NCAA Basketball: 5 coaches who deserve a lifetime deal like Bill Self’s at Kansas

Scott Drew, Baylor

Twenty years ago, the Baylor basketball program was at its lowest point. A player on the team was murdered by his former teammate. Coach Dave Bliss was forced to resign. The program was left in shambles.

From that mess, Scott Drew quickly returned respectability to the program, then turned them into a perennial national title contender.

Prior to Drew’s arrival in Waco, Baylor had been to one NCAA Tournament since 1950. Since his fifth year in charge, the Bears have only missed four NCAA Tournaments, winning the NIT in one of those outlier seasons.

The apex came three years ago, when Drew and the Bears cut down the nets at the end of the season, securing the first national title in program history. That was also the first time the Bears ever made the Final Four.

Despite flaming out in the first weekend of the NCAA Tournament the past two seasons, Drew has shown no signs of slowing down with Baylor. The team is positioned again this year to be one of the best in the Big 12, starting the campaign with three straight wins.

Drew has been at Baylor for two decades, but remains relatively young by college basketball coaching standards, turning 53 years old a couple of weeks before the start of this season. If Drew wants to keep coaching for another 15 to 20 years, nothing should stop him.

Some fun tidbits, first: Drew has more NCAA Tournament appearances combined then every other Baylor coach combined, more than double the amount of victories as the next-best coach in program history (Bill Henderson), and accounts for nearly a third of all Baylor victories ever.

Baylor landed a miracle when Drew arrived to the scandal-ridden scene in Waco. It should pull out all the stops to keep him there forever.