PITTSBURGH (93.7 The Fan) – There was no doubt Baylor is the best basketball team in college basketball. They took the number one overall seed and outworked them. It was a display in aggressive, active defense and offensive rebounding.
Baylor started 2020 18-0 and no doubt slowed down by a three week pause, only to find it again at the end of the year and blow through the NCAA tournament, winning every game by double figures.
It wasn’t always that way, before head coach Scott Drew arrived the Bears had three seasons of 20-plus wins. That span covers 96 years. You think Pitt was a hot mess, Baylor had a teammate shoot and kill another teammate. The then head coach painted the deceased player as a drug dealer to keep the NCAA from investigating further.
So when Drew arrived in 2003, he brought talk of hope. However, on the court, the son of a coach, who had one year of being a head coach himself at Mid-Continent Conference Valparaiso, struggled.
Baylor went 8-21 his first season, 9-19 his second, 4-13 his third, 15-16 in his fourth. So imagine the pressure after his third year and then to not have a winning season in his fourth.
However, the athletic administration fended off the unhappy big-money donors and kept Drew. Rich people aren’t often told no. Yet athletic director Ian McCaw, a Canadian who started his career working in the front office of the Hartford Whaler, stayed the course.
In Drew’s fifth season, the Bears returned to the NCAA Tournament. Since that time, Drew and the Bears have won 315 games and a first ever basketball national championship. In a conference that features a program in Kansas every bit as good as any in college basketball history.
It works both ways, Gonzaga head coach Mark Few spurned many attempts by schools to take him away from Spokane. Instead of bailing for an easier place to recruit or more money, few was determined to make the Bulldogs a power. He won the conference regular season or conference championship every year but one and in that season still made the NCAA Tournament. He’s 630-125 for a .834 winning percentage.
Baylor and Gonzaga are great examples of administrators and coaches remaining loyal to their jobs and seeing things through.
It’s easy for Pitt fans to look for the next coach or think Jeff Capel won’t be able to turn the program around. Scott Drew did so under a worse situation only because he was given time. Then, if Capel is able to turn the tide, it’s up to him to reward Pitt for their loyalty.
It’s not hopeless, if Baylor could win a college basketball national title, anyone can.
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