1. Did you know that Baylor is apparently “for real”? This lovely website had no less than three articles about the matter — one from yours truly — and now Yahoo! Sports is in on the fun with another piece on the Bears’ early success. It’s pretty easy to see why we’re all so high on Scott Drew‘s team after their win at Kansas State. These Bears appear to be having fun this season, and they’re playing together. Like they really want to win this season, despite all of the future NBA accolades for Perry Jones and everybody else on the roster. Pierre Jackson and Brady Heslip have made major impacts in their first seasons at the guard position, and this team plays its tail off defensively. Final Four, here they come. Why not?
2. Staying with that BU/KSU game for a moment, Rodney McGruder looked pretty darn good on Tuesday night. He scored 30 points and seems to have emerged as a star, even though he did not get a chance to win the game on the final possession. Frank Martin drew up a play for him, but BU’s defense denied him the ball. Next time KSU is in that situation, you’d better believe it will make sure McGruder has the basketball in his hands. As a strong but explosive wing player, he is a tough matchup for every team, and there’s nothing holding him back from making the All-Big 12 team.
3. And finally, one last note on that game from Tuesday: Frank Martin is awesome on television. Sure, he’ll violate some FCC rules every once in a while, but Martin’s postgame interview with Fox Sports Net is golden. This blog post we linked to also did not show you the halftime interview, in which Martin seemed almost speechless after his team played poorly for the half’s final six minutes. Hopefully, Martin sticks with this whole coaching thing for a little longer, because we couldn’t bear the thought of missing his interviews.
4. Nobody noticed Bedlam on Monday outside of the state of Oklahoma, and some people aren’t happy about how the series has collapsed lately. The Oklahoma/Oklahoma State basketball game was actually scheduled near the same time slot as the BCS National Championship game, which shows you how far the rivalry has fallen. It began at 6:00 PM CT on ESPNU; the football game started at 8 PM CT and had hours of pregame coverage beforehand. If you flipped to the game on Monday, you did at least see a decent crowd turn out in Stillwater. So Bedlam has that going for it.
5. Depending on how old you are, it’s highly probable that you have fond memories of Kansas‘s 2002 Final Four team. Well, members of that team will attend KU’s game with Iowa State on Saturday, but some of the most notable names haven’t confirmed they’ll attend yet. Wayne Simien will be there, but there’s no word on Kirk Hinrich, Nick Collison or Drew Gooden. And what about Roy Williams, people? I’m going to go out on a limb and say the coach won’t be in Lawrence this weekend. Just a hunch. Even if UNC weren’t playing, he might not be so welcome, unless he wears his Jayhawk shirt again.

After 40 minutes of overwhelming deflections, steals and disruptions, it was fitting that Quincy Acy sealed fourth-ranked Baylor‘s 75-73 victory over Kansas State on Tuesday by swatting an inbounds pass away. The undefeated Bears may have allowed KSU to shoot 50% from the field, but they also rattled the Wildcats on their home floor with their superhuman length and athleticism. At one point during the second half, Baylor turned three steals near midcourt into dunks and layups at the other end in the span of four possessions. And before Acy’s final swat as time expired, it was another deflection by Baylor that prevented a potential game-tying layup by Angel Rodriguez, who could not convert a wide open look when a trailing defender tipped the ball out of bounds.

Baylor's Active Hands Helped It Seal a Road Win (KC Star)

Baylor turned the ball over 18 times itself, but KSU finished with 20 turnovers and looked uncomfortable all night long, especially in the second half. Scott Drew has mostly played some form of 2-3 and 1-3-1 zone during the past few seasons, but tonight he went strictly man-to-man in the second half. It paid off. Though KSU found open perimeter looks against BU’s zones, the switch to a man look let the Bears’ defenders hound the opposing guards. It’s scary to imagine what could happen if Baylor continues to defend at this level.

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Evan Jacoby is an RTC columnist and contributor. 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 slate of games.

