NORMAL, Ill. — Struggling to make shots from the field, No. 15 Wichita State had to find another way to win Saturday.

So that’s what the Shockers did.

Ron Baker scored 19 points and Wichita State overcame poor shooting with fierce defense in holding off Illinois State for a 68-62 victory.

Fred VanVleet added 15 points and Evan Wessel scored 12 for the Shockers (23-3, 13-1 Missouri Valley Conference), who shot only 36.7 percent (18 of 49) from the floor. Wichita State was much better at the free throw line, making 27 of 32.

“That was a pretty good ballgame,” Wichita State coach Gregg Marshall said. “There was a lot of fight in both teams tonight. We certainly didn’t shoot well, but neither did they. In the end, it didn’t matter.”

DeVaughn Akoon-Purcell led Illinois State (15-11, 7-7) with 18 points, and Reggie Lynch added 10 points and eight rebounds. The Redbirds shot 41.5 percent from the floor (22 of 53) and were outrebounded 40-26.

Illinois State was 13 of 18 at the foul line. Both teams went 5 for 19 from 3-point range.

“They just plain killed us on the boards,” Redbirds coach Dan Muller said. “That and too many fouls lost the game for us, no question. We just could not get rebounds tonight.”

Tekele Cotton grabbed a game-high 10 rebounds for the Shockers.

Wichita State started strong but went cold midway through the second half and scored only six points during a 9-minute stretch. The Redbirds picked up their play after halftime and kept the game tight, trimming an 11-point deficit to 53-51 with 4:57 left.

Wichita State slowed the tempo early and never trailed in the first half. The Shockers led 27-21 at the break.

VanVleet went down holding his right ankle late in the first half.

“Freddy rolled that ankle pretty good,” Marshall said. “But he’s one of the toughest players I’ve ever coached. Most guys wouldn’t have come back from that. But Freddy was back out there in less than a minute and ended up playing, what, something like 36 minutes on a bad wheel? I just hope it’s not too swollen to play on next week.”

Wichita State: The Shockers are 46-10 on the road since 2010-11, the best record in the nation. They won a modern MVC-record 13 straight road games before losing to No. 18 Northern Iowa on Jan. 31. … Wichita State has held opponents to 55.8 points per game this season, which ranks eighth in the country.

Illinois State: The Redbirds last defeated the Shockers at Redbird Arena on Dec. 29, 2009. Overall, however, the Redbirds hold a 22-12 advantage at home against Wichita State.

BENCH STRENGTH

Illinois State’s reserves outscored the Shockers’ 23-6. Kyle McIntosh had nine points off the bench and John Jones had eight for the Redbirds.

UP NEXT 

Wichita State plays at Southern Illinois on Tuesday.

Illinois State plays at Bradley on Wednesday.

By Todd Moore

Another day of solid pitching was not enough as the Barton Community College baseball team split another doubleheader to Western Nebraska Community College Saturday in Scottsbluff, Nebraska.

The Cougars easily won 5-1 in game one but five errors proved too costly in the second game as Barton fell 3-2.

Getting a combined twenty-two strikeouts on Friday from the pitching staff, Saturday’s hurlers combined for twenty strikeouts, seven hits, and only one earned run.

The series split takes Barton to 4-3 on the season as Western Nebraska opens up the season at 2-2. The Cougars’ next action will come next weekend for a three game series at Rose State College.

LAWRENCE, Kan. — Kelly Oubre scored 18 points, including a clinching 3-pointer in the final minutes, and eighth-ranked Kansas overcame a slow start to beat No. 16 Baylor 74-64 on Saturday.

Junior forward Perry Ellis also had 18 points to join the 1,000-point for his career, and Wayne Selden Jr. finished with 15 points as the Jayhawks (21-4, 10-2 Big 12) dug out of a 13-point first-half hole to remain perfect in 13 matchups with the Bears (18-7, 6-6) in Lawrence.

Kansas was clinging to a 57-55 lead after the Bears’ Rico Gathers made two foul shots with about 6 minutes left. But Ellis scored a couple of baskets around a midrange jumper from Landen Lucas, who had nine points off the bench, and the Jayhawks began to pull away.

