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Daily Bears Report 11 /8

Baylor Men’s and Women’s Basketball Video Previews From the Big XII. / Golf Tied for Third Place.

From Baylor Bears dot com

Today’s Events

Tennis

Senior Rhiann Newborn and freshman Jessica Hinojosa fell in the second round of singles qualifying action at the Bush’s $50,000 Waco Showdown on Monday at Baylor’s Hurd Tennis Center. From Baylor Bears dot com.

Hinojosa fell to Caitlin Whoriskey of the United States, 6-2, 6-3. Newborn also dropped a two-set match, 6-2, 6-3, to Elizaveta Ianchuk of Ukraine.

Bush’s $50,000 Showdown continues at Hurd Tennis Center throughout the week. Senior Blair Shankle, the 54th-ranked collegiate singles player nationally, begins main draw action against Sachia Vickery of the United States at 11:30 a.m. (CT) on Tuesday. She pairs with Baylor sophomore Elizabeth Profit for main draw doubles against the United States’ Sophie Change and Chiara Scholl at 2:30 p.m.

Shankle and Profit earned positions in the tournament’s main draw with strong performances at the Bush’s $50,000 Waco Wildcard Showdown. Shankle earned the singles title with a trio of victories in straight sets.

Senior Blair Shankle will play her first match of the singles main draw at 11:30 a.m. (CT) on Tuesday at Hurd Tennis Center. Shankle and sophomore Elizabeth Profit also team up to compete in the doubles main draw at 2:30 p.m.

Golf

Baylor women’s golf is tied for third place after shooting 18-over-par 306 in Monday’s first round at the Trinity Forest Invitational. From Baylor Bears dot com.

The Bears (+18) are two strokes back of tournament-leader Michigan (+16) entering Tuesday’s final round.

Teams were originally scheduled to play two rounds on Monday, but rain delays forced the cancellation of the second round. Baylor trails Michigan by two strokes and Texas A&M (+17) by one stroke. BU is tied with Ohio State (+18) and ahead of UNLV (+19), SMU (+21), Houston (+22), Texas Tech (+27), Kansas State (+27), Kansas (+27), Mississippi State (+30), UTSA (+31), Memphis (+32) and Tulsa (+42).

Baylor is led by Amy Lee, who shot 2-over-par 74 to finish the day tied for third place, three strokes back of Texas A&M’s Bianca Fabrizio (-1). Dylan Kim is tied for sixth place after shooting 3-over 75, Maria Vesga is tied for 20th at 5-over 77 and Giovana Maymon and Fiona Liddell are tied for 38th place at 8-over 80.

The tournament has been reduced to 36 holes due to weather delays on Monday. If play is able to resume on Tuesday, the final round will be an 8:30 a.m. CT shotgun start. BU players are paired with golfers from Michigan and Texas A&M. Lee and Kim will begin from the first tee, Vesga will start from No. 2 and Maymon and Liddell will begin their rounds on the third hole.

Volleyball

Baylor redshirt junior Katie Staiger was named the Big 12 Volleyball Offensive Player of the Week and junior Jana Brusek was named Big 12 Volleyball Defensive Player of the Week. From Baylor Bears do com.

The award for Staiger, a Plano, Texas, native, marked her fifth of the season, extending her Baylor program record for season conference awards and breaking the record for most in a career.

The redshirt junior outside hitter becomes just the fourth player in conference history to win five or more weekly awards in the same season, the first since 2013.

Staiger also joins the ranks of just six other players in Big 12 history to earn five or more OPOTW awards in a career.

For Brusek, the Chicago-born libero earned her second DPOTW award, marking the first time since 2007 that a BU player has earned the top conference defensive weekly honor multiple times in a season (Anna Breyfogle, 2007, 3).

With just one match on the week for the Bears, the duo made it count in a four-set win at Texas Tech, improving the team’s record to 19-7 and 7-3. BU is off to the program’s best-ever start to conference play, besting the 2009 squad’s 6-4 mark through 10 Big 12 matches.

Staiger’s 31 kills against the Red Raiders set a new career- and season-high, posting the highest kill count among Big 12 players this year, four shy of the Big 12 single-match record for a four-set match (2009, 1999).

Staiger added her name to another spot in the record books, becoming just the 14th player in BU history to hit 30 or more kills in a match, the first since 2002. Staiger also claimed the No. 8 spot on Baylor’s career kills list.

For Brusek, 32 digs in the four-setter was good for tops in the Big 12 in digs/set (8.00), setting a new Baylor record for the most digs in a four-set match. Additionally, the libero helped the Baylor back row to a shutout of TTU in service aces, a first for the team in 2016.

Staiger and Brusek teamed up to sweep the OPOTW and DPOTW awards earlier this season, a program first, repeating the feat this week.

The Baylor squad improved its program-record eighth weekly honor of the season, including seven from the Big 12, with Staiger earning five conference and one national offensive POTW awards. Additionally, Brusek has earned two Big 12 Defensive POTWs.

