{"id":23391,"date":"2022-03-07T09:51:26","date_gmt":"2022-03-07T15:51:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www2.baylor.edu\/baylorproud\/?p=23391"},"modified":"2022-03-07T09:51:26","modified_gmt":"2022-03-07T15:51:26","slug":"baylor-mens-basketball-overcomes-injury-after-injury-to-win-second-straight-big-12-title","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www2.baylor.edu\/baylorproud\/2022\/03\/baylor-mens-basketball-overcomes-injury-after-injury-to-win-second-straight-big-12-title\/","title":{"rendered":"Baylor men&#8217;s basketball overcomes injury after injury to win second straight Big 12 title"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-23392\" src=\"https:\/\/www2.baylor.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/drewb12-mar22.jpg\" alt=\"Scott Drew cuts down the net\" width=\"600\" height=\"338\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www2.baylor.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/drewb12-mar22.jpg 1200w, https:\/\/www2.baylor.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/drewb12-mar22-300x169.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www2.baylor.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/drewb12-mar22-1024x576.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www2.baylor.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/drewb12-mar22-768x432.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Since <a href=\"https:\/\/www2.baylor.edu\/baylorproud\/2021\/04\/enjoy-it-the-baylor-bears-are-ncaa-champions\/\">Baylor men&#8217;s basketball won the national championship<\/a> last spring, graduation and injuries have hit the Bears hard:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Four title-team starters graduated (<a href=\"https:\/\/www2.baylor.edu\/baylorproud\/2021\/07\/baylors-davion-mitchell-goes-no-9-overall-in-2021-nba-draft-1-of-4-bears-going-pro\/\">three went to the NBA<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.chiefs.com\/team\/players-roster\/mark-vital\/\">one to the NFL<\/a>).<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/mens-college-basketball\/story\/_\/id\/32472797\/baylor-freshman-guard-langston-love-tears-acl-scrimmage-miss-2021-22-season\">A national top-30 signee<\/a> lost the entire season to an ACL tear in October.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/baylorbears.com\/sports\/mens-basketball\/roster\/lj-cryer\/10875\">The team&#8217;s leading scorer<\/a> has played only 15 minutes in the last six weeks due to a foot injury, and might not play again this season.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/baylorbears.com\/sports\/mens-basketball\/roster\/jonathan-tchamwa-tchatchoua\/10880\">The team&#8217;s leading rebounder<\/a> (and <a href=\"https:\/\/baylorbears.com\/news\/2022\/3\/6\/mens-basketball-mbb-picks-up-numerous-all-big-12-honors.aspx\">Big 12 co-Defensive Player of the Year<\/a>) suffered a gruesome knee injury almost a month ago that ended his season early.<\/li>\n<li>Three other <a href=\"https:\/\/baylorbears.com\/news\/2022\/3\/6\/mens-basketball-mbb-picks-up-numerous-all-big-12-honors.aspx\">All-Big 12<\/a> players &#8212; James Akinjo, Adam Flagler and Jeremy Sochan &#8212; have also missed significant time due to injury.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>And yet, here the Bears are &#8212; 26-5 overall, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/mens-college-basketball\/rankings\">ranked No. 3 in the country<\/a>, and now the <a href=\"https:\/\/baylorbears.com\/news\/2022\/3\/5\/mens-basketball-no-3-mbb-wins-second-straight-big-12-title-with-win-over-iowa-state.aspx\">back-to-back Big 12 regular season champions<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;You look at the beginning of the year, and we said that with everything we lost, what&#8217;s impossible with man is possible with God,&#8221; said head coach Scott Drew, now the <a href=\"https:\/\/wacotrib.com\/sports\/college\/baylor\/baylors-scott-drew-named-big-12-coach-of-year\/article_3075b1b2-9dab-11ec-ab72-df188b5d3eee.html\">back-to-back Big 12 Coach of the Year<\/a>. &#8220;That&#8217;s been our theme. And with all the injuries and things we&#8217;ve had to overcome this year&#8230; You&#8217;ve got to really credit our guys for remaining calm and executing and really down the stretch being very efficient and helping pull out a win.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The Baylor team that now rolls into March Madness is very different from the squad that won the national title a year ago. Only three active players (Flagler, Flo Thamba and Matthew Mayer) saw significant time in the national championship game. But the Bears are making it work &#8212; and they know the season isn&#8217;t over yet.<\/p>\n<p>Next up for Drew&#8217;s Bears: <a href=\"https:\/\/big12sports.com\/tournaments\/?id=1025\">The Big 12 tournament<\/a> in Kansas City, where the Bears will face Oklahoma Thursday at 6 p.m. One day later, Nicki Collen&#8217;s Baylor women&#8217;s team &#8212; who also <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/Baylor\/status\/1500590832713355275\">got another Big 12 trophy for the mantel<\/a> &#8212;\u00a0will start their <a href=\"https:\/\/big12sports.com\/tournaments\/?id=1026\">Big 12 tournament<\/a> run, battling either Texas Tech or Oklahoma State at 1:30 p.m. Then it&#8217;s on to the NCAA tournament, starting the following week.<\/p>\n<p>Sic \u2019em, Baylor basketball!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Since Baylor men&#8217;s basketball won the national championship last spring, graduation and injuries have hit the Bears hard: Four title-team starters graduated (three went to the NBA, one to the NFL). A national top-30 signee lost the entire season to an ACL tear in October. The team&#8217;s leading scorer has played only 15 minutes in [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23391","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-athletics","category-honors"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www2.baylor.edu\/baylorproud\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23391","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www2.baylor.edu\/baylorproud\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www2.baylor.edu\/baylorproud\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www2.baylor.edu\/baylorproud\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www2.baylor.edu\/baylorproud\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23391"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www2.baylor.edu\/baylorproud\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23391\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www2.baylor.edu\/baylorproud\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23391"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www2.baylor.edu\/baylorproud\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23391"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www2.baylor.edu\/baylorproud\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23391"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}