Scott Drew, Bears to Face Gonzaga at Sanford Pentagon
WACO, Texas – Baylor men's basketball will play a marquee non-conference matchup against Gonzaga on Friday, Dec. 2, at the Sanford Pentagon in Sioux Falls, S.D.
Baylor and Gonzaga are the nation’s only teams ranked No. 1 in each of the last three seasons. Tipoff time, television details and ticket information will be announced at a later date for the rematch of the 2021 National Championship game.
“I’m really excited for this early-season matchup against one of the sport’s premier teams,” 20th-year Baylor head coach Scott Drew said. “Baylor Basketball has so much respect for Coach Few and the entire Gonzaga program, and we share the same scheduling philosophy about testing ourselves early in the season. This will be a terrific event for college basketball in one of the game’s most unique venues at the Sanford Pentagon.”
The meeting in South Dakota will be the seventh meeting between the two programs, with Baylor claiming the most-recent matchup at Lucas Oil Stadium on April 5, 2021, an 86-70 win to secure the Bears’ first national title.
“We’re excited to play such a talented opponent in a great venue,” said Mark Few, Gonzaga head coach. “We have tremendous respect for Coach Drew and his program. A game like this showcases college basketball, and we thank Lea Miller-Tooley and the Sanford Pentagon for helping put it together.”
Baylor is 81-13 over the last three seasons, second nationally to Gonzaga, which is 90-7 in that same span. Baylor is on a school-record streak of 56-straight weeks ranked in the AP Top 25, the nation’s 3rd-longest active streak behind Gonzaga (114) and Villanova Wildcats (59).
The Zags and Bears are two of just 12 teams in the country to have appeared in seven of the last eight NCAA Tournaments and two of nine teams to appear in every postseason since 2012.
Baylor’s 2022-23 squad will make its debut playing as Team USA in the 2022 GLOBL JAM, which runs July 5-10 at Toronto’s Mattamy Athletic Centre. The Bears will take on Italy on July 5, Canada on July 6 and Brazil on July 7, before potential semifinal and Gold Medal games on July 9 and 10, respectively.
The Bears return nine players from the 2021-22 squad that won BU’s second-straight Big 12 Championship. Adam Flagler, Jonathan Tchamwa Tchatchoua, Flo Thamba, LJ Cryer, Dale Bonner, Zach Loveday, Langston Love, Jordan Turner and Austin Sacks all return from last year’s team. The Bears have also added three transfers to go along with two highly-ranked high school recruits.
Jalen Bridges joins the Bears after starting 33-consecutive Big 12 games at West Virginia over the last two seasons, and Caleb Lohner returns to his home state after playing 62 games in two years at BYU. They join JUCO All-American Dantwan Grimes, who led Kilgore to back-to-back NJCAA National Tournaments. McDonald’s All-American Keyonte George heads to Baylor out of IMG Academy, and Nigeria native Joshua Ojianwuna will join the program out of the NBA Global Academy-Australia.