When Kansas State walloped previously undefeated Missouri last weekend, it looked like the Big 12 was shaping up as a jumbled mess of strong teams, without a clear favorite. K-State had a chance to stake its own claim atop the conference ladder with another home game on Tuesday night, but the Baylor Bears came through Bramlage Coliseum and had other ideas. Baylor remained undefeated by surviving the road test, 75-73, and in the process perhaps established itself as one of the top teams in the country and clear Big 12 front-runners. At 16-0 with several good road wins (BYU, Northwestern, and now K-State), neutral court victories (St. Mary’s, West Virginia), and the talent to match any team in the country, Baylor needs to be considered an elite team along with the likes of Syracuse and Kentucky.

Pierre Jackson Helps Complete Baylor and Make Them an Elite Team (US Presswire)

We’ve all known that Baylor has some of the best athletes in college basketball, led by the talented underclassmen forward combination of Perry Jones III and Quincy Miller. Jones (13.4 PPG), Miller (11.1 PPG), and senior leader Quincy Acy (12.1 PPG) have all performed admirably offensively this season to match their expected high-level contributions on the defensive end. But the emergence of point guard Pierre Jackson has completely changed the look of Scott Drew’s team. Jackson, who is still not in the starting lineup, came off the bench and recorded a double-double in Tuesday’s win over Kansas State, going for 10 points and 11 assists in 33 minutes, while also chipping in five boards and two steals. Jackson was playing at the junior college level last year, and the transfer is now on the Bob Cousy Award list as one of the 20 best points guards in America. While not the greatest ball-handler or passer in the traditional sense, he’s become the strong guard that the Bears lacked last season and most pundits feared they would again this year. Jackson upped his season averages to 11.9 PPG, 4.9 APG, 3.0 RPG, 1.8 SPG, and 51% field goal shooting after the crucial win on Tuesday. With depth in both the frontcourt and backcourt as well, Baylor has become a complete team right before our eyes.

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Brendon Mulvihill is an RTC contributor. You can find him @themulv on Twitter. See bottom of the post for the Official RTC Star System.

Let’s take a look at two big games tonight in the Big 12 and the Missouri Valley.

Scott Drew and Baylor look to stay undefeated against Kansas State

#5 Baylor at #18 Kansas State – 8:00PM EST on FSN Regional (****)

• In order to stay undefeated, Baylor has to go on the road to Manhattan, Kansas and beat a very tough Kansas State team. The Bears’ defense continues to be one of the best in the nation, holding teams to 42% eFG. It’s almost impossible to make a two-point shot against their long, athletic front court. Only BYU and West Virginia have been able to shoot over 50% eFG against Scott Drew’s team. Baylor is very difficult to beat because their defense and offensive rebounding enable them to withstand a poor shooting night and still win, much like their game against Mississippi State where they shot an eFG of 39%. One weakness for the Bears is their turnover rate. Point guard Pierre Jackson turns the ball over at a rate 31.1%. While it would appear that Jackson’s turnovers would be a liability, it seems Baylor is able to tighten things up in close games. In games against their two toughest opponents, West Virginia and BYU, the Bears turned the ball over on only 16.7% and 17.1% of their possessions, respectively. Read the rest of this entry »

Kansas State has a rare opportunity this week to ruin two teams’ undefeated seasons in consecutive games. Just three days after handing Missouri its first loss at Bramlage Coliseum, the Wildcats will host 15-0 Baylor on Tuesday night in a battle of two of the Big 12’s top frontcourts. There are a few other games to keep an eye on this week, too: Oklahoma and Oklahoma State will meet tonight in a Bedlam game, though the series is hardly enticing right now with both programs struggling. And on Wednesday, MU will need to recover quickly from Saturday’s smackdown with Iowa State looming in Ames.

