Baylor’s Official Press Release:
WACO, Texas – Baylor redshirt freshman forward Dain Dainja has elected to transfer, head coach Scott Drew announced Saturday.
“Dain has been a great teammate during his two years in our program, first as a practice player while redshirting last year, and continuing into this season,” Drew said. “We’re always sad if a player elects to leave our program, but we wish Dain the best and will fully support him as he pursues other opportunities.”
A Brooklyn Park, Minn., native, Dainja redshirted during the 2020-21 National Championship season. He returned after offseason foot surgery to play off the bench in the Bears’ first three games this season as a redshirt freshman. He posted six points, three rebounds and one block in eight total minutes of action.
Dainja is the first Baylor player to transfer as an undergraduate since Tyson Jolly in March of 2018.
No. 9-ranked Baylor is off to a 4-0 start this season with all four wins by 27 or more points. The Bears put together a strong second half to pull away with an 86-48 victory over Stanford on Saturday. BU now heads to the Bahamas to face Arizona State at 6:30 p.m. CT Wednesday in the first round of the Battle 4 Atlantis. The ASU game will be televised on ESPN2, with remaining games in the tournament televised on various ESPN networks.
Chery doesn't belong on that list with Lester and Manu IMO. He was a really good college point guard, he was just playing hurt a lot due to his turf toe issues.OldDominionBear said:
Yeah, he was like the perfect jack of all trades master of none.
Looking back those years were really weird, Cherry, Lester, Manu, Al, etc. I mean I'm glad they chose us and they all did their duties and played well even when forced to play positions they weren't used to but it kinda gives off the island of misfit toys vibe looking back. The team now has a pretty clear setup but those rosters were 100% pre 2019 Drew. Good in the front court and a bit weird at the guards.
Yeah Rico really didn't fit the culture of "JOY" whatsover, even as an outside observer, his negative body language and selfish attitude was painfully obvious. I always found the "Baby Rico" nickname offensive to Vital, since he was the exact opposite of Rico as a team-first guy who was an elite defender. One or 2 guys like Rico can ruin team chemistry.OldDominionBear said:
Oh yeah I was Bear pit when Prince was a freshman. You could he had the *it* factor within reach but couldn't grasp it yet. It's like he was too fast for the game at first which caused a lot of turnovers and bad shots. Mayer is cut from the same cloth but I don't think Mayer will reach TWP's level and that's not a criticism of Matt, it's just TWP didn't have anything close to the team that Matt does this year so he didn't have the choice of letting others take over. TWP had it hard, especially when Rico realized he didn't have a NBA career on the horizon and (at least to me) mentally checked out the final months.
When you look back at the roster it's not too surprising we got upset.
And yet we still never had a cratered season. That's all you need to say about Drew. As much as I respect Lon Kruger, Oklahoma won 11 games the year after their Final Four. That's not building a program. That's pushing all your chips in at once and then starting over.Crawfoso1973 said:
Was never a fan of Manu TBH. We hit a valley that 2017-18 NIT season, our talent level was at its lowest point in the decade of the 2010s. Our guard rotation was Manu, Jake Lindsey and King McClure. All quality individuals and role players but several tiers below what we've had in our backcourt ever since. We struggled a couple years there with getting quality guards, we made due with mediocre talents like Manu and Medford, and swung and missed on scrubs like Wendell Mitchell and Tyson Jolly which set us back in recruiting.
This year it is Brown & Sochan.BUVA said:
So who will be our next Glue Guy? We had Rico, then Ish, then Vital. I was thinking Dainja might fill that spot just by size alone ( with some conditioning), but after seeing him briefly on the court, I knew he'd never fill that void.
BUVA said:
So who will be our next Glue Guy? We had Rico, then Ish, then Vital. I was thinking Dainja might fill that spot just by size alone ( with some conditioning), but after seeing him briefly on the court, I knew he'd never fill that void.
OldDominionBear said:
Which one was the person who wasn't actually a PG but because we didn't have one they had to step up?
And it's not a shot at Cherry, it's more that those teams look really weird looking back at them. Sold bigs and a weird pairing at guards. Was Cherry the one who hit a buzzer beater vs ISU in a white out game at the Ferrell? We should do white out games more often. I think that's the only one I remember us having. No free t-shirts for big games either.
Manu Lecomte was the 3-point specialist who was forced to play point guard because we didn't have another one. Jake Lindsey played some there and pushed him to the 2 occasionally, but he was such a limited scoring threat that you were sacrificing offense when he was on the floor.OldDominionBear said:
Which one was the person who wasn't actually a PG but because we didn't have one they had to step up?
And it's not a shot at Cherry, it's more that those teams look really weird looking back at them. Sold bigs and a weird pairing at guards. Was Cherry the one who hit a buzzer beater vs ISU in a white out game at the Ferrell? We should do white out games more often. I think that's the only one I remember us having. No free t-shirts for big games either.
It’s Official!!! Let’s get it🧡💙 pic.twitter.com/8RnyomCTj2
— Dain Dainja🥀 (@DDainja) November 28, 2021
OldDominionBear said:
LJ Rose and Deuce Bello too.
Also Al Freeman was very underwhelming for me. Maybe my expectations were too high for him but when I think back about watching him play the word timid comes to mind. I think my expectations and reality have made me think worse of him that he actually was.
BearlySober said:OldDominionBear said:
LJ Rose and Deuce Bello too.
Also Al Freeman was very underwhelming for me. Maybe my expectations were too high for him but when I think back about watching him play the word timid comes to mind. I think my expectations and reality have made me think worse of him that he actually was.
Al was one of the few players on those teams that could routinely create his own shot, but the team was better after he left. Definitely a distraction and disappeared too much on the court. Timid is an accurate description.
