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Baylor Bears: What’d we miss?

January 10, 2017 by Mike Casazza

A year ago, Baylor kinda-sorts folded toward the end with three losses in five games to end the regular season and then first-round losses in the Big 12 and NCAA tournaments, the latter to — let me double-check this — Yale. In person and from afar, the Bears seemed on the brink until they met their end.

Prince was the leading scorer and a first-team all-Big 12 player. He’s gone. Prince was the No. 12 pick in June’s draft by the Utah Jazz. The leading rebounder and top-shelf brute was Rico Gathers. He’s gone. Gathers was a sixth-round pick by the Dallas Cowboys in April’s NFL draft. The engineer on offense was Lester Medford, who was second in the Big 12 in assists per game and assist-turnover ratio, trailing only Monte Morris, this preseason’s conference player of the year.

Those are big blows, and when the Big 12 coaches unveiled their preseason poll in October, Baylor was No. 5. That’s not a great place to be when your conference was No. 1 in the RPI for the prior three years.

On Monday, Baylor rose to No. 1 in the national polls for the first time ever. This is the same team that didn’t get a vote in the preseason polls, but this is also the team that has nine RPI top-100 wins and three wins against teams in the top 10 of the polls.

So, what did we miss? How about the fact this team is cleverly constructed with proper parts from the starting five to the reserves on the bench and that Baylor may very well boast the Big 12’s best newcomer, best defender, best utility player and best player?