Sigh, just another day on the recruiting trail for Scott Drew.

Earlier today, the Baylor coach received a verbal commitment from 2013 center Dominic Woodson. Woodson (a 4-star recruit according to Rivals and ESPN) attends famed Huntington Prep in West Virginia but is originally from Round Rock, Texas. There’s no doubt distance played a role in his decision. He was down to Baylor and NC State, so having the chance to play at a still rising program just 90 minutes from his home seemed like an easy choice to make. The news was first reported by Evan Daniels of Scout.com

Woodson joins an already stacked recruiting class in Waco. (Davide Depas)

Woodson is the latest in a recent line of big men to commit to Scott Drew. This may be a reach but if Isaiah Austin, Cory Jefferson and Rico Gathers all decide to return to school next season along with Woodson, Ishmail Wainwright and Jonathan Motley coming in, the Bears could very well have the biggest and most talented set of big guys in America. “It’s close to home, a great academic school and has a great coaching staff. And [there’s] a chance to win a championship,” Woodson told Scout.com.

After all these years, it’s crazy to hear the word “championship” associated with Baylor basketball.

Evan Jacoby is a regular contributor for RTC. You can find him @evanjacoby on Twitter. Night Line will run on weeknights during the season, highlighting a major storyline development from that day’s games.

Since winning its first 17 games of the season, Baylor has struggled mightily against tougher competition and played mediocre .500 basketball in its past 10 games. Facing a 10-point halftime deficit on Monday night at Texas, it looked as if the Bears were going to drop another game and confirm beliefs that this team lacks the toughness to win big games. But forward Quincy Acy stopped the wheels from falling off, going for 14 of his 22 points in the second half and lifting his team to a 77-72 road win over the Longhorns. While Baylor has been unable to play to its potential in the Big 12, the senior Acy has displayed consistent 100% effort to ensure that his team cannot be counted out just yet. It remains to be seen if Baylor’s talented roster will ever produce elite results, but the leadership from Acy is there to prevent a complete meltdown from occurring.

Quincy Acy is the Heart and Soul of the Baylor Bears (US Presswire/B. Maloney)

From a pure talent perspective, Acy is not even one of the top two forwards on this Baylor team. Freshman Quincy Miller and sophomore Perry Jones III are both projected 2012 NBA Draft lottery picks, according to DraftExpress. While both players have tremendous upside as impact offensive players, both have also struggled to establish themselves as reliable players in difficult games. Miller was a complete non-factor on Monday and failed to score in 22 minutes, while Jones shot 3-14 for just 10 points and three rebounds in another disappointing effort. But team leader Acy was a man among boys in the paint, physically out-working and out-hustling everyone else on the floor for one of the best games of his career. He finished with 22 points and a career-high 16 rebounds to secure a big victory for the Bears that at least temporarily halts concerns that they could be in a major slide heading into the Big 12 Tournament.

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To understand the magnitude of tonight’s Big 12 showdown between Baylor and Kansas, we must backtrack more than six decades into history. In 1950, the Bears won the Southwest Conference under coach Bill Henderson, cementing itself as a national power by reaching its second Final Four in three seasons. The Jayhawks, still five years away from moving into Allen Fieldhouse, shared the Big Seven title with Kansas State and Nebraska.

Sixty-two years later, Kansas has won 28 additional conference championships (along with two national titles). Since 2005, it has earned at least a share of the Big 12 title, as it has not finished worse than 2nd since the turn of the millenium. Baylor, on the other hand, never won another SWC title. And since the inception of the Big 12 in 1996, only Scott Drew‘s Elite Eight team in 2009-10 has even sniffed a championship when it tied for second. In the other 14 seasons, the Bears finished in the upper-half of the league just three times.

Bill Self and Kansas Are No Strangers To Championships

So that’s where we stand on Martin Luther King Day in 2012. With the whole world watching on ESPN’s Big Monday, Baylor has a chance to erase 62 years of history and knock Kansas from the throne of this conference. That is, if it can handle the Phog, where Baylor has never won. Hardly anybody does, after all. But if the first two months of the season has taught us anything, it’s that the Bears aren’t going to roll over on the road. This isn’t the same team that collapsed in 2011-12. With better guard play and a more unselfish offensive attack, Drew’s team has already won at BYU and Kansas State, two of the tougher home venues in college basketball.

The Bears beat Oklahoma State by 40 points on Saturday. They’re undefeated. They have NBA lottery picks up and down the bench and more long, athletic forwards than they know what to do with. But as every hoops analyst has repeated time and time again, “The road to the Big 12 title goes through Lawrence.” That’s why this may be of the more important mid-January games you will see in college basketball.

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Brian Otskey is the Big East correspondent for RTC and a regular contributor. You can find him @botskey on Twitter. See bottom of the post for the Official RTC Star System.

