17. Baylor (14-5)
Nine straight wins opened Baylor’s season before a bit of trouble in mid-December. There’s been no shame in any of the Bears’ losses this season, and they did get Big 12 play off to a 3-0 start. Unfortunately, Baylor lost a pair of tough road games in close battles last week and fell a bit in the metrics and national rankings. Unfortunately for Scott Drew and company, things didn’t improve this week.
While the Bears were back in their friendly confines in Waco, they faced a significant challenge and had quite the duel with TCU. Baylor lost a thriller at home to the Horned Frogs 105-102 in three overtimes, dropping their third straight game. As a team, the Bears shot 48% from the field and outrebounded the Horned Frogs, getting 25 points and 9 rebounds from Yves Missi and another 24 from RayJ Dennis; but it wasn’t enough.
It would be foolish to say the Bears are in some sort of free fall even with this third straight defeat. All three losses came in close battles that they certainly could’ve won and you’d be kidding yourself if you didn’t expect Baylor to compete for the Big 12 title in the weeks ahead. Obviously, Baylor needs to get back into the winning column and will hope for better success next week against UCF and Iowa State.