WACO — Back when Southwest Conference basketball was just gaining a national spotlight, back when some of us still matriculated at its fine universities, Texas coach Abe Lemons famously sat up in a coffin to open his Sunday night TV show and proclaimed, “We ain’t dead yet.’’
Not knowing how the religious implications of such an act might be viewed on this campus, I think Scott Drew should consider doing likewise.
Baylor won its first men’s basketball national title last spring by shooting the lights out. Relying heavily on the perimeter skills of Jared Butler, MaCio Teague and Davion Mitchell, Drew’s team shot 41 percent from three-point range for the season and went where no Bears had gone before.
Well, maybe some Bruins had gone there a whole bunch of times… but no Baylor Bears.
Trying to defend a title without their three leading scorers is one thing. Trying to do it with suspect outside shooting is another.
Baylor went the first 24 minutes without hitting a three-point shot Saturday night at the Ferrell Center and made just 3 of 14 attempts in front of a noisy record crowd of 10,628. Still, the Bears found a way to knock off Kansas 80-70 and remind all concerned that the Big 12 regular season race isn’t settled for one more week.
More significantly, the Bears showed the NCAA selection committee that despite a heavy dose of injuries, they aren’t finished winning big games.
On a crazy day where the teams ranked second (Arizona), third (Auburn), fourth (Purdue), sixth (Kentucky) and ninth (Texas Tech) all lost games, it was up to the Bears to add fifth-ranked Kansas to the mix. They did it despite falling behind by 13 early in the game, and they did it by attacking the basket relentlessly while holding the Jayhawks to 34.3 percent shooting from the field.
Kansas now enters the final week of the regular season at 12-3 while 10th-ranked Baylor is 12-4 and the Red Raiders, after losing to TCU, sit at 11-5. Regardless of how this week goes, it’s going to make for an entertaining few days in Kansas City where the Big 12 tournament will determine whether 1, 2 or 3 seeds await the league’s top teams.
Baylor’s defense of its national title was meant to include leading rebounder Jonathan Tchamwa Tchatchoua, now out for the year with a knee injury. It probably needs to include guard L.J. Cryer, the team’s second-leading scorer who missed his 10th game Saturday with a foot injury. It could have been helped by Langston Love, the No. 7 shooting guard in the freshman class according to ESPN, who suffered a knee injury in a November scrimmage with Texas A&M and has missed the entire season.
The Bears fight on.
There was nothing about the early stages of Saturday’s primetime ESPN contest that suggested this thing could end with Adam Flagler dribbling out the clock and the Jayhawks helpless to do anything about a 10-point deficit. The conference’s leading scorer, Ochai Agbaji, came out raining threes, although he would finish the night with 10 misses from long range (4-for-14) in scoring 27 points.
Kansas led 24-11 before Baylor really even got involved. Jeremy Sochan, coming off the bench, did much of the damage that got the crowd going while providing 17 points. The surprise scoring leader, indicative of the variety of ways Drew’s team can get the job done, was center Flo Thamba. His 18 points inside, where Kansas was supposed to be able to press its advantage, served as a season-high.
Maybe that’s one more thing for Bears’ opponents to worry about as the champs get healthier before March Madness ensues.
There’s still a great chance that Kansas coach Bill Self will add to his ridiculous collection of Big 12 regular season trophies. The Jayhawks have captured the title in 15 of his 18 seasons since replacing Roy Williams. But, Baylor’s win Saturday served as a friendly reminder that Kansas’ dominance of this conference since its inception does not prohibit others from establishing their own greatness.
Self won his only national title in 2008 and lost an NCAA championship game to Kentucky a decade ago. But, the last two title games featured Texas Tech carrying Virginia into overtime and the Bears stunning Gonzaga with an 86-70 decision that was as close to perfection as Baylor will ever achieve.
This team isn’t that team. This team will probably end up a 2-seed and could fall victim in the tournament to a team that has the inside power to spotlight the absence of Baylor’s Tchamwa Tchatchoua. Then again with Flagler and James Akinjo having missed Big 12 games with injuries and now rounding into form and with Cryer’s anticipated return, the team that knocked off Kansas by 10 points Saturday is just getting healthy — or at least healthier — at the perfect time to do some more damage.
The Bears ain’t dead yet.
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February 27, 2022 at 11:11AM
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Scott Drew’s Baylor Bears, though wounded, are still good enough to beat Kansas - The Dallas Morning News
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