Crawfoso1973 said:
I think Tweety was the first. He was Drew's first splashy recruit and at the time a McDonald's All-American was absolutely mind-blowing.
But I agree Butler was the bridge to the guard pipeline we have today. In fact, Butler's freshman year I was texting friends "he is our best guard since Tweety."
I agree to a degree, but I'd argue that while Tweety did help change the program's direction in a massive way, he didn't fundamentally alter the conception of Baylor as an NBA waystation for top 10 guards like Butler did.
In other words, Tweety helped us crack into the fringe top 100 - that's about where he was ranked as a HS senior, and the guys who came after him were to a large degree just like he was in ranking. It was Butler, though, himself a fringe top 100 guy, who (I'd argue) cracked the mold and progressed us into the rarified air occupied only by programs like Kentucky, Duke and Kansas in terms of year-over-year blue chip interest.
I don't think we have a George without a Butler, and we probably don't have a Butler without a Tweety, so there you go.