someone please help me understand something

N

N0z

< 25 Posts
how is it that Baylor is all of the sudden a power in Basketball recruiting? Not only have they received verbals from some big-time kids over the next couple of years, they are in on some national top 50 players from out of state. I feel like I've been a sleep for 20 years and Baylor has become this national powerhouse with multiple titles. What have I missed during this long alcohol induced coma?
 
Don't know if it is the only answer to your question, but I think part of it can be explained as you have to wonder why Scott Drew is the most disliked coach by the rest of the Big 12 coaches.
 
3 things:

1. Playing time - especially the last few years. Very important to recruits.
2. Passionate Coach - I'm not entirely sure they guy ever sleeps.
3. Program Turnaround - To a man, nearly every recruit signed talks about being a part of something 'special.' When we made the tournament last year, we received a healthy dose of national media exposure, which these guys care about.

I hate it when people play the cheating card, or the unethical card, without providing any evidence.
 
Given what Baylor went through right before hiring Drew, I doubt he is cheating.

Hell, they got a partial death penalty. I'm sure the number one requirement when hired was to run a clean program.
 
Baylor had some pretty serious infractions under Haller, before the disgusting mess under Bliss. If Drew is cheating, he is just continuing a tradition. I certainly am not sure that I would ignore the possibility, especially in light of how the other coaches treat him.

otoh, he could just be a very unlikable guy who is on the up and up.
 
So far, the only "proof" anyone has offered is "well, there's gotta be some reason the other league coaches don't like him."

If Scott Drew is cheating, he's gotta be the dumbest person on the planet. The whole Baylor athletic program, but especially basketball, is under an NCAA microscope right now. Drew has no room for error. He gets caught cheating, his career is done. That doesn't mean that he ISN'T cheating, but there's certainly been no proof that he is.

And as for Baylor = two victories every year, I wouldn't exactly go that far either. While they tend to fold like a cheap napkin in Austin, Texas has barely escaped with their lives in Waco the past two seasons. I suppose a win is a win is a win, but definitely hasn't been a guarantee lately.
 
Trust me, Drew is NOT cheating. BU has hired people and put systems in place to monitor every move in the athletic department. They do not want to go through the negative publicity again.

As for the analysis of Drew, I think some of you are incorrect. If you meet him, you will know that he is very charming and can relate to the kids (he is in his 30's). Like Mack Brown, he can sell a program.

While I give all of the credit to UT for their recent success against BU, I think that the new Bears program will make the series competitive again. The Bears team next year could be very salty with almost the entire team returning (Dunn, Carter, Dugat, Jerrells, Dienne) and 3-4 new players who could play on any team in the country (top 100 picks).

The Bears are changing and it should make the Big 12 conference much more interesting. I see the Horns, Bears, Sooners, and Jayhawks battling it out for the top of the conference.
 
just to be clear, i wasn't really suggesting that Baylor was cheating, but even the Baylor fans on here have to be just a little surprised by the huge turn around. It's an epic change not equaled by many programs in the history of college basketball. To go from being an afterthought to mid-level Texas high-school recruits to being in on the major guys nationally is nothing short of amazing.
 
Noz - Yes, I think all of us at BU are shocked at his ability to recruit. We knew that he and his dad were good recruiters at Valpo, but we didn't expect that to translate immediately into such good recruiting in the Big 12.

Like all other sports, success breeds success. Going to the NCAA tourney last year only increased our visibility,,,

I will be at several UT games this year. I am a huge fan of Barnes. He is, by far, the best X's and O's coach in the Big 12.
 
Why wouldn't Baylor be able to recruit well? They have the B12 TV contract and exposure, a nice facility, decent fan support, playing time to promise, and are in a region that the talent-poor B12 north schools love to recruit.

This isn't football, where program tradition is a major factor in recruiting.
 
Drew was national recruiter of the year in 98-99 (while an asst at Valpo). Also got three Top 100 players while there. Also, his staff top to bottom are recruiters.

So it shouln't be surprising. He is having success now, but only after he missed out on the big ones for years.

off the top of my head..

Juan Palaicos - Louisville
Sonny Weems - Arkansas
James Anderson - Okie Lite
Darrell Arthur - Kansas
Scotty Reynolds - Georgetown
Willie Warren - OU
J'Covan Brown - UT
Greg Monroe - Duke
Mamadou Diarra - USC

Now he got some, but last year was an example of what missing out will do. As good as the guards were, Baylor had no true SF, no real forward other than Rogers, and Diene was injured the first half of the season and is limited offensivle. Guards can be great, but that frontcourt depth is going to cost you. Baylor ended up in that position because they held out for people like Darrel Arthur and ended up with guys like Fred Ellis .

Drew goes after the best period. He loses out more than he succeeds, but he does find elite talent who are buying what he's selling.

to keep it up and truly move to the next level recruiting wise, he is going to have to advance deep in the tournament and put a guy in the 1st Round. Otherwise, all the charisma in world won't matter.
 
I think the days of sweeping teams in the Big 12 are almost gone. Texas Tech is down, but the other teams are too tough to predict. While Texas has swept BU many times in the history of the Big 12, most do not expect this to continue based on the recruits coming in to both programs. Texas used to sweep A&M regularly, but now it is not so easy. While I have seen many Baylor choke jobs over the years, I still hold out hope that the talent can start to take over in the clutch moments.

If we could combine the coaching of Rick Barnes with the recruiting of Scott Drew, I would be much more confident in the statements above
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Well, he's not in school yet that I know of.

