Tapped in by Mark today, here's an abbreviated set of links.
Fresh off the Men's Basketball team pulling out a close win at the perilous Marriott Center, we get another excellent matchup today was the #1 Women's Basketball team hosts #2 UConn.
Here is the AP Story about the MBB win yesterday. For those curious if NBA scouts are as interested in some of the Baylor players as much as the scouting services would have you believe:
With an NBA general manager watching from the front row, 6-foot-11-inch forward Perry Jones III came up huge for No. 6-ranked Baylor on Saturday... And Utah Jazz general manager Kevin O'Connor was in the arena to check out several Baylor players, including sophomore Jones and freshman Quincy Miller, who were on the preseason Naismith Trophy watch list.
The Salt Lake Tribune's Jay Drew attributes BYU's loss to the breaks going Baylor's way, a scoring drought by BYU and Baylor playing better down the stretch. Jay Drew and the BYU.tv broadcasters yesterday repeatedly referred to the game as 'fun' and 'entertaining', which is a dramatically different tone than I'm used to from mainstream media coverage of sports.
Finally, ESPN's Andy Katz has an excellent article up regarding the game [hat tip to CenturyBear for already posting a FanPost] that has quotes from PJIII and Scott Drew:
"I was scared,’’ Jones told ESPN.com by phone Saturday. "I couldn’t move my leg on my own. I thought I tore something.’’
But Jones quickly made a decision while on the bench.
He wanted back in.
"I didn’t want to let my team down,’’ Jones said. "I just wanted to ignore the pain, get to the weak side and get the rebound. I was there at the right time.’’
and
"You’re not going to find a tougher atmosphere in college,’’ Drew said. "They were 48-2 in their last 50 games. This definitely gets us ready for Big 12 play and tells us a lot about our team. It showed we know how to execute at the end of games. Toughness is required to win on the road. We weren’t ready early on, and we got dominated on the glass.’’
Also, for those like me who were concerned that Baylor hasn't challenged itself enough in the preseason (previous to yesterday, Baylor had only one decent win @Northwestern), Katz notes that Baylor has some quality programs coming up on the docket: St. Mary's and West Virginia in Las Vegas, Mississipi State in Dallas.
The Women's Basketball game will be on ESPN tonight at 7:30 PM CST. Joy Russo talks to Jeff Van Gundy here, where I can't decide which is more shocking: That Van Gundy put in a special request to cover this game or that he had to scalp tickets for his family to get in.