Baylor Basketball is in serious contention to be CBB’s next blueblood
By Andrew Tineo
The past decade of Baylor Basketball
With all of Baylor’s well-known lack of success off and on the court, Coach Scott Drew has gone through different plans, whether that be through recruiting or schematically.
Drew started making impacts in the high school recruiting ranks, grabbing players that Baylor is not accustomed to getting. Tweety Carter, LaceDarius Dunn, Anthony Jones, all Top 70 level recruits nationally, headlined by Dunn at No. 34. A splash transfer from Michigan’s Ekpe Udoh, had Baylor serious contenders for a deep run in the NCAA Tournament.
After an Elite Eight appearance, it was apparent that Coach Drew could have legit success at Baylor. Over the course of a few years, Drew would dip into the transfer market, to add key guards in Pierre Jackson, Brady Heslip, and Gary Franklin. Near this time, Drew also started using redshirts to develop players.
The player it helped the most was F Cory Jefferson. The group of those four led the Bears back to the Elite Eight in 2011. Following the next year missing the NCAA Tournament, but routing the NIT field to capture the school’s first postseason championship in 2012.
On the court, Baylor became a primarily dominant zone team, leaving the middle and corners available for shooters on kick-outs. Depending on how disciplined and athletic they were, was how well the zone defense worked.
A late-season run helped the Bears with a Sweet 16 appearance in 2014 but was stonewalled in the first round in consecutive NCAA Tournaments. Drew’s transfer success worked once again in 2017, with grabbing and redshirting Miami G Manu Lecomte and C Jo Lual-Acuil.
Those two alongside junior Johnathon Motley led the Bears to their first-ever No.1 ranking and a 17-0 start, the best in program history in 2016-2017. The program seemed to be reaching nice heights and was in the thick of a Big 12 race with Kansas. Unfortunately, the Bears ran out of steam late in the year and fell to No. 11 seed South Carolina in the Sweet 16.
The Bears played below expectations the following season, after losing Motley and Ishmail Wainwright to professional basketball. Baylor finished in a four-way tie for sixth in the Big 12 and lost in the second round of the NIT to Mississippi State, capping off the worst season since 2010-2011.
Quite possibly the most important time period of this massive rebuild was the acquisitions made in the 2018 off-season.