GAME OF THE WEEK

• Baylor at Kansas State, Tuesday, 7 p.m. CT (Big 12 Network)

Facing an undersized Missouri team this weekend, Kansas State frustrated Ricardo Ratliffe and punished the Tigers with a physical frontline. Jamar Samuels and Jordan Henriquez combined for seven blocked shots and Rodney McGruder attacked the basket at will as Frank Martin‘s team exposed MU’s main weakness in the paint. Unfortunately for KSU, it won’t be able to bully Baylor like that on Tuesday night. The Bears, who have been rebounding better lately, can throw any number of forwards at the Wildcats’ post defenders, including Big 12 Player of the Year candidate Perry Jones and starters Quincy Acy and Quincy Miller. They can’t play effectively unless their guards get them the basketball, though, so  it’s important for Pierre Jackson in particular to play well in a road environment. He has turned the ball over at a fairly alarming rate this year, but he has provided the missing piece for Baylor’s offense this year as a facilitator off the bench. Still, Kansas State’s half-court intensity on the defensive end may give the guards some problems, and this game could turn ugly if they can’t hold on to the basketball. In fact, for all of the talk about the forwards in this game, the guards will make the difference. Brady Heslip can provide BU with another element if his outside shots are falling, and starter A.J. Walton and reserve Gary Franklin cannot be outplayed by Will Spradling, Angel Rodriguez and the rest of KSU’s deep and balanced backcourt. When BU has looked shaky offensively this season (for example, in a two-point win over Mississippi State), turnovers and a lack of ball movement has held it back. Baylor may have been able to edge MSU on a neutral court during a cold shooting night, but it won’t be able to recover from an off game in Manhattan.

Rodney McGruder Is a Difficult Matchup For Baylor

The key individual matchup is… Perry Jones vs. Jordan Henriquez. Filling in for the struggling Thomas Gipson, Henriquez earned the start against Missouri on Saturday and did not disappoint. The seven-footer blocked four shots and played one of his most complete games of the season with 10 points and eight rebounds. Now a junior, Henriquez no longer plays like a project anymore. He has the size and defensive ability to frustrate Jones, who has struggled against elite big men like Arnett Moultrie (MSU) and Kevin Jones (West Virginia) this season.

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It’s hard not to like Scott Drew on a personal level. Responsible for perhaps the most remarkable rebuilding job in college basketball history, the young, vibrant head coach at Baylor has transformed a scandal-ridden program into a Big 12 powerhouse since taking over in Waco in 2003.

In interviews, Drew speaks with a friendly, non-threatening tone. He hails from a famous basketball family as the son of Homer Drew and the brother of Bryce Drew, and he speaks openly about his faith as the face of a small, Baptist university. On the basketball court, Drew has shattered any previous notion of lowly Baylor basketball by recruiting elite talent to the school, resulting in two NCAA Tournaments, an Elite Eight appearance and, these days, a top-five ranking and a shot at a Big 12 title. He’s a nice man with a nice story. That’s the American Dream.

So why do so many people still criticize Scott Drew?

Scott Drew Has Revitalized Baylor Since Taking Over in 2003

As Mike DeCourcy of The Sporting News explains, his doubters hate him for a lot of reasons. Among them, you’ll hear that his teams play undisciplined and unstructured offensively. They’ll say he’s not a basketball coach, but instead an amasser of talent who recruits as many McDonald’s All-Americans and NBA Draft picks as possible without any regard for team basketball. Other Big 12 coaches have called him out for negative recruiting, and every so often, somebody will accuse Drew of cheating — without any evidence, of course.

