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Baylor Basketball

Road to the Tournament: A tough but not unfamiliar road for Baylor

February 2, 2018
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Coach Scott Drew has said he remains unconcerned about his team extending its tournament streak despite sitting in the Big 12’s basement. Baylor was in a similar spot four years ago after starting conference play with a 2-8 record before turning on the jets to finish 6th in the conference. That took winning seven of the last eight games. Now the Bears face almost that exact scenario, except they're in a league that’s at its most competitive in years. Is the hole too big to climb out of?

How easy will it be to repeat the 2014 team’s success that ended in the Sweet 16?


Differences between 2014 and 2018 scenarios

To start, Baylor already has as many losses as it did before the Big 12 tournament in 2014. That season, Baylor also took down a top notch Kentucky team and had a quality loss to Syracuse. This year, Baylor only holds a quality loss to Wichita State.

The Big 12 is also built better from top to bottom. That's in Baylor's favor at the moment.

In 2014, TCU lost every conference game and teams walked all over Texas Tech too. This year has been completely parity in the Big 12 with Baylor as the team with the most begging to do. While TCU has had a skid, it’s no longer the conference welcome mat and Tech is near the top of the food chain. Wins will hold more value than they did in 2014 but that also means another level of difficulty.


Baylor has played tighter than it did four years ago

As the Bears spiraled in conference play in 2014, only two of their losses were by five points or fewer. All the other losses were by at least 10 points, yet Baylor turned all those L’s into W’s except allowing Texas to sweep. Baylor has played remarkably closer than that base comparison so far.

Of the seven losses, four have been by under five points. There was the near comeback in OT with TCU, a three-point loss in Morgantown, and two escaped wins visiting Kansas and Oklahoma where four-point leads fell through in the closing minutes.

Aside from the loss to TCU, they were all played on the road.

Consider at a bare minimum those four losses are flipped to wins. That’d give Baylor wins over three top 15 schools (as of the latest rankings) and a likely tournament team in TCU. Would six wins in conference and 16 total be enough, especially since there are no signature non-conference wins like Baylor had against Kentucky four years ago? Probably not.

But those close losses have also shown the team’s potential to take over games. When Manu Lecomte is firing on all cylinders, the offense is tough to defend. But get another player like Nuni Omot on the same wavelength as he was against Oklahoma, it’s even tougher. The freshmen Mark Vital and Tristan Clark have also made teams fight for these wins. 

Those star-making turns will have to be permanent fixtures like Cory Jefferson flipped a switch to spur the 2014 run. Someone will also have to reach Brady Heslip levels shooting from outside, not to mention running the court like Kenny Chery did- Lecomte really has a big target on his back.


Target win total for a bid

Last year, Michigan State, Wake Forest, and Vanderbilt were the lone at-large bid under 20 wins. Oklahoma State and Providence both punched their tickets at 20 wins while a handful sat at 21. It was right in line with previous years’ brackets but conference performance is typically a ticket puncher.

Staying close to home, Oklahoma State (9-9) and Kansas State (8-10) were fifth and sixth in the Big 12 respectively. In 2016, seven Big 12 teams punched tickets with Texas Tech’s nine conference wins at the bottom of the group. The three years prior had an eight-win cutoff.

If Baylor can win six of the next nine games, it will hit both the 20 total wins and eight conference win benchmarks. That will make for a stressful Selection Sunday watch party but if half those wins come against Kansas, Oklahoma, and West Virginia, it’d be difficult to ignore. Add in Texas Tech (in the Ferrell) for good measure, there’s an increasingly good argument.

That 2014 Baylor team’s closing statement was good enough for a No. 6 seed (with a signature win over No. 3 Kentucky to help), wiping away the concerns that marred the team through mid-February.

There have been cases with worse records like 2001 Georgia’s 14 loss season that still made the tourney. But those are incredibly rare and circumstantial. “Quality losses” only go so far.


Don’t forget about the Big 12 tournament

The conference tournament is a team’s final remarks for Selection Sunday. Baylor punctuated its remarkable turnaround in 2014 with a title game appearance, bringing its total to 24 wins. There was no denying Baylor the Big Dance.

But if Baylor can’t reach eight conference wins (maybe seven depending on the wins) before the Big 12 tourney, a conference title is virtually the only way in. TCU almost pulled it off last year after losing seven of the last regular season games and reaching the semifinals. That put the Horned Frogs at 19 wins on the season and as a No. 1 seed…in the NIT. Their six wins in conference play just didn’t cut it.

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Road to the Tournament: A tough but not unfamiliar road for Baylor

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