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The #1-ranked Baylor Lady Bears easily dispatched Tennessee-Chattanooga today in the quarterfinals of the Preseason WNIT. Led by Brittney Griner and Brooklyn Pope, the Lady Bears nearly tripled UTC's point total in winning 91-31. Because Baylor won, it will host a semifinals game against UCLA on Thursday, November 17th at the Ferrell Center. The official athletic site has a recap, box score, and video highlights available. The victory today was Kim Mulkey's 300th win as a head coach.
The #12-ranked men's team continued the successful day with a dominating 92-59 win over Jacksonville State in the nightcap. Quincy Miller, playing only his second college game ever, paced Baylor's scoring with 17. He also added 4 rebounds and 3 steals. Cory Jefferson continued his strong early season play with 13 points, 9 rebounds, and only 3 fouls in 20 total minutes. Just like with the women's game, the official athletic site has already updated video highlights, a recap, and a box score. Considering neither of these games were televised, the highlights are certainly worth watching.
I'm going to touch on this in more detail in relation to recruiting, but I thought I would mention the three primary paid sites available to Baylor fans. I have to admit that I prefer two of them over the third, but I don't think it's my place to badmouth one of the sites openly, so I'll leave it at that.
The reason I bring that up is that each site tends to post their own recaps of Baylor sporting events, and I'm going to do my best to link to each of them in the future. For today's MBB game, Steve Brischke from Baylor Scout highlights the contributions of Quincy Miller so far this season, as does Kevin Lonnquist from Baylor Rivals. Brischke also dishes on fellow freshman Deuce Bello, another highly-touted recruit for Scott Drew. As soon as the Baylor 247Sports site updates with a game story, I'll be sure to link it.
The pattern from early in this season is pretty clear. Baylor freshman Quincy Miller, a top-10 recruit on just about every credible list, has been everything Baylor hoped he could be through 2 games. Miller's athletic gifts are obvious and at 6'9" he has incredible size for a player who will probably live on the wing, but I don't think anyone expected him to come out shooting as well as he has so far. Miller made all three of his 3-point FG attempts tonight after making 2-4 in his first game on Friday. How Drew works Miller, Acy, Cory Jefferson, and Perry Jones III (when he comes back from his ludicrous suspension) into a rotation together is going to be fun to watch.
Once the games start becoming more accessible on television, something else I'm going to watch out for specifically is the point guard rotation. Much of Baylor's struggles from last year started with AJ Walton, an absolute turnover machine at the 1. With Pierre Jackson, the 2010-2011 JUCO National Player of the Year, settling in and Gary Franklin gaining eligibility in January, we may be seeing Walton's last chance to keep his starting job right now. Everything I've heard about Jackson so far has been positive, and it may just be a matter of time and comfort before he seizes the reins of Baylor's offense.
The men play their next game on Tuesday afternoon as part of ESPN's "Tip-Off Classic." Obviously that game will be on TV, so we should get a better chance to see the Bears in action.