DanaDane said:
And I don't want to skate past it because what Kim Mulkey did is incredibly impressive as well. I just think the situation Drew took over was one like no one had ever seen before and so his venture was a little bit more difficult than Mulkey. But both took us to levels I never thought we'd see.
The women's game was much later to the parity party also. For a long time you had the top 10 or 15 and then a big drop off after that. The better teams didn't even see much competition till the S16. Now you are starting to see it in the first weekend. So the path to the FF was a bit easier than it would be now, especially in 2005. The men's game started its move toward parity a lot further back so high-level competition has not been lacking even in the first weekend, which I think combined with the situation he took over makes the men's revival very impressive.
Of course the thing with Mulkey was that 2005 team was the first national championship that really had national exposure. It showed it could be done at Baylor. That was very impressive and can't be discounted. And getting back to Teaff, while his record wasn't all that great, it can certainly be argued that without that revival, there would not have been any Big XII for Baylor. And without that, you probably would never have seen all the basketball championships, both men and women, because who knows what conference we would have been in for all these years.....certainly not one that would have drawn elite recruits into basketball, men or women, regardless of what coach we might could have gotten being in a lesser conference. Also likely no McLane or top-10 football teams in the teens.
I would just leave it as we have been fortunate to have gotten out of the the sports deep, deep pit that I witnessed during my time at Baylor in the late 60s. I think we finished second in the conference in men's BB a couple of years (SWC...a pretty weak MBB conference) . No tournament appearances, we didn't even have WBB, and football.....well don't ask about that. We did have one year when UT only beat us 21-7. What a celebration -
for a sports program, for that to be your biggest accomplishment. We have been blessed with at least four coaches that really made an impact (Teaff, Briles, Drew, and Mulkey). While football is in the crapper right now, there are very few schools in the country that have seen the success we have seen in sports over the last almost 20 years.
