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Daily Bears Report 11/11

Drayton McLane calls for Art Briles honor restored.

By Ohio Baylor Fan

Honor Restored

  • Billionaire businessman Drayton McLane, whose name adorns the Baylor University football stadium, said Thursday he wants to see fired football coach Art Briles' honor restored and any evidence that led to his dismissal publicly released by the school's board of regents. Fox News has the story.

McLane and a group of influential alumni and donors called "Bears for Leadership Reform" met across the Brazos River from McLane Stadium in Waco to demand more transparency from school regents, including the release of what was uncovered by an investigation into how the school handled sexual assaults.

"The Baylor family and the public needs to know the truth," McLane said. "Art and the other people involved in this need for the facts to come out." McLane also insisted he's been told nothing and been shown none of the evidence despite his position as a non-voting regent emeritus..

Today’s Events

Tennis

Opening its run at the Jack Kramer Collegiate Invitational, four Baylor men’s tennis team players combined for a perfect 7-0 singles record at the Jack Kramer Tennis Club Thursday. From Baylor Bears dot com.

Three Bears started their run in the round of 32 of the singles main draw, winning two matches each to reach the singles quarterfinals, while senior Max Tchoutakian received a bye and then won his lone match of the day to give BU four of the remaining eight players in the quarterfinals.

First, Will Little downed UCLA’s Daniel Gealer, 6-1, 6-3, and then edged Washington’s Enzo Sommer, 6-2, 7-6(4). Freshman Constantin Frantzen got past Pepperdine’s Tom Hill, 7-5, 6-0, to open the day and then downed Cornell’s Colin Sinclair, 6-1, 5-7, 6-4, to reach the quarterfinals. Fellow freshman Bjoern Petersen tallied a pair of straight-set victories on the first day, beating Guilherme Galvao of Pepperdine, 6-1, 6-4, and then Loyola-Marymount’s Lukas Moenter, 6-2, 6-0.

Meanwhile, the 54th-ranked Tchoutakian bested Stanford’s William Genesen, 6-4, 6-4, to reach the event’s quarterfinals.

In doubles, Little and Petersen fell to Washington’s Amit Batta and Sebastian Hawkens, 8-5, in round of 16 action. Frantzen and Tchoutakian had a round of 16 bye and will play in the quarterfinals on Thursday.

Play at the Jack Kramer Collegiate Invitational continues Friday. All four Bears will play in the singles quarterfinals starting at 12:30 p.m. CT, while both doubles pairings will be in action at 11 a.m. CT.

Basketball

  • The second-ranked Baylor Lady Bears open their 43rd season of competition on Friday, Nov. 11 at 3:30 p.m. (CT) against Houston Baptist inside the Ferrell Center. From Baylor Bears dot com.

It is a doubleheader with the Baylor men's basketball team, which tips off against Oral Roberts at 6 p.m.

Seventeenth-year head coach Kim Mulkey, who ranks second among active head coaches with an .837 winning percentage, returns 10 players from last year's 36-2 squad that won Big 12 regular season and tournament crowns for the sixth season in a row. Four starters are back from last year's NCAA Championship Elite Eight team, including two-time All-American forward Nina Davis, honorable mention All-American guard Alexis Jones, junior guard Kristy Wallace and sophomore post Beatrice Mompremier.

Davis averaged a team-high 16.3 points per game and shared the team lead with Mompremier with 6.1 rebounds per contest last season. Jones averaged 15 points, 4.4 assists and 4.2 rebounds per game in her first season as a Lady Bear. Wallace averaged 8.1 points, 3.3 rebounds and 2.4 asssists per game.

Baylor bolstered its roster, adding the nation's No. 1 recruiting class in 2016, comprised of No. 1 Lauren Cox, No. 8 Natalie Chou and No. 40 Calveion Landrum. The trio, along with redshirt freshman Alexandria Gulley, will be available to make their regular season collegiate debuts Friday.

Led by head coach Donna Finnie, Houston Baptist posted a 14-15 record last year and finished fifth in the Southland Conference with a 9-9 mark. The Huskies have one of the youngest rosters in the country with a roster comprised of eight freshmen, seven sophomores, no juniors and one senior. Houston Baptist lost 67.4 percent of its offense and 68.9 percent of its rebounding efforts from last season.

  • No. 5 Oregon is coming to town on Tuesday, but the Baylor man players say they’ll be focused on Oral Roberts in Friday’s 6 p.m. season opener at the Ferrell Center. From BearsExtra.

The Bears would like to get a win under their belt before facing the highest ranked nonconference team on their schedule.

“Oral Roberts has been good a long time,” said Baylor sophomore guard Jake Lindsey. “You want to have that type of preparation before you play a team like Oregon. You can’t overlook anybody, especially a team that doesn’t come in afraid of anybody. It’s not a tuneup game. You don’t disrespect anyone.”

Despite three straight NCAA tournament appearances, the Bears come into the season unranked in both the Associated Press and coaches preseason polls. The Bears didn’t get a single vote in either poll.

