Jay Bilas, arguably the best college hoops guy in the media, glossed him the best defender in college basketball.
With D.Mitch. J.Butler and Teague it's easy to see why there were the champs. That's 3 all-stars. They even had a cheap mo bamba knock off.
Mark Vital totally looks like the next undersized PF that spends a few years overseas developing a new skill, before joining the NBA. PJ Tucker - 3pt shot. Jae'sean Tate - Improved handles to attack off the dribble and PnR. Vital - ???
It was pretty obvious early on that Baylor was the real deal. Them dudes were as focused in the tournament as any team I've ever seen. Well deserved. I hope Baylor and UH make a habit of meeting in the finals of many sports
Once you get down off of cloud 9 or 12 or wherever you are, I want your thoughts on the game and Baylor going into next season
Their 3 week Covid break without practices obviously ****ed them up toward the end of the regular season and conference tourney. Heard Coach Drew say that is was kind of a blessing, got them to refocus on what they do very, very well: defense, constant movement and hustle, ball movement, and general asskicking
On PJ, I was totally amazed by his transformation during his Europe time. He went from a very undersized post player, unstoppable post player btw in college, to a guy in his prime who could guard almost anyone on the court outside of speedy PGs and also be a deadly spot up 3pt shooter. Not sure I've ever seen anything like it.
So I said here earlier that no matter if it was UH or Baylor, Gonzaga would see a defense like they've never seen before...and that happened. Zags shot over 50% from the field and still never seemed like they were in the game. Baylor limits shot opportunities so much, it's ridiculous. You had a group of kids, some of whom might have left the program for pro hoops, commit before the season to come back together specifically to go win the championship they thought they'd win in 2020. The commitment on the defensive end was just awesome...coupled with the fact, that Baylor had the best backcourt in the nation. I remember seeing charts throughout the season that plotted out defensive and offensive efficiency on an x/y graph. They'd show Zags super high on offense...far and away the best on offense...and about middle of the pack on defense. Baylor wasn't as high on offense, but they were one of the teams falling in that next pack...but on defense, it was Baylor, UH and a couple of other schools I'm forgetting way out on their own. All year long I was saying that 1. the Zags offensive efficiency numbers had to be influenced at least a little by the fact that their conference was weak; and 2. that if they faced a defense in that upper tier, we'd get to see how that plays out. That's why I was so disappointed to not have them match up in December when COVID got in the way. When we jumped out to the big lead, the Houston and Baylor fan in me was just waiting for it to crumble. Particularly against a team like Gonzaga. It just never did. There were like 8 minutes left and I was screaming internally, "OH MY GOD WHY IS THE CLOCK MOVING SO SLOWLY!!!??!!!" Too many heartaches over blown leads. At the end of the day, Baylor dominated the Final Four in a way that I can't recall seeing before. I'm sure it's happened, but I just don't remember seeing a team control both of their Final Four games in the way Baylor just did. Last thing...this is another in a long line of examples of why conference tournament play is so wildly overrated. I have fallen for it before, and it's easy to get down on a team because they lost a game in a conference tourney a day or so before you fill out your bracket....but time and and again, the national champ didn't win its conference tournament. As for the future, obviously they'll lose Mitchell and Butler and Teague. They'll bring back Flagler (a soph this year), Mayer, and Tchamwa Tchatchoua. They've had really good recruiting classes of late, and I can only imagine this run will help secure those going forward. I think you know this, but I broke ranks with my family, Longhorns, and went to Baylor. Growing up a UT sports fan, the Baylor basketball program was the sports program there I dove into most. I would travel to go see them play, and had a bunch of classes with guys on the team my freshman year. It was ridiculously meaningful to me to see them pull this off. My freshman year (92/93), SI did a story saying that Baylor was a "darkhorse" to make the Final Four in the next 5 years or so. It always seemed to me that Baylor COULD be a basketball school...small private schools in larger conferences had done well in basketball, obviously, because it doesn't take the massive footprint that football does. It's just awesome to think of how down they were...what an embarrassment the program was when Drew took it over...and what it's become. Really fun to follow.
Baylor has 3 top 100 players (2 in the top 34).. this will be Scott Drew's best incoming class ever and I expect Kendall Brown to be an immediate starter. With the new $110 M fieldhouse that's going to be built, it feels like Drew could just be getting started. He's now the youngest active head coach with a championship at the age of 50.
The real question is did Star Wars steal Commander Cody Carlson's name. The Darkside of Baylor history. "That's no Moon."
Tweety Carter has been my favorite Bear hooper of all time. Davion Mitchell is absolutely in that space for me as well. Was hoping he might slip to a spot where the Rockets could end up with him, but seeing him going around 6 or 7 now in the draft, with Butler down around 18-20. I did NOT see that coming before the season started.
