• Men’s hoops bounces top-seed Kansas from Big 12 Tournament

    CBSsports.com front pageYou could hear the cheers erupt around the building here this afternoon as the Baylor men’s basketball team pulled off the biggest upset in Big 12 Tournament history, knocking off the top-seeded and 11th-ranked Kansas Jayhawks 71-64 in the quarterfinals of the conference tournament.

    Head coach Scott Drew had never before seen his team defeat Kansas; in fact, the Bears had lost eight in a row to the Jayhawks since beating them on Big Monday in 2001. Even more impressively, only once before had the Big 12’s top seed lost its opening game; that came in 2001 when conference champion Iowa State was defeated by — you guessed it — the Baylor Bears.

    Today’s win put Baylor front and center on the front pages of ESPN.com, CBSsports.com and SI.com, among others; in fact, as I write this, SI.com has Baylor basketball (beating KU) and Baylor football (lineman Jason Smith, a likely top NFL pick) as its main two stories.

    The Baylor men will next face the winner of this afternoon’s game between 5th-seed Texas and 4th-seed Kansas State; the semifinal match-up will tip off Friday at 6 p.m. and will be televised on the Big 12 Network (check BaylorBears.com for listings). After a first-round bye, head coach Kim Mulkey’s No. 7-ranked Lady Bears also begin their Big 12 Tournament run as the conference’s No. 2 seed Friday at 5 p.m. on FSN.

    [3/13 update: People back in Kansas were so bothered by the loss that the state Senate passed a resolution urging KU to no longer play teams that start with “B” in March.]

    Sic ’em, Baylor basketball!