On the strength of our front court and with the help of several impact freshmen from the 2012 recruiting class, Baylor moved up 3 spots in the latest rankings to #16 in the country. Baylor's men now travel to the Charleston Classic this week, where our biggest competition should be Boston College, St. John's, and Murray State. Here's the full bracket of games starting Thursday. ESPN previewed the bracket back in July with three experts predicting a Baylor victory.

The biggest surprises of this season so far are probably Taurean Prince, who is averaging 10.5 points and 6 rebounds per game, and Rico Gathers, who is adding 8.5 points and 8.5 rebounds of his own. Gathers is filling the Quincy Acy role of undersized bruising bull more than capably, and his physicality is a huge part of Baylor's strength on the front line. Cory Jefferson is obviously the biggest story so far, as I doubt you can find all that many players going 20/10 with 4 blocks per game. He's been amazing.

Side note: if you put Gathers on the football team, he'd have a dozen sacks this season. I'm sure of it.