday night at the Ferrell Center.

The Kats (4-3), who were playing their first top-10 opponent since 2012, were led by 13 points from Aurimas Majauskas and eight from Dakarai Henderson, but shot just 28.2 percent for the game against a Bear (7-0) defense that has yet to allow 70 points this season.

HOW IT HAPPENED
Baylor opened up the game on a 20-2 run over the first 11 minutes, canning seven threes in the first 20 minutes of play to take a 34-17 lead into the break.

The Kats forced eight Bear turnovers in the first half, but hit just 2-for-14 from three themselves, with both coming from senior Henderson. Meanwhile, seven Bears got into the first-half scoring column, led by Al Freeman's eight points as one of three players with multiple three-point baskets.

It took the Bearkats nearly seven minutes of game time to on the scoreboard, not connecting on their first 13 shots to start the game before Albert Almanza took the lid off the basket with a reverse layup for the first Sam Houston score of the game.

Meanwhile, the Bears started off hot, hitting their first three field goals of the game, including a pair of triples, to open up a 10-0 lead before the Almanza layup. Another 10-0 run followed before Henderson gave the Kats some life with threes on back-to-back possessions.

The Kats shot just 38 percent in the opening half, finishing strong with makes on three of their final four shots after a three-point play from Majauskas and a hook shot from Christopher Galbreath to go into the break down 17.

Baylor opened up the second half on a 10-2 spurt with five points from Freeman, upping its lead to 44-19 at the first media timeout. Henderson found Galbreath for a layup to end the run, and Majauskas put in consecutive scores of his own to get into double figures, but Ishmail Wainright  and Jonathan Motley responded with Baylor scores to keep Baylor with a comfortable lead at 53-27, seven minutes into the second period.

The next six minutes saw the Kats get a pull-up three from Josh Delaney and another layup from Majauskas on a feed from John Dewey, but Baylor answered with scores from Terry Maston and Wainright before the Sam Houston defense held the Bears off the scoreboard for nearly three minutes.

Torry Butler got five straight points, including Sam's fourth three-point shot of the night to cut the Baylor lead to 65-43 after a 9-0 Kat run late in the game; however, the Bears nailed triples on their next three trips down the floor as part of a 13-0 run that lasted into the game's final minute.

PLAYERS OF THE GAME
Majauskas finished with a team-high 13 points on 6-for-15 from the field, while Henderson added eight first-half points. The Kats finished with assists on 12 of 20 made buckets, with three coming from John Dewey III.  

KEY STATS
The Bearkats entered the night shooting 33 percent from beyond the arc, but were just 4-for-25 from three against Baylor on Wednesday. Meanwhile, the Bears hit 13 of 31 tries from distance, including seven in the first half.

UP NEXT
The Bearkats will now return home for four of their next five games, starting Saturday against LSU-Shreveport. Tipoff against the Pilots is set for 6:30 p.m. from Bernard G. Johnson Coliseum.

QUOTEABLES
Sam Houston State Head Coach Jason Hooten

Opening statement...
"We played a very poor basketball game tonight. We could talk about our team, but that would not be very fair to Baylor. They are a really good team. It may be one of Coach (Scott) Drew's best teams because it seems like he has a bunch of kids that love to play together. They share the ball and they seem to play harder defensively than I have ever seen his teams play. That is a pretty good recipe for success.”

On Baylor's inside game...
"They are 7-foot, 6'10” and we have a kid in there that is 6'8” and a really good player in our conference. He played very well against a very good mid-major program in Idaho on Friday. Now he is trying to shoot an up-and-under on a 7-footer that is probably going to play in the NBA. That's different.”

On pick-your-poison mentality vs. Baylor...
"We took away their inside game. I don't think they got very much at the basket and we made them make threes, and they did it tonight. When you play a high-major school, most of the time you have to pick your poison, and it just backfired on us.”