It's not all that unusual, but his recruitment was a bit out of the ordinary, and Baylor and A&M did a considerable amount of mudslinging in each other's direction to the NCAA. I'm curious if anything stuck to Baylor on it or not.
 
Drew is very passionate.

I was reffing at the SEC camp last year and saw pretty much every D1 coach in college basketball. The one thing that stood out at the camp--besides Tom Izzo being so short and Bob Huggins having a huge beer belly--was Scott Drew wearing a bright *** Baylor shirt every single day. You couldn't miss him. He was always talking with Andy what'shisface from ESPN (Andy's name slips my memory right now) and as soon as every game was over with, Drew was the first coach talking to whoever he could.

It was impressive, actually.
 
The other thing I should mention about Drew and his promotion--Drew would wear a BRIGHT *** Baylor shirt with the green Baylor letters you could see from miles away. Every other coach had the small polo with the school logo on the right breast or nothing at all because their face was "school promotion" enough, if you know what i mean. Billy Donovan didn't have to wear a UF shirt for people to know that Billy Donovan was sitting in the front row. The majority of DI coaches were like this.

But everytime we went to the far end of Court 3, there was that bright *** Baylor shirt. It was subconsciously always in your head.
 
Saying something negative about Scott Drew is like the bat beacon for Baylor fans. Didnt know you had these threads crop up over here too.
 
We have several great contributors on this site who are Baylor fans. I don't mind one whit Baylor fans sticking up for their coach. IMO, what he has done has been remarkable. I felt like he deserved conference coach of the year over Rick Barnes last season, actually.

If I said I felt confident Baylor was running a completely clean program, I'd be lying. However, I do think Baylor has a lot of advantages to sell on the recruiting trail, and it's my opinion Scott Drew does an unbelievable job both in terms of work ethic, and selling to parents and recruits what makes Baylor appealingly different.

The rise of Baylor and A&M's basketball programs have been crucial for the image and competitiveness of the Big 12. I have to think someone is eventually going to step up on a consistent basis in the North alongside Kansas, but until it happens, a disproportionate weight will remain on the southern schools to continue to feature more than their fair share of tournament quality teams.
 
Drew hired Jerome Tang and that's all I need to know. Tang is well known in Houston as a dirty coach. When he was at Heritage Christian he was tied into dirty AAU crap, and recruiting kids illegally all the time. He got in so much trouble with TAPPS that they kicked HC out of the league and they had to be an independent. The school has since folded, but when he was there he was a dirty piece of ****.

It surprises me that one week A. Jones is quoted on Orangebloods as saying that UT had been his favorite for a long time and that he would commit in a few weeks. Then all of a sudden UT quits recruiting him and he gets caught up in this illegal recruiting investigation involving A&M, whom he originally committed to. Then, he winds up at Baylor.

Could it be that UT stoped recruiting him b/c his recruitment was going to involve illegal stuff? I know when Barnes first came to UT he stopped recruiting Alton Ford who had been nationally ranked at the time because his dad wanted illegal benefits.

All the while though, Baylor was right there.
 
I feel strongly that the reason Texas backed off recruiting Anthony Jones is because they felt he'd be taking up a spot better utilized with another player. Same thing with Sylvan Landesberg. It doesn't mean it's going to work out that way, but I feel that was the thought process behind Texas backing off, and had little to do with how the recruitment might go.

I'll admit I'm not a big fan of Jerome Tang, either. I will say that Heritage Christian hasn't exactly shut down their doors. They just shut down the basketball program, which is an entirely different thing.

I'm not sure how Alton Ford is applicable, since Scott Drew wasn't at Baylor at the time Alton Ford's recruitment was going on.
 
Jerome Tang is a good man. He did nothing wrong at Heritage Christian or during his time at Baylor.

TAPPS has their own set of rules. These rules fit some schools but not others. One of their policies is that you cannot offer scholarships to athletes based solely on their athletic ability. Heritage wanted to do this for disadvantaged kids who were unable to afford the school's tuition. TAPPS also has a rule that their members are limited to the amount of travel allowed for sporting events. And TAPPS also has rules that their members may not play or practice outside of designated calendar dates.

For some schools, these things are fine. For others, it is not. Just because some school's program might not fit TAPPS guidelines does not mean that the school is "wrong" or dirty. For instance, Austin LBJ would not be granted admission into TAPPS. Does that make LBJ dirty? No. They just don't fit the guidelines.

Do you know who does all sorts of things which would be considered violations of TAPPS rules? Oak Hill Academy. Would you consider all of the coaches and players coming out of there to be dirty? Do you think that UT should reject the filth that comes out of that institution because that school gives athletic scholarships and chooses to play a national schedule? What about Christian Life Center in Humble? Should the UT basketball coaches reject any kid who plays there?

No kid who ever played for Jerome Tang at Heritage ever lost their eligibility for dirty dealings. As far as I know, not a one of them was even challenged for any such thing. And Coach Tang has not been cited for any inappropriate behavior in his 5 years at Baylor, either. If you have any actual evidence of wrongdoing, then you should turn it in. Otherwise, you are just blowing a bunch of hot air.

TC
 
Part of the success I think is that he's implemented a popular style of play(warriors/suns) and has recruited specifically for it and kids WANT to play that style of basketball.
 
I don't think high schools should be giving athletic scholarships, but if a school wants to do this and they are in a league that doesn't disallow it, there's nothing "dirty" about it. I do think the prohibition against such scholarships is one of the (few) things the TAPPS rules get right.
 
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