Through their identical 15-0 starts, both of which included conference wins yesterday over Texas Tech and Iowa State, respectively, Baylor's basketball teams have helped run the defining streak of the Baylor Renaissance to an astounding 36-0 since the start of November.
The men's team started off slow in Lubbock yesterday and overall played relatively poorly in allowing a lesser Tech team to stick around almost to the end of the game. As has been the case throughout the season, however, Pierre Jackson provided much-needed scoring from the PG position and, though he often coupled a strange play with a great one, led the team to victory. Baylor had never beaten a team coached by Tech's Gillespie before, so simply getting out of Lubbock with a victory is obviously something to celebrate in an of itself.*
*As a slight side note, the round-robin schedule the Big XII has this season (and next, unless things drastically change) means that every team plays every other team twice. As far as I know, the Big XII is the only major conference where this will happen, and it will be interesting to see how teams play each other in the second games of those home-and-homes having already seen each other once.
As always, the official site has highlights and a recap available of the game along with a box score, so I suggest anyone looking for more information head that way. The official site also has a story posted focusing on the team's off-the-court brotherhood and how they have come together as a family. I am normally quite skeptical of news stories that focus on togetherness-- when the Celtics got good again the endless discussion of their "Ubuntu" nearly drove me insane-- because teams that are good tend to be teams that have strong cultures and vice versa. It's still a good story, though, and I like hearing about the impact that Quincy Acy has had on our program beyond just dunking the basketball.
As for the ladies, the #1-ranked Baylor women's team continued their unbeaten season yesterday in Ames with a win over Iowa State. In a game with eerie parallels to that of the men's against Tech, the Lady Bears allowed a clearly less-talented opponent to stick with them through halftime before putting the game away in the second half. Road victories are good no matter how they come, I guess, and I hope the Lady Bears can continue their stretch of dominance. Click here for the highlights and recap from the official site.
In other news...
- Missouri lost badly at Kansas State, leaving 3 unbeaten teams in all of division 1 basketball-- Baylor, Syracuse, and the powerhouse of Murray State. I watched part of that game when it was still a game and saw what I think will be a recurring theme for Mizzou: teams absolutely blistering them down low due to their almost total lack of size. Kansas State worked Mizzou early and often in the paint and Mizzou couldn't do anything to stop them.
- Kansas had a scare of its own against OU yesterday before pulling away. Maybe there was just something about playing away games on a Saturday? Weird.
- Rivals put up another recap of the Baylor-Tech game just in case you didn't get enough. They highlight the contributions of Pierre Jackson and Brady Heslip, the sweet-shooting Canadian who is swiftly climbing my list of favorite players on this team.
- Mike Gundy finally got the contract extension and raise that he deserved. Gundy's new contract goes for 8 years and pays him somewhere in the neighborhood of $3.6 million per year, putting him in the top ten in terms of coaching salaries in all of CFB.
- ESPN "sources" say that Indianapolis will do the only thing they really could do and draft Andrew Luck with the first overall pick. This wasn't really a question but having it confirmed could mean we start seeing more certainty about who might go for RG3.
- Keeping with the Draft talk, the DFW regional site for SBNation asks whether Baylor might have two first round picks this year. Spoiler alert: the answer is yes. Baylor will. Again.
- Finally, ESPN's recruiting arm talks about Baylor's newest football commitment, Brian Nance, and just how freaking good he is.
Ha, joke's on you guys, I don't really have any new information yet today. I have scoured the web looking for anything that might be of note today and I have come up with absolutely bupkis. All we know for sure is that it is an Ole Miss-Baylor-MSU race and he will announce on Wednesday. That's it. We haven't heard anything about his trip to Baylor or how it went, and I'm not sure we will, either. The Baylor recruiting sites seem to be basically looking at each other and shrugging. Baylorfans is doing what Baylorfans does, bombarding users with intrusive advertisements and letting every issue devolve into personal attacks and name-calling.
As for everyone else, Ole Miss sites think he'll be a Rebel, Mississippi State sites think he'll be a Bulldog, and Texas sites are still fighting with each other over whether Case McCoy is spoiled, confused, or a diabolical manipulative mastermind.
Hopefully we hear SOMETHING today about the process so I can either move on to my next Baylor-related obsession or go even deeper into this one. I'm so excited!