BAYLOR BEARS
Record: 15-0 (3-0 Big 12) AP ranking: 1 RPI: 2 Coach: Scott Drew, 12 years at Baylor (266-107, .607 winning percentage) Best win: Beat Louisville 66-63 after trailing by 20 points in the opening halfBest stats: Not only have the Bears made more free throws (230) than their opponents have attempted (203), but they've also blocked more than twice as many shots as their foes (89 to 42). Best player: On a very balanced team, 6-foot-10 junior forward Johnathan Motley leads in scoring (15.8 ppg) and rebounding (9.4) while hitting 53.5 percent of his field-goal tries and 40 percent of his 3-pointers. Can be dancin' in the desert if: They stay as happy and healthy as they have thus far. Drew has 10 players who are averaging 10 or more minutes a game for a team whose average margin of victory is 19 points. They're also outrebounding opponents by more than eight a game, are hitting 73 percent from the foul line and are winning the second halves of their games by an average of 12 points a game. A very complete team. Prediction: Elite Eight Coachspeak: "Give them credit, they're a terrific team. They're so long, so big, and you can't simulate that in practice. It's a unique team to play against. They're awfully good." - Xavier coach Chris Mack after a 76-61 loss at Baylor.
Road to the Final Four
* Gonzaga both talented and tough this season
It would be hard to overstate the complete mess the Baylor University basketball program was in when coach Scott Drew left Valparaiso after one season to clean up the Bears in August of 2003.
There was the murder of Baylor player Patrick Dennehy by teammate Carlton Dotson earlier that year. There were the myriad NCAA sins committed by former coach Dave Bliss - once an assistant to Bob Knight - and his despicable attempts to paint Dennehy as a drug dealer after his death. There was what was certain to be a serious and lengthy NCAA penalty for these violations.
Yet the then-32-year-old Drew saw a diamond in the rough where everyone else saw rough sledding. He overcame one of the worst penalties in NCAA history - including no non-Big 12 Conference games during the 2005-06 season - coached and recruited his fanny off and had the Bears in the NCAA tournament by 2008.
They've not only been back there five more times, but they reached the Elite Eight round in both 2010 and 2012.
But no accomplishment may have topped the news Drew and the Baylor program got Monday, when they became the nation's No. 1 team in the Associated Press poll for the first time in school history.
"Remember where they were when (Drew) got here, and they shouldn't take that lightly," Oklahoma State coach Brad Underwood said after a 61-57 loss to the Bears over the weekend. "Let's not forget the remarkable job he's done. That team wins because they're very close, they're very old and nothing rattles them."
The 15-0 Bears (3-0 in Big 12 play heading into tonight's game at No. 10 West Virginia) have certainly not been rattled by an early schedule that included wins over then-No. 4 Oregon, then-No. 7 Xavier, then-No. 10 Louisville and then-No. 24 Michigan State.
And Drew was quick to point to those victories when speaking to ESPN on Monday.
"It goes to your body of work," said Drew, whose team didn't get a single Top 25 vote in the AP preseason poll. "We've played a very competitive schedule and we've been successful against well-coached and good teams. At this point, and with every poll you could argue about several different teams, but with our Top 25 wins and top 50 RPI wins and the fact we haven't lost yet, then yes, you can definitely make a case for the Baylor Bears."
They certainly could lose tonight against the Mountaineers. They play dangerous Kansas State on Saturday, then face Kansas twice in 18 days on Feb. 1 and Feb. 18.
But Baylor won those four early-season games against ranked opponents by an average of 12.5 points per game, and the only one of those that was under 15 points (Louisville) saw Baylor rally from a 20-point hole in the opening half.
Not that they've stopped there. The Bears went on the road to rout Oklahoma 76-50 a couple of weeks ago, prompting these thoughts from OU coach Lon Kruger, who guided the Sooners to the Final Four last season: "Their length and size bothered us, and maybe surprised us a little bit. Whether that's because of Baylor whipping us or us not doing what we need to, it's hard to measure that sometimes. Baylor certainly had a lot to do with it."
Unlike so much of college basketball these days, this is an old team, basically led by five juniors and senior guard Ishmail Wainright. The best of those juniors, 6-foot-10 Johnathan Motley, leads the Bears in scoring (15.8 ppg) and rebounding (9.4). The second best - 5-11 point guard Manu Lecomte, who transferred in from Miami - is averaging 11.8 points and five assists. Also of note is 7-foot post player Jo Lual-Acuil Jr., who blocks 3.4 shots a game while averaging 10.7 points and 7.1 rebounds.
Yet despite all this success and love for a program that last reached the Final Four in 1950, these Bears seem surprisingly grounded.
"It's a great feeling to be ranked No. 1," Lecomte told the Waco Tribune-Herald on Saturday. "But again, we're still the underdog. That's how we're going to keep winning, because we're going to play our game like it's our last. So we're going to go back tomorrow and it's 0-0 and we're ready for West Virginia."
This is no doubt was Drew envisioned when he took over the program that bleak August day in 2003. But being No. 1 in January is not his ultimate goal for a program that's rallied from so many self-inflicted wounds.
"Big picture," the coach said Saturday, "we know no one is going to remember who is ranked No. 1 the (second) week of January."
But in this case - given all that Drew, his staff and the dozens of players who lettered before this group overcame to reach this point - perhaps they should.
Contact Mark Wiedmer at mwiedmer@timesfreepress.com.