Oubre’s 3 from the top of the key, his fourth of the game, made it 67-59 with 1:59 left.

The win was the Jayhawks’ 21st straight at Allen Fieldhouse, and ensures the 10-time champs would have no worse than a two-game lead in the conference race with six games to go.

Gathers led the Bears with 18 points and eight rebounds, despite playing the final stretch with four fouls. Kenny Chery followed up his 25-point performance in the teams’ first meeting in Waco with 17 points, and Taurean Prince had 14 points off the bench.

Despite their long losing streak in Lawrence, the Bears looked unperturbed early on by the roaring sellout crowd stuffed inside Allen Fieldhouse. They launched an 18-6 run to open the game, beat Kansas to every loose ball and at one point had a 12-2 edge on the glass.

Kansas, the best 3-point shooting team in the Big 12, rallied back thanks to three straight long-range jumpers — perhaps to the chagrin of coach Bill Self, who called a period of hot outside shooting by his team “fools gold” after a recent victory.

Baylor’s lead had been trimmed to 33-27 by halftime.

The Jayhawks kept up the pressure early in the second half, scoring right away on an alley-oop dunk by Wayne Selden. They finally took the lead for the first time when Oubre followed up his own missed 3 with a bucket at the rim to make it 36-35 with 17:13 remaining.

Baylor regained the lead a few minutes later, and it was 49-45 after Chery hit a 3-pointer with 9:41 to go. But the Jayhawks put together a 10-0 spurt of the next few minutes, and Brannen Greene’s 3-pointer to cap the run gave Kansas a 55-49 advantage.

The Jayhawks never trailed the rest of the way.

HONORING SMITH

Kansas played a special video in memory of Dean Smith, who died last Saturday at his home in North Carolina. The longtime Tar Heels coach grew up in nearby Topeka and was part of the Jayhawks’ national title team in 1952. He later served as an assistant at Kansas under Phog Allen.

TIP-INS

Baylor: The Bears fell to 3-15 against Kansas under coach Scott Drew. … Baylor finished with a 33-32 edge on the boards. … The Bears allowed the Jayhawks to shoot 29 free throws.

Kansas: Frank Mason’s streak of 21 straight games scoring in double figures ended Saturday. He finished with five points and eight assists. … Among former players who returned during the NBA’s All-Star break were Ben McLemore, Nick Collison and Joel Embiid.

UP NEXT:

Baylor heads to Lubbock to face Texas Tech on Tuesday night.

Kansas visits No. 21 West Virginia on Monday night.

For the second straight week and third time this season, Ahmad Walker of the Barton Community College men’s basketball team has been named the KJCCC Player of the Week for his performances last week.

After shooting over 56% from the field the previous week, Walker had an even better week shooting 61.5% from the field including 66.7% from beyond the arc and 80% from the charity stripe.   Setting a new career high with thirty-two points in Barton’s two-point win versus Dodge City, Walker’s twenty-four point week average increased his Jayhawk West leading average to 20.5 points per contest.   Scoring sixteen points and eleven rebounds last Saturday in Barton’s five-point win at Garden City, Walker recorded his fourth double-double in the last eight games finishing the week averaging 9.5 rebounds and three assists per game.

For the season the Port Washington, New York, native ranks first in the Jayhawk West averaging 20.4 points per game while grabbing a seventh best 7.2 rebounds per game.  Walker also has led the Cougars in assists in all but seven of his twenty-two games at 5.6 dimes per contest to rank second in the West and fourth in steals at 1.8.   Walker also ranks in the top ten in field goal percentage (52.8%) and free throw shooting (75.1%).

By Todd Moore

Getting a combined twenty-two strikeouts from the pitching staff, the Barton Community College baseball team split its doubleheader Friday in Scottsbluff, Nebraska, to Western Nebraska Community College.

The Cougars held a one run seventh inning lead in game one but a leadoff double proved costly as the host tied it up in their season opener forcing extra innings to eventually win 2-1 in the bottom of the ninth. Barton bounced back in the nightcap getting an eleven strikeout performance by sophomore Jordan Plank to split the doubleheader with the 3-1 victory and improve to 3-2 on the season.

The teams will wrap up the four-game series on Saturday with a 1:00 p.m. doubleheader.