Men’s basketball opens 2016-17 season as a sleeper in the nation’s eyes
Despite coming off back-to-back-to-back NCAA tournament appearances for the first time in program history, the Baylor men’s basketball team is not among the top 25 in this year’s major preseason polls. In fact, for the first time since 2009*, head coach Scott Drew’s squad received no votes in either preseason poll.
The glass half-empty types see a Baylor team that was upset in the first round of last year’s tournament and lost three of five starters from a year ago, including NBA first-round pick Taurean Prince and the program’s all-time leading rebounder, Rico Gathers.
The glass half-full types — like Sports Illustrated, which ranked Baylor 24th in the preseason and picked the Bears to tie for second in the Big 12 — see a team that returns two double-digit scorers (juniors Al Freeman and Johnathan Motley), a deep roster with more experience than you’d think, and has three new contributors who spent the last year redshirting, just waiting to get their chance (senior Jo Lual-Acuil, junior Manu Lecomte and freshman Wendell Mitchell).
Motley was named one of the top 40 players in college basketball by NBC Sports and earned spots on the the Preseason All-Big 12 team and the watch list for the 2017 Karl Malone Power Forward of the Year Award (the only Texas player on the list). Lecomte, a transfer from Miami, is the Preseason Big 12 Newcomer of the Year — Baylor’s first since Terry Black in 1999. Lual-Acuil, a 7-foot rim protector, was named one of the top six reserves in the game by an ESPN writer.
The Bears do have a tough road ahead of them. This year’s schedule includes home games against No. 5 Oregon and No. 7 Xavier, plus the usual home-and-home matches against Big 12 foes such as No. 2 Kansas, No. 18 West Virginia, No. 22 Texas and No. 24 Iowa State. It all begins Friday at 6 p.m. as Baylor hosts Oral Roberts (6 p.m., ESPNU).
Sic ’em, Bears!
(* P.S. That 2009 team that was the last to not receive any preseason votes? They went to the Elite Eight.)