With Dead Week mercifully over, we finally have some good games to enjoy this Saturday despite Sunday being a very slow day in the hoops world.

#6 Baylor @ BYU – 2:00 PM EST Saturday on BYU TV (****)

Perry Jones Leads Baylor into Provo Saturday (AP)

• The Bears have had difficulty on the road in past seasons but they already passed one important test, demolishing Northwestern in Chicago a couple weeks ago. This game, however, will be an even better measure to see where the highly-rated Bears are really at. The Marriott Center is a notoriously difficult place to play but Baylor has a clear talent edge in this game. BU welcomes Gary Franklin, now eligible after the first semester, to an already highly skilled roster. Franklin didn’t play all that well at California last season but he was a four star recruit out of high school. He should help the Bears out at the point guard position, a place where turnovers are still an issue. Baylor averages 16 turnovers a game and that will be dangerous playing on the road against a team like BYU that likes to push the pace. 5.8 of those 16 turnovers come from the point guard position so Scott Drew is hoping that Franklin can help handle the ball. How Franklin will fit in alongside Pierre Jackson and A.J. Walton remains a question mark.
• BYU’s top six scorers are all 6’5” or taller, an important factor against the length and athleticism of Baylor’s front line. Noah Hartsock, Brandon Davies and Charles Abouo do the bulk of the damage for Dave Rose, as those three are his top scorers and rebounders. Hartsock in particular has been outstanding, scoring in double figures in every game thus far. All three will have to play well in order for BYU to pull the upset because Baylor’s front court is strong, deep and talented. With Quincy Acy blocking 3.3 shots a game, BYU’s big men should find it more difficult to score inside on Saturday. The Cougars have to get their outside game going as well. Baylor’s defense is very average against the three and BYU has three big deep threats, Abouo, Stephen Rogers and Brock Zylstra. Going up against the top-ranked interior defense in the nation, BYU needs its outside shots to fall in order to win. However, the Cougars can’t afford to settle for threes if they aren’t falling. They must get something going in the paint, even against such a strong defense, in order to balance out their offense.
• This is an important game for both clubs. Baylor has played only two teams of note so far while BYU’s best win is over a mediocre Oregon team. Baylor shoots well (49.1% FG) but the biggest difference this season has been its defense. The Bears allow only 33.3% shooting inside the arc and their defensive efficiency has been terrific. Both teams get most of their offense from their respective front courts but Baylor may have the ultimate edge with Cory Jefferson off the bench. He adds some scoring punch and, more importantly, rebounding and depth for the Bears. For the Cougars to win, they’ll have to force turnovers to get points in transition because it’ll be awfully tough to score inside in the half court. In addition to making its threes, BYU must rebound well and get to the line while putting the Baylor big men in foul trouble. However, BYU ranks #295 in free throw rate and Baylor doesn’t foul too often. Although BYU rarely loses at home, this is a game Baylor can win. There are some who still doubt the Bears but a win here would put them on their way towards legitimate national recognition.

Texas A&M vs. #10 Florida (at Sunrise, FL) – 2:30 PM EST Saturday on FSN (***)

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Predicted finish: 2nd

2010-11 Record: 18-13, 7-9 (7th, Big 12)

Head Coach: Scott Drew, 9th season

Key Losses: Lacedarius Dunn (19.5 PPG)

It’s been an up-and-down stretch lately for Scott Drew at Baylor. In 2007-08, Drew led the Bears to their first NCAA Tournament appearance in decades, capping a remarkable turnaround for the program just five years after the ugly Patrick Dennehy murder scandal. With high expectations the next season, though, the Bears flopped; they then recovered for an Elite Eight appearance in 2009-10 before tumbling to a 7-9 record in Big 12 play last season. If the trend continues, perhaps BU will make a Final Four this season. That’s not even a wild scenario, considering the Bears have one of the nation’s most ferocious frontcourts. Even with all of the talent in Waco, they’ll need better point guard play, and they must learn how to play as a cohesive unit. If that happens, there’s no stopping these guys.

Potential Lotto Pick Perry Jones Made An Unexpected Return To Waco, But Will Chemistry Issues Plague The Bears Again?

The Stars: Perry Jones could have made millions as an NBA Draft lottery pick this spring, but he bypassed that option and returned for his sophomore season at Baylor. Although the 6’11” forward wasn’t perfect last season, he was still one of the nation’s top freshman. In 2011-12, he’s a Big 12 Player of the Year and All-America candidate who can score from anywhere on the floor. The other star opposite of Jones is Quincy Miller, the freshman stud who loves to attack the offensive glass and use his freakish athleticism in transition. Like Jones, Miller is a long, fast forward with great defensive potential and a future in the NBA.

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