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1. You’re sick of hearing about Tyshawn Taylor‘s turnovers, and we’re all sick of writing about them. But after Kansas’s point guard turned the ball over eight times in a win over Kansas State last night, we simply cannot ignore the magnitude of the statistic. Sam Mellinger’s column provides the best analysis of Taylor’s situation. Instead of focusing solely on the turnovers, Mellinger argues that both “Good” Taylor and “Bad” Taylor go hand-in-hand at this point. You cannot separate the two identities — as Bill Self says, ““He makes plays you can’t coach, and he makes plays that look like he’s never been coached.” And that, folks, is how you sum up Tyshawn Taylor in 17 words.
2. Four years ago, writers all across the nation put the spotlight on a young freshman named Kim English, a contributor for an Elite Eight team who was most famous for sleeping at Mizzou Arena in order to get shots up in the morning. But by his junior year, English had transformed from Lovable Kimmie to Frustrating Kimmie. He struggled through a tough 2010-11 campaign, but he’s back on everyone’s good side now. English, who scored 23 points against Oklahoma on Tuesday, is shooting 55% from three-point land and might be the most intriguing revitalization project in college basketball. Frank Haith‘s new coaching style is clearly having positive effects on English in particular, and he looks more energized and athletic this season. He’s throwing down dunks with ease this season, and most importantly, his smile is back.
3. Speaking of Missouri, we’re a little late here with this news, but redshirt freshman forward Kadeem Green announced his decision to transfer earlier this week. No, Green was not a major contributor for Haith, but he had seen a little more playing time recently as a backup to Ricardo Ratliffe and Steve Moore. Down the road, Green seemed to have a bright future as a shot-blocker with his long wingspan, but he’ll now take those talents elsewhere. Green says he’d like to be closer to his hometown of Toronto, and Columbia, Missouri, is certainly not anywhere near Canada. So although he leaves MU with just two scholarship forwards on the roster, the move is understandable. If Ratliffe or Moore find themselves in foul trouble at the same time, though, Frank is going to wish he had Green at the end of his bench.
4. SI‘s Seth Davis included a few Big 12 squads in his Buy/Sell article this week, and here’s a big surprise: he’s buying Baylor. So are we. The Bears haven’t played particularly well yet this season, which sounds insane considering they are still undefeated. That’s probably why BU seems to have so much potential. Once Perry Jones finds his game, this team could be every bit as good as the 2009-10 team that reached the Elite Eight. As long as Pierre Jackson shows a little more consistency, BU has the guard play this year to win the Big 12.
5. Finally, since we’re struggling to find a final piece of news for you, Big 12 country lost a fine man in Gene Bartow. No, Bartow did not coach at a Big 12 school, but he is a Missouri native who coached at several Midwestern schools such as Central Missouri, Valparaiso and Illinois. Bartow, most famous for succeeding John Wooden at UCLA in the late 1970s, is a graduate of Truman State University. He won more than 600 games during his career, and UAB‘s arena is named after him. Even if the Big 12 cannot claim him as its own, it would certainly like to.

With the Big 12 introducing an 18-game schedule for the first time in history, conference play begins a week earlier than usual in 2012. In recent years, the week after New Year’s meant tune-up games with low-major opponents, but this season, Big 12 teams won’t have much time to recover from the holidays. Kansas and Kansas State in particular must be in tip-top shape, as the two state rivals will face each other on Wednesday (January 4).

GAME OF THE WEEK

• #23 Kansas State (11-1) at #14 Kansas (10-3), Wednesday 7 PM CT

Thomas Robinson Was Unstoppable This Weekend

Steve Fetch is the RTC correspondent for the Big 12. You can also find his musings online at Rock Chalk Talk or on Twitter @fetch9.

Reader’s Take

The Week That Was

• The Big 12’s feel-good story has to be Texas Tech freshman Luke Adams. Adams was born almost entirely deaf with only about 10% hearing in his left ear. Thanks to cochlear implants however, he is hearing nearly completely normally now. He has been effective in limited playing time as well, shooting 46% from three and 78% from the free throw line to go with a 24.4% assist rate. Although he was the leading scorer in Class 3A in Texas last year, his scholarship options were limited due to his size. He chose to walk on at Tech and based on his early performance, he could be a nice shooter off the bench for them in the coming years.
• Thomas Robinson had the performance of the week in the Big 12 scoring 30 points and grabbing 21 rebounds against North Dakota. It was first 30 point 20 rebound game for a Kansas player since Wayne Hightower did it against Missouri 50 years ago, and it was just the sixth time in the history of the Big 12 a player has had a 30 and 20 game. Robinson joins elite company including Blake Griffin, Kevin Durant, and Michael Beasley in the conference’s 30-20 club.
• For the second week in a row, the two Big 12 unbeatens stayed that way by the narrowest of margins. Baylor beat Mississippi State in Dallas, despite what a cynic would call their best efforts to give it away, and Missouri picked up a nice true road win, going to Old Dominion and surviving, 75-68. Interestingly, they both had to fight the crowd a bit: Old Dominion was at home and has a nice atmosphere at the Constant Convocation Center, but the crowd in Dallas was pitiful for the Baylor-Mississippi State game. Playing in front of a stale crowd is probably good preparation for the NCAA Tournament, but it makes for some awful regular season basketball.

