Views from the Brazos: Baylor Women's basketball starts practices

KOK, thanks for letting me know about the passing of Murray Bailey.
I knew him very well, though he was a year behind me. I went home with him (Louisiana) in his frosh year and his parents treated me royally.

Murray played for a small high school that played no other sport, scheduled about sixty games, and because of Murray, enjoyed a lot of success. He was only 6'2" and not very athletic, but was a dead-eye shooter, and despite being a bit awkward, was very efficient with the ball in his hands. He probably got as many "garbage points" as anyone I ever saw. Loose balls, long rebounds, all those kinds of things somehow found their way into his hands. He was All SWC his senior year, and All Tournament in the Christmas Tournament the SWC sponsored every year back then.

He coached high school ball for awhile and was very successful. I recall one of his early teams going to the state tournament by defeated a heavily favored team in the regional playoff. They had the height advantage and liked to run, but they played a zone and sat back in it. so Murray's boys scored the first goal, stopped them at the other end, and just sat on the ball, almost literally. They did the same thing in the second half and won the game 5-4.
That sort of thing, along with Dean Smith's "4 Corner Offense" in the fourth quarter of the UNC games helped pave the way for a shot clock later on.

Murray was quiet and very humble, but he knew what he could do and never showed much self-doubt. He was a memorable player and a fine man. I haven't seen him in sixty years, so I remember him as he was, and that is not at all a bad way to recall a person.