“We’ll definitely use it as motivation, so that’s a good thing,” said Baylor coach Scott Drew. “But we know we have enough opportunities. We’ll definitely garner the attention we deserve if we can win against the teams we’re playing.

  • Jerry Hill of the Baylor Bear Foundation has a feature article posted online about the Lady Bears. Here’s the first few paragraphs:

Thinking back to her freshman season, Baylor senior All-American Nina Davis remembers losing a four-overtime thriller against Kentucky and giving eventual national champion Connecticut one of its stiffest tests of the year.

But, those games came in December and January.

This time, the No. 2/4 Lady Bears will face a pair of top-10 teams in the first week of the season, hosting No. 9 UCLA on Monday and then facing No. 1/3 UConn next Thursday in Storrs. Before that, they open the regular season with a matchup against Houston Baptist at 3:30 p.m. Friday at the Ferrell Center.

"It speeds everything up," said Davis, the preseason Big 12 Player of the Year, who averaged 16.2 points and 6.1 rebounds last season. "When you have three freshmen that are going to contribute a lot, it speeds them up more than sometimes you want them to go. Because you know as freshmen, they have their ups, they have their downs. It's like a roller coaster for them."

Equestrian

No. 3 Baylor equestrian (4-2, 0-1) hosts Delaware State on Friday, Nov 11th and TCU (2-2, 0-1) this Saturday, Nov 12th with both meets starting at 10 a.m. at the Willis Family Equestrian Center. From Baylor Bears dot com.

The Bears end a three meet homestand this weekend, coming off a huge win over then-No. 3 SMU last weekend.

BU ends its fall season facing TCU and Delaware State at home rounding out the fall schedule. The Bears are looking to finish the first half of the season on a high note and head into the spring season focused on a Big 12 and NCEA Championship.

Baylor topped TCU twice last year, winning once at the Turning Point Ranch in Springtown and once in Waco. The Bears look to keep that streak alive in Waco this weekend.

The last time the Bears faced off against Delaware State was in 2012, with Baylor coming away with the win.

For the second season, Baylor will host live scoring updates of unofficial scores for the Baylor meets on BaylorBears.com.

Cross Country

The Baylor men’s cross country team led the Big 12's 10 institutions with six student-athletes earning a spot on the Academic All-Big 12 first team, the league office announced Thursday. From Baylor Bears dot com.

Meanwhile, the women’s squad had a pair of first-team selections for a total of eight Bears recognized. BU has now led the Big 12 in most men’s overall and first-team selections for two straight years.

On the men's side, juniors Eric Anderson (economics) and Matthew Parham (biology) earned their second-straight first-team selections, while senior Matt League (biology) and sophomores Henry Huff (political science), Jeff Kirwin (English) and Sean McCullough (pre-biology) all earned their first academic cross country honors.

For the women, Peyton Thomas, an senior environmental science major, carded her third-straight first-team honor, while fellow senior Maggie Montoya (health science services) earned her second-consecutive Academic All-Big 12 recognition in cross country.

McCullough was among 16 runners across the conference that was nominated with a 4.0 grade point average.

A total of 44 student-athletes were honored on the men’s team, while 70 student-athletes make up the women’s team. Ninety-six of the 114 selections are first-team honorees.

First-team members consist of those who have maintained a 3.20 or better GPA while the second-team selections hold a 3.00 to 3.19 GPA.

To qualify, student-athletes must maintain a 3.00 GPA or higher either cumulative or the two previous semesters and must have participated in 60 percent of their team’s scheduled contests. Freshmen and transfers are not eligible in their first year of academic residence. Senior student-athletes who have participated for a minimum of two years and meet all the criteria except percent of participation are also eligible.

  • While the average neighborhood jogger may mentally zone out when he or she runs, that’s not the wisest strategy in a college cross country race. Baylor cross country plans to “run smart” at NCAA South Central regionals. From WacoTrib’s BearsExtra.

The 25th-ranked Baylor women’s cross country team didn’t win the mental game their last time out at the Big 12 Championships, and it resulted in a disappointing fifth-place finish despite entering with the league’s highest ranking. The Bears went out fast, but faded late, and senior Peyton Thomas dropped out altogether.

“We’ve got to go back to running smart,” Baylor coach Todd Harbour said. “This is a young group. They’re not an old veteran team that’s been through a lot of battles in running regionals and nationals the next week. They’re ready for it. Mentally, they know we can do it.”

That’s the thing. The Baylor women have performed much sharper this season than that Big 12 meet showing, with a pair of fifth-place finishes at prestigious meets at Notre Dame and Wisconsin.

They’ll look for a much higher place in the standings at Friday’s NCAA South Central Regional in Fayetteville, Ark. The top two teams at the regional meet automatically qualify for the NCAA Championships.

Last year, the Baylor women came across the line in fourth at the regional meet, while Maggie Montoya took second to qualify for the NCAAs as an individual. But the Bears are more talented on the top end this time around, and they look at a top-two regional finish as a bare minimum goal.

Football

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