The Complete Rebound of a Program

In the past twenty, twenty five years we have seen numerous eras in sports, we have seen teams become the definition of miserable and we have seen many complete shockers. The Baylor Men's Basketball team last night, shocked the world after thwomping one of the best teams in college basketball and making it look like that Houston team did not belong in the Final Four. There is a saying that "defense wins championships" and I think too many people slept on Baylor's defense but gave Gonzaga's defense a pass. Before we continue, I would like to thank Gonzaga for one of the best seasons any college basketball team has ever had. I think what they did this past year was amazing, although that being said, Baylor's Men's Basketball team was far and beyond the best team in College Basketball this year. I believe what Scott Drew did in turning this program around in eighteen years is the most remarkable job of any college coach in the history of College Sports.

Eighteen years ago, tragedy struck the Baylor Men's Basketball team when a player that transferred over got killed in one of the most tragic stories in college basketball history. There were reports that the player did not feel safe but nothing was done about that and after the news about the tragedy became more and more publicized the coach of Baylor at the time, Dave Bliss, tried to sweep allegations that he payed the deceased player (Patrick Dennehy) under the rug by painting him as a drug dealer. There were many other bombshell reports that came out about the program including drug use and severe corruption. Two years later, the NCAA handed down maybe the harshest penalty it has ever imposed on a program, after Baylor had self-imposed a one year post-season ban, the NCAA extended it through 2007, put Baylor in a probationary period until 2010 (a period in which they were under intense scrutiny from the NCAA), they took away all non-conference games for the 2005-2006 season and they limited recruiting visits for one more year than Baylor had already self imposed. This, in a lot of sports fans and people in sports media's minds is considered a "death penalty" where you expect a program to fold within ten or so years. That's how bad these punishments were.

Scott Drew, one of the more fun faces in College Basketball and definitely one of the more charismatic figures, came in in 2003, and famously said at his introductory press conference "we came to win games at the NCAA Tournament. We came with a chance to win a national championship at Baylor University. We have the resources, we have the people, we have the leadership and I think we have the family atmosphere to do it." These are more than strong words from a guy who just got to Baylor entering a program that was already banned from their conference tournament and the NCAA Tournament for the next two years and what would become the next three while on probation for the next seven seasons. He had only one prior head coaching job and it was at a mid-major (a school that is small and normally a pretty low seed in the NCAA Tournament) named Valparaiso. Although his goal was to get them to a Tournament appearance, he got the program to the NIT in his first and only year there.

Baylor, a team that needed a miracle if it wanted any sort of future as a program, got one in young Scott Drew. He lead the team to its first tournament appearance in their first year elgible again, in twenty years. He began to start a program that would compete with Kansas the two team that you could say was the face of Big Twelve Basketball (Baylor's Conference) for the next fifteen years or so. Two years after making that appearance, Drew's Bears made it all the way to the Elite Eight but lost to the eventual national champion Duke, in what was the best season a Baylor Men's Basketball team had ever had up to that point. So in a span of less then ten years, the Bears went from being a program on life support to a thriving team that is one of the eight best teams in the nation.

Over the next decade, Baylor had made the tournament seven out of ten times, winning games in six, reaching the second weekend (winning two games in one tournament, there are six in each) in four out of the seven. As Scott Drew proclaimed, Baylor is finally winning games in the NCAA Tournament and will have a shot to go to a National Title game within the next five years (of 2019). In 2020, Baylor had the best winning percentage in school history up until that point, losing just four games. They were expected to compete with Kansas for one of the most coveted Big Twelve titles ever and maybe even meet again in the NCAA Tournament for a national title. All that came to a screeching halt in March of 2020, when COVID-19 hit and shut down the NCAA Basketball season along with many other sports and events.

This past year they had the best record in school history and reached its first Final Four. The bears returned many of the same players they had last year and had one the best defenses in the country, was the deepest (having a great bench) in the country, the best three point shooting, one of the best rebounding teams and in general the best team in College Basketball. They had a stoppage early on in the season due to the Coronavirus and ended up taking a loss because of it, but they found their footing again losing only one game to a streaking Oklahoma State team the rest of the way. In this past month, in the NCAA Tournament, Baylor beat every team by at least nine points, and having the closest game by nine be against a great Arkansas team that was never really in doubt. They suffocated a team that is a lot like Baylor in Houston from start to finish, out rebounding the third best offensive rebounding team in the nation. They suffocated them defensively and won by nineteen against that amazing Houston team, shooting the lights out.

Then came last night. After this past weekend's classic game between UCLA and Gonzaga that ended with a Jalen Suggs buzzer beater to send the Bulldogs to the national title game, came the almost crowning of Gonzaga as national champions by the national media prior to the tip-off of the game. Gonzaga was the favorite and with good reason, they showed no real reason to be doubted other than their sub par defense. Baylor was immensely under-rated coming in and although some saw this game as being real close, others saw it as the Bulldogs running the floor and taking the national title, becoming the first team to ever go undefeated in the current college basketball format and the first since Bobby Knight's Indiana Hoosiers in 1976.

Baylor came out in the first half and put all the talk about the perfect season to rest. They scored 47 in the first half and reached a lead as big as nineteen. They held Gonzaga to ten points within the first ten minutes, something nobody could have predicted and scored thirty in that same time frame. They never let Gonzaga back into the game, and the showboating you might expect from a team pulling off a shocker like this was non-existent. The team showed true class from start to end and showed how well coached this team truly is.

In eighteen years, Scott Drew single-handedly pulled off the greatest turn around in College Sports history. Went from a scandal ridden team that had its coach have to recruit walk-ons on campus to reaching the pinnacle in NCAA Basketball. I think Coach Drew should start being a part of the greatest coach of all time conversation since I truly believe other than Coach K he is the best College Basketball coach alive. I even think he can pass Coach K given what he has done in the past twenty years but that is not up for me to decide

In conclusion, this is what makes sports great to me and this is why I get inspired by it. We have just witnessed history and not in the terms of the Baylor Men winning their first national championship in school history. I mean in terms of how dominant this team was against some of the best teams in the country. I mean in terms of the dire need of a winning season to thirteen years later winning a national championship. The ultimate turnaround in College Basketball and the likes of which have never been seen in any sport has just occurred and I don't know if we will ever be able to give Scott Drew enough credit for the rebound and slam dunk that has and is occurring.