One sometimes under-appreciated facet you notice underwriting Baylor's guard-centric success over the last 15 years or so is the mid-sized (6-6 to 6-8 or so) board crasher, defensive bulldog, lunch pail hype man. Every quality postseason team has had at least one:

2010, 2012: Quincy Acy
2013 (NIT champs): Rico Gathers
2014: Royce O'Neal/Rico Gathers
2021: Mark Vital

The 2022-23 team really broke the trend line. It's the first time in many years where that role just wasn't there. At one time, JTT was well set up to be that energetic banger, but, well. I think it's a testament to how unbelievably, program-pacing talented offensively our guards were last year that we were able to even somewhat compensate for how deficient we were in that role. We were never doing much in any postseason format without it.

Drew's best teams have a lot of fast-switching guards, rangy complementary outside-in wing play, an interior bulldog who will get you 8 and 8 every night, and then some throw-in big bench size to rotate through for a different look and soak fouls.

But even going back to the legendary Mark Shepherd, Drew has continually sought out and built around the mid-sized everyday agile banger. We're really missing that right now.

I'm waiting to see who that guy is on this team. We've crushed the guard market in the portal and the recruiting trail this offseason. Between Love, Dennis, Little, Walter, and Nunn, we again have one of the best backcourts in America. And yet the frontcourt feels a lot like it did last year at this time - hoping JTT gets healthy enough (mentally as well as physically) to be an x-factor again, hoping one of our non-physical wing guys is able to fill some gaps inside, hoping for an under-radar last-minute portal addition like a Freddy Gillespie.

One thing is for certain - in the absence of a banger, we need a lot more defensively out of our guards this year.

parch said:

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One sometimes under-appreciated facet you notice underwriting Baylor's guard-centric success over the last 15 years or so is the mid-sized (6-6 to 6-8 or so) board crasher, defensive bulldog, lunch pail hype man. Every quality postseason team has had at least one:

2010, 2012: Quincy Acy
2013 (NIT champs): Rico Gathers
2014: Royce O'Neal/Rico Gathers
2021: Mark Vital

The 2022-23 team really broke the trend line. It's the first time in many years where that role just wasn't there. At one time, JTT was well set up to be that energetic banger, but, well. I think it's a testament to how unbelievably, program-pacing talented offensively our guards were last year that we were able to even somewhat compensate for how deficient we were in that role. We were never doing much in any postseason format without it.

Drew's best teams have a lot of fast-switching guards, rangy complementary outside-in wing play, an interior bulldog who will get you 8 and 8 every night, and then some throw-in big bench size to rotate through for a different look and soak fouls.

But even going back to the legendary Mark Shepherd, Drew has continually sought out and built around the mid-sized everyday agile banger. We're really missing that right now.

I'm waiting to see who that guy is on this team. We've crushed the guard market in the portal and the recruiting trail this offseason. Between Love, Dennis, Little, Walter, and Nunn, we again have one of the best backcourts in America. And yet the frontcourt feels a lot like it did last year at this time - hoping JTT gets healthy enough (mentally as well as physically) to be an x-factor again, hoping one of our non-physical wing guys is able to fill some gaps inside, hoping for an under-radar last-minute portal addition like a Freddy Gillespie.

One thing is for certain - in the absence of a banger, we need a lot more defensively out of our guards this year.

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Lohner was supposed to be that guy, and he wasn't up to the task. If we land either Grant Nelson or Olivier Nkamhoua, we'll be a better rebounding team next year than we we were this past season.

We are still active in the portal so I think that need will have been met once the dust settles. Also our guard group now collectively has excellent positional size and wingspan which will allow us to compete on the boards and be longer defensively even when playing smaller lineups.

Secondary Tennessee fan and would love to get Nkamhoua. Great defensively and has flashed offensive potential

boykin_spaniel said:

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Secondary Tennessee fan and would love to get Nkamhoua. Great defensively and has flashed offensive potential

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He's my second choice after Nelson, but he would definitely make us better if we miss out on Nelson.

I think it's a good omen we just got the Dennis committment, any big would love to play with a PG like Dennis.

Crawfoso1973 said:

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I think it's a good omen we just got the Dennis committment, any big would love to play with a PG like Dennis.

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Nelson is a little unique in that he's likely looking to go somewhere where he can play on the ball a fair amount. Fortunately, I don't see any reason why he and Dennis couldn't coexist and share the point duties in the halfcourt. It would have been a much harder sell with more ball-dominant guards like James Akinjo or Keyonte George.

I think Dennis and Nelson would be really fun to watch together.

This is unprecedented, we keep agreeing!

They are both cerebral, multi-skilled players so I see it as a match made in heaven. Dennis is comfortable in the paint where he can kick it out to Nelson, and vice versa. As a basketball purist I would love to see that pairing even if I weren't a Baylor fan.

Does the six-figure NIL $$ the article alludes to discount our stock in him becoming a Bear?

Looks like he's not coming to Baylor.