Kansas City, Mo. ? Rahshon Clark scored a career-high 20 points to lead Iowa State to a 77-57 victory over Baylor on Thursday in the first round of the Big 12 tournament.
Jared Homan added 17 points for the Cyclones (18-10), who won for the 10th time in their last 12 games and will meet Texas Tech in Friday’s semifinals.
Baylor (9-19), which missed the 2004 Big 12 tournament because of self-imposed sanctions for NCAA violations under former coach Dave Bliss, ended its season on a 14-game losing streak. The Bears have not won a first-round Big 12 game since their surprising run to the semifinals in 2001.
Fifth-seeded Iowa State took control early, opening the game with a 17-0 run. The Cyclones led 21-1 before the 12th-seeded Bears scored their first field goal on Tim Bush’s 3-pointer with 12:20 left in the first half.
The Cyclones’ 57 percent shooting was their best ever in a Big 12 tournament game. They hit eight of their first 10 shots from the field, including 4-for-4 shooting from 3-point range, and finished 29-for-51.
Baylor missed its first seven field-goal attempts. After falling behind by 20 in the opening minutes, the Bears never got closer than 12 points.
Curtis Stinson, Will Blalock and Damion Staple added 10 points each for Iowa State. Staple had a double-double with 11 rebounds, part of a 36-25 advantage on the boards for Iowa State.
Baylor’s Aaron Bruce, who came in as the nation’s top freshman scorer at 18.4 points per game, was held to 12 points Thursday but was still the Bears’ leading scorer. In two games against the Cyclones this season, he scored 21 points.
His 509 points this season are the second-most for a freshman in Big 12 history, behind the 534 Stinson scored last year for Iowa State.
Patrick Fields added 11 points for the Bears before fouling out.
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