2.7.2012 Daily Bears Report: Flipping That Switch

Those unfamiliar with how SBNation works behind the curtain, there is a switch on the blog settings page for all of the college blogs that allows you to set which "season" you are currently in, football or basketball. Picking one or the other changes the way the Auto Tag & Link function works, what widgets come up first, and how box scores from game threads show up after the games are over. It's basically the blog's way of knowing what you consider to be most important at any given time.

In the afterglow of a season where Baylor won 10 games for only the second time ever and Robert Griffin III steamrolled his way into Baylor's first Heisman Trophy and the hearts and minds of sports fans across the country with perhaps the greatest offensive season from any quarterback ever, I've found it difficult to make the call to finally flip that switch. I didn't want football season to be over. Until now I've justified it by remembering that recruiting season is still going on, I don't know that much about the ins and outs of basketball anyway, and football is still being played.

Now that National Signing Day and the Super Bowl have come and gone for 2012, two of those three reasons are no longer valid. Obviously I still don't know all that much about basketball, but I hope to learn, and I really hope that some basketball-savvy Baylor fan will decide to throw his hat into the ring and come on board as a writer for the blog. If you're interested, please email me at OurDailyBears@gmail.com. Our basketball programs, who are a combined 45-2 on the season and both ranked in the top 6 in the country, deserve better analysis and commentary than I have so far given them. And they also deserve more attention, particularly the women, for their incredible accomplishments this season.

It is for that last reason-- giving those programs the attention they deserve-- that I flipped that switch this morning. We're a basketball site now, ladies and gentlemen. It's basketball season. Sure, I'm still going to cover football, especially football recruiting given our great start to the 2013 class, but it's time for Baylor Basketball to take center stage. What better time to do it than the day before the most important game of our season at home against #10 Kansas?

For the sake of space, the links are below the jump. There are quite a few this morning.

As usual, we'll start with the ladies...

Griner, No. 1 Baylor women dominate Oklahoma again - Boston.com- Baylor and Oklahoma have often played the most anticipated and best games in the Big 12 each season. Not this year, when Brittney Griner and the top-ranked Lady Bears have made it no contest.

No. 1 Baylor Women Remain Undefeated - NYTimes.com- Brittney Griner had 27 points — including a career-high 13-of-13 free-throw attempts — and added 8 rebounds and 8 blocks to help top-ranked Baylor roll past visiting Oklahoma, 81-54.

Now on to MBB (not just Baylor)...

Another Top 10 Showdown at Home for No. 6 MBB - Baylor Bears Official Athletic Site - BaylorBears.com
For the second time in less than three weeks, the Ferrell Center will be the site of a pivotal Top 10 showdown. No. 6/6 Baylor (21-2, 8-2) hosts No. 10/10 Kansas (18-5, 8-2) with positioning in the Big 12 standings on the line.

Jason King's Big 12 Power Rankings- ESPN Dallas- 3. Baylor: The Bears’ Big 12 title hopes depend largely on what happens this week. Baylor hosts Kansas on Wednesday and travels to Missouri Saturday. Baylor’s only two losses are against those two teams. The Bears' offense looked sloppy and disorganized in last week’s victories over Texas A&M (63-60) and Oklahoma State (64-60).

Big 12 three-pointers | Conference could get six in tournament - KansasCity.com- If the season ended today, the Big 12 would be close to the top six getting on to the bracket. Missouri, Kansas and Baylor are locks. Based on the Ratings Percentage Index, the tool used by the committee that largely measures success by schedule difficulty, Kansas State looks solid.

Big 12, ACC conference races among the most fascinating - The Early Lead - The Washington Post- As college basketball gears up for the stretch run of the regular season, several highly competitive conference races will take center stage. Here’s a look at the top-five most important and interesting conference races across the country: 1)The Big 12:

Kansas Basketball: Road Trip To Face Baylor Becomes Important - SB Nation Kansas City
Kansas needs a win in Waco against Baylor to help their Big 12 title cause.

Baylor sees chance to dethrone the champ | CJOnline.com
Scott Drew can read the standings, but he also understands that 8-2 Kansas isn’t the same as 8-2 Baylor. "Until someone beats them, definitely it is their league or has been their league," Drew said during Monday’s Big 12 conference call.

No. 4 Missouri Vs. Oklahoma: Tigers Hold On For Nail-Biting Win Against Sooners - SBNation.com- The No. 4 Missouri Tigers' run of tight games from which they have managed to emerge victorious continued Monday night in a tough road win over the Oklahoma Sooners, 71-68.

College Basketball Power Rankings: Kentucky Still On Top Heading Into Rivalry Week - SBNation.com- 7. BAYLOR (21-2, 8-2) (6)- Baylor successfully, if not impressively, made it through a four-game stretch against unranked Big 12 foes they were expected to defeat. Now the Kansas/Missouri/Iowa State gauntlet is officially upon the Bears.

Bracketology 2012: Missouri Crashes The Top Line After Kansas Win - SBNation.com- Missouri joins Syracuse, Kentucky, and Ohio State on the top line of Chris Dobbertean's latest bracket projection on SB Nation. The big question for this week is: will Missouri remain there next Monday?-- We're the #2 seed in the South Bracket with Kentucky as the #1. I don't like this bracket.

Finally, football/conference news, including SBNation's latest mock draft.

2012 NFL Mock Draft: Final Draft Order Is Set, Colts Are On The Clock - SBNation.com- 3. Seattle Seahawks, Robert Griffin III, QB, Baylor (Projected trade: from Vikings) This is not necessarily a prediction; I'm just exploring the possibility. With Washington and Miami finding solutions elsewhere, and Cleveland waffling on trading their picks, the next best fit for RGIII would be the Seahawks. Minnesota would be more than willing to trade down. Seattle is a good landing spot for Griffin with a pretty good roster to make the transition easier for a rookie quarterback. Hell, he could even sit for a while behind Tarvaris Jackson.-- He has Kendall Wright going #19 to the Bears, in case you were wondering.

2012 Mysteries: Next Season's Seven Hardest College Football Teams To Figure Out - SBNation.com- Who are we most likely to overrate in 2012? Who might be flying extremely far under the radar? And what the hell do we make of Oklahoma State?

West Virginia tries to speed up move to Big 12 | New York Daily News