Baylor men's basketball will play at Marquette on Tuesday, Nov. 29, at the Fiserv Forum, which also plays host to the NBA's Milwaukee Bucks. The game will be part of the 2022 Big 12-Big East Battle, with tipoff time and television network to be determined.
The Bears and Golden Eagles will meet for a third time, with their last meeting coming in 1999, a 72-68 overtime win for the Bears in Waco. Their first meeting came when Marquette won 74-64 in Milwaukee a year earlier.
Baylor will enter the Big East-Big 12 Battle with a 13-1 record against Big East teams under 20th-year head coach Scott Drew. BU smothered Villanova in the 2021 challenge, holding the Wildcats to a season-low 36 points before they eventually made a run to the Final Four 2021-22. It was Villanova's lowest scoring output in the Jay Wright era and the first time they were held under 40 since 1979.
The Bears are 8-0 in neutral-site games, 5-0 in home games and 0-1 on the road against Big East teams during the Drew era and will be looking for a win over an eighth different Big East squad, already with wins against Xavier (3-1), Creighton (2-0), Providence (2-0), Villanova (3-0), St. John's (1-0), Georgetown (1-0) and Butler (1-0).
BU won its inaugural Big East-Big 12 Battle matchup when the No. 11-ranked Bears hosted No. 19 Butler at the Ferrell Center on Dec. 10, 2019. Baylor led the game wire-to-wire, and Mark Vital had a block in the final seconds to seal a 53-52 victory.
Baylor is 12-3 all-time in conference challenges, the best record of any Big 12 team. The Bears hold the best record of any team at 7-2 in the Big 12/SEC Challenge, along with a 3-1 mark in the Big 12/Pac-10 Hardwood Series and a 2-0 record in the Big 12-Big East Battle.
The Bears could return nine players from the 2021-22 Big 12 Championship squad. Adam Flagler, Jonathan Tchamwa Tchatchoua, Flo Thamba, LJ Cryer, Dale Bonner, Zach Loveday, Langston Love, Jordan Turner and Austin Sacks can all return from last year's team. The Bears have also added three transfers to go along with two highly ranked high school recruits.
WVU's Jalen Bridges joins the Bears after starting all 36 Big 12 games with the Mountaineers over the last two seasons. Caleb Lohner returns to his home state after playing 62 games in two years with BYU in the West Coast Conference. He joins JUCO All-American Dantwan Grimes, who led the Kilgore College Rangers to back-to-back NJCAA National Tournaments. McDonalds All-American Keyonte George and Joshua Ojianwuna will join the program out of high school.