For Staiger, it is the fifth conference offensive award of her collegiate career and her sixth Big 12 weekly award overall, after earning Big 12 Rookie of the Week on Sept. 29, 2014.

Her six career weekly awards passes Anna Breyfogle (2007 [3], 2008 [1], 2009 [1]) for the Baylor record for career honors from the conference.

Brusek earned her third conference defensive award in her BU career, her fourth Big 12 weekly honor overall, doubling up for both defensive and rookie awards her freshman year (Nov. 3, 2014).

The Bears are back in action on Wednesday, Nov. 9, facing the Texas Longhorns at 7 p.m. in Austin.

Lady Bears

Lady Bears Down Langston

It won’t be long before the real tests begin for the Baylor women’s basketball team, with three games against Top 25 opponents in the next month. From BearsExtrta.

But in two exhibition wins before the regular-season opener against Houston Baptist on Friday, including Monday night’s 121-32 win over Langston at the Ferrell Center, one thing is for certain.

The Lady Bears have a lot of depth, and they seem to know how to use it.

“I could go deeper (than in the past), but a lot depends on the big, tough games coming up and who can help us,” Baylor coach Kim Mulkey said. “Foul trouble plays a role in that, but I can go deep if I need to.

“Obviously you go with the most experienced players and then you’re going to sub in players with those experienced players so they can be comfortable. Going on the road will be very difficult, so we’ll see … I’ll play eight players, minimum, but we could go much deeper than that.”

Big XII’s Video Previews of Baylor Basketball

Big XII’s Video Preview of Baylor Lady Bears for 2016-2017 Season

Big XII’s Video Preview of Baylor Men’s Basketball for 2016-2017 Season

Football

Meet the Press

Future Baylor Students Contribute to Today’s DBR

Destrehan's Cara Ursin Chooses Baylor - Commitment Ceremony

Class of 2021 Says Hello Baylor Nation from Nederland High School

Walter Says, Go Vote Today

Group of Baylor Alumni and Former Baylor Regents Say Pepper Hamilton Review was Flawed

Bears for Leadership Reform, a group formed amid the controversy over how the school’s board of regents responded to a scathing review of the university’s handling of sexual assault reports will launch an effort Thursday to “restore integrity to the world’s largest Baptist University.” From KWTX TV 10.

KWTX first reported on the group on Nov. 3.

The online group had about 3,500 members as of Monday.

On Monday, the group announced that its board of directors includes former Texas Gov. Mark White; Regent Emeritus Gale Galloway; former Regent Emily Tinsley; Houston lawyer John Eddie Williams, a graduate of the Baylor School of Law; Houston lawyer James H. “Rell” Tipton; former Texas state Sen. Don Adams, and Temple businessman and Regent Emeritus Drayton McLane, for whom Baylor’s riverside stadium is named.

A lengthy review by the Pepper Hamilton law firm led to the firing of head football coach Art Briles, reassignment of Chancellor and President Ken Starr and suspension of athletic director Ian McCaw.

But the review was flawed, according to university insiders to whom KWTX talked during a months-long investigation.

Information from sources with direct knowledge of the review, and secret recordings of meetings with athletic staffers obtained by KWTX, suggest that the firm’s investigators came to Waco with an agenda to purge members of the football program and had a racial undertone in their line of questioning.

“Bears for Leadership Reform” is demanding greater transparency, accountability and wholesale reform of the Baylor Board of Regents to restore unity and trust with students, their families, the public and the entire Baylor Family,” the group said in a press release Monday.

The group is seeking “common sense reform of the Board of Regents involving transparency, appointments, conflicts-of-interest, structure, and authority; an open search for a new University president that welcomes input from the Baylor Family and “best-in-class Title IX and sexual assault response programs,” the press release said.

The group plans to unveil a new website and social media platforms to reach out to students, prospective students, alumni, parents, faculty, pastors and congregation members, as well as to others not directly affiliated with Baylor.

Further details will be announced at a news conference at 10 a.m. Thursday in Knox Hall at the Texas Ranger Hall of Fame and Museum in Waco, which will be streamed live on the group's Facebook page.

The Baylor Board of Regents has 34 voting members, but two positions are vacant because of the recent resignations of Kathy Wills Wright and Christopher Howard.

Three of the voting members fill alumni-elected positions on the board, which were created as the result of a settlement agreement in a lawsuit that Baylor filed against the Baylor Alumni Association, which is now called the Baylor Line Foundation.

The first three, Dan Chapman, Wayne Fisher and Julie Turner, were appointed jointly by the Baylor Line Foundation and the board of regents.

As their initial terms expire, all alumni will vote to either reelect them or elect a different regent to those seats.

Of the remaining 31, 25 percent are technically appointed by the Baptist General Convention of Texas, but the current board controls that process and can veto any BGCT appointee.

The other 75 percent are appointed by the board itself.

There are also non-voting student, faculty and B Association representatives on the board who serve one-year terms.

The board also approves their appointments.