Cynics Will Be Quick To Point Out That It Came Against North Dakota, But Thomas Robinson Posted One Of The Top Single-Game Performances In Big 12 History Saturday. (Credit: Reed Hoffmann/AP)

Power Rankings

1. Missouri (13-0): Although their offense is fantastic, I think it is officially time to start worrying about Missouri’s defense. They have allowed over a point per possession in back-to -back games, and almost did earlier in the month to lowly Kennesaw State. Frank Haith has generally had good defenses considering the talent he had at Miami so I think they can get the ship righted but it still is a potential red flag for the Tigers if they want to win the Big 12.
2. Baylor (13-0): I promised I would put Baylor at the number two slot if they beat Mississippi State, but yikes. After squeaking out a two-point win in Dallas in which they tried their hardest to let the Bulldogs get out of there with the win, it probably will be a one week stay at the 2 slot. All of Baylor nation seems to have Pierre Jackson fever, as last year’s highest ranking junior college player scored 14 points against Mississippi State and has a 63.5% eFG on the season. But to temper those expectations a bit, I don’t think you can win the Big 12 title with a point guard who has a turnover rate of 30.4%. It is true that he will get more comfortable with the offense as the season goes on, but he will also be playing much tougher opponents. Read the rest of this entry »

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.

It’s a relatively light night of hoops but two interesting games in the South should have your attention this evening.

Texas A&M at #5 Baylor – 7:00 PM EST on ESPNU (***)

• The Baylor Bears keep winning as they head into a conference showdown with in-state rival Texas A&M tonight. This figures to be a good match-up for Baylor although it needs to ensure it controls the pace. Texas A&M gets 65.2% of its points from two-point range (third in the nation) but interior defense happens to be Baylor’s biggest strength. The Bears allow only 39.3% shooting from inside the arc with Perry Jones III and company patrolling the paint. Defensively, look for Scott Drew’s team to try to pick up the pace and pressure Texas A&M’s guards. The Bears force a turnover 24.6% of the time although both teams don’t handle the ball particularly well.
• Texas A&M is not comfortable playing at a faster pace but therein lies the dilemma. The Aggies don’t run efficient enough half court offense to succeed in a slower-paced game, especially against the strong Baylor defense. Billy Kennedy’s team should take a page out of Louisville’s playbook against Kentucky. A&M should pressure Baylor and try to get turnovers at certain times, but not throughout the entire game. Texas A&M may actually hurt itself while trying to force Baylor into turnovers, something that will speed up the game where the Bears’ superior athletes can take over. Texas A&M has to establish Ray Turner and David Loubeau inside while Khris Middleton uses his versatility to stretch Baylor’s defense, opening up seams. Getting Elston Turner going from long range would also be advantageous for A&M, a team that doesn’t rely much at all on the trifecta. Turner had 20 points on 3-5 shooting from deep in a loss against Florida last month.
• For Texas A&M to have a chance on the road, it must rebound, rebound, and rebound some more in addition to controlling pace. If the Aggies don’t score inside off second chance opportunities or in transition, Baylor will win this game easily. Keep an eye on Baylor’s perimeter shooting. Texas A&M ranks #6 in three-point defense and will look to shut down Brady Heslip and Pierre Jackson. Even if the Aggies are successful in that regard, they need to do a whole lot more to pull the upset.

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