Christmas is the sharing season, something the Baylor Red Raiders took to the extreme during Thursday's opening-round game against Heritage in the Times Free Press Best of Preps basketball tournament.
Baylor, playing only its seventh game of the season, executed its motion offense to near perfection and harassed the Generals into submission defensively in a 75-41 win at Chattanooga State. The Red Raiders (5-2) will face Brainerd in a semifinal at 8:30 tonight.
"I'm proud of the way the guys competed tonight," winning coach Austin Clark said. "I thought we shared the ball well. Defensively we have to get better, but offensively we had a good night. We haven't played very many basketball games, but we are about to catch up and this is a good start."
Senior wing Boris Ristanovic was a perfect 3-for-3 from 3-point range and added three dunks to lead Baylor with 19 points, while freshman Randy Brady added 15. Playing in his first game after recovering from injury, Patrick Urey contributed 11, and fellow senior Niko Simpkins added 10 points, six rebounds and three of the team's 14 steals.
Ristanovic set the tone early with 11 first-period points, including all three of his 3-pointers, as the Red Raiders built a 23-11 lead. The 6-foot-9 Russia native had the first four points of the second quarter as the Baylor blitzkrieg gained momentum.
"We executed well tonight and did what the coaches wanted us to do," Ristanovic said. "My shot was on tonight; that's the biggest part of my game. We just have to keep working because we have a tough game against Brainerd tomorrow and it only gets tougher."
Heritage big man Cole Wilcox, who led all scorers with 20, briefly halted the run with six consecutive hard drives, but the impressive freshman Brady had a dunk and strong drive and Urey nailed a 3-pointer as the lead grew back to more than 20. The Generals (6-6) closed the half on a 7-0 run, capped by Will Allen's 3-pointer, to cut the lead to 46-29.
"We have to keep maintaining the level of play we started the game with, because when you get up like that it's easy to lose it," Clark said. "But I'm proud of the way we came out in the second half and closed it out."
Baylor started the third period with a 15-0 run, including back-to-back Ristanovic dunks, to put the game away.
Contact Lindsey Young at lyoung@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6296. Follow him on Twitter @youngsports22.