ATLANTA -- Perry Jones III had two points and one rebound in the first half. Three turnovers, too, but who's counting? He was a no-show.
His counterpart, Anthony Davis – a player he'll battle for years to come in the NBA – had 14 points, seven boards and two blocks in that same span.
If there was one major reason Kentucky ended the first half up 20, it was because Jones was outplayed. That's oversimplifying things, sure, but Jones' invisibility was that conspicuous.
The second half was a different game.
Baylor wasn't able to ever get the lead under 10, but it was 20 minutes of competitive hoops everyone between two squads full of future pros. The difference in the second half was that Jones brought his game with him. He went at Davis, got him in foul trouble and was sometimes the best player on the court. If the Jones that played the second half had shown up in in the first half, the tenor of the game would have been entirely different.
When asked why he didn't play the first half with the kind of aggression and intensity he displayed in the second half, Jones answered simply, "I don't know."
Jones wasn't alone in the first half. During one timeout, seldom-used senior forward Fred Ellis was yelling at his teammates.
"SHOW SOME HEART!" he demanded.
Quincy Acy and Pierre Jackson seemed to be the only Bears playing with urgency in the first half while their teammates struggled to play with anything resembling verve.
"In the second half, we did a better job of playing hard and showing more effort," said Acy. "First half, we didn't do that as a whole. It's not a one player game. It's not based on my intensity. I've got to do a better job of getting guys going because I'm a senior leader. I've got to do a better job. I take blame for that."
Motivation, urgency, aggression, passion – those are all abstract ideas when it comes to basketball.
Baylor coach Scott Drew thought the loss was attributed to things of the X's and O's variety.
"I think there's a lot of things we could have done different," said Drew. "We could have zoned them the entire game, seen how that worked. I think we could have come out and trapped ball screens from the get go."
And to that end, when Jones got it going in the second half, it galvanized Baylor and the Bears made their run. They even looked like they were going to make a game of it, but it was that "too little, too late" cliché. If only they would have came out the gate and matched Kentucky's intensity.
The Wildcats played the full game with purpose. Forward Terrence Jones said the win was "kind of a mixture of us executing the way that we wanted to and the way our game plan was set up and just how hard we were playing."
"We go out and play harder than the other team," said Kentucky guard Doron Lamb. "We want to make sure they know they can't beat us. We go out at the beginning of the game and be aggressive on defense and offense, and that's what we did today."
"Let's credit Kentucky because, at the end of the day, they were the best team," said Drew. "They're a No. 1 team for a reason. You've got to play your best to beat the best. We didn't do that."
Baylor's performance on Sunday was definitely not its best. So, it ends the season with some "what if" regret.
They've got the rest of spring, summer and fall to think about it.
