In the relatively unfamiliar ground of a close game, the Baylor Bears gave up a 15-point second-half lead before scoring the first eight points in overtime to pull out a gritty 72-66 win over the Arizona State Sun Devils Saturday night at the Desert Financial Arena.

Picking up their first road victory of the season and second-straight with a short-handed rotation of seven players, the Bears improved to 11-4 overall and 3-1 in the Big 12 on the first half of a two-game swing through the Grand Canyon state.

"We haven't had a close one where we had the lead and the other team came back, let alone on the road," said Baylor coach Scott Drew, whose team also won its second overtime game of the season. "And with a new group, you've got a lot of guys going through things for the first time together. When we got to overtime, it was recalibrate, refocus, recenter and play Baylor basketball. And I think we did that."

Miami transfer Norchad Omier scored 15 of his team-high 19 points in the second half and overtime, including a pair of 3-pointers, while 6-10 junior Josh Ojianwuna recorded his third double-double in his last five games and fourth of his career with 12 points and a career-high 17 rebounds.

Drew said Ojianwuna, who has averaged 11.4 points and 8.9 rebounds over the last seven games, has put in the work in his first two years at Baylor, "and the players have done a good job telling him we need more out of him, because they know that he's capable of it."

"I think they've done a better job giving him the ball when he's open, and he's done a better job of looking for it," Drew said. "We still want him to be more aggressive in the scoring area, and hopefully we keep getting to that. But rebounding, he's really done a much better job high pointing the ball."

In what Drew described as "one of the biggest plays of the game," Ojianwuna rebounded a miss by Omier on the back side and put it back in to give the Bears a 67-61 lead with 2:15 left in the overtime period.

"The first thing (Drew) told us was just to calm down, we've been here before,''' said Ojianwuna, who was a perfect 6-of-6 from the floor. "There's no need to rush, just run our offense, play defense, and we're going to come out with a win. I feel like that's what we did."

Freshmen VJ Edgecombe and Robert O. Wright III carried the team early, combining to score 18 of the first 20 points and helping Baylor get out to a 20-12 lead in the first 12 minutes of the game. But after that quick start, the freshman duo scored just seven more points over the last 28 minutes of the game.

"I think (ASU) switched guys guarding them at times," Drew said. "And I think they did a better job helping out on them. Credit those two, they came out with great juice, great energy. . . . Early on, they were just more effective."

Leading by 12 at the break, the Bears stretched it to 44-29 on a Jeremy Roach 3-pointer just over five minutes into the second half. But the Sun Devils clawed their way back, tying it up at 61-61 on a runner by Adam Miller with 1.9 seconds left in regulation.

Omier missed a turnaround jumper at the buzzer off a long inbounds pass from Edgecombe, sending the game into overtime.

"Even the guys who are not playing, they're always out here encouraging us and telling us to keep our head up, even when it was a tie game in overtime," Ojianwuna said. "We had guys in foul trouble, but from the coaches to the players on the bench and the guys on the floor, everyone was just feeding off each other's energy. That helped us a lot."

With ASU (10-5, 1-3) missing its first six shots in the five-minute OT period, Baylor took control with an 8-0 run that included buckets by Roach, Jayden Nunn, Ojianwuna and Omier to go up 69-61 before the Sun Devils ended nearly a four-minute scoring drought.

Nunn iced it with a pair of free throws and a steal in the last 20 seconds, going a perfect 5-for-5 from the line and scoring 10 points. Edgecombe and Wright scored 15 and nine points, respectively, while Roach had seven points and three assists.

"I give all the credit to Josh today," Omier said. "He played a great game, 17 rebounds, 12 points. If he didn't do that, I don't think we could have pulled it out."

BJ Freeman, whose previous best was 19 points, scored a game-high 22 on 8-of-19 shooting overall, 2-of-6 from outside the arc and 4-of-6 from the line. Alston Mason and Basheer Jahid scored 14 and 10 points, respectively, while 6-9 freshman Jayden Quaintance finished with five points, eight rebounds and two blocks.

Continuing their tour of the state, the Bears will face Arizona (10-5, 4-0) at 10:30 p.m. CT Tuesday at the McKale Center in Tucson. The Wildcats defeated UCF, 88-80, Saturday to remain tied atop the Big 12 standings with third-ranked Iowa State and No. 12 Houston at 4-0.