Baylor was in this position two years ago, a chance to go to the Final Four by defeating one of college basketball’s traditional powers.
That time it was a 78-71 loss to Duke in which Baylor forward Quincy Acy said he and his team may have been a bit too happy to be there, rather than focused on what needed to be done to reach their first Final Four since 1950.
On Sunday, Baylor, which knocked off Xavier on Friday, will face Kentucky at the Georgia Dome. The Wildcats, the tournament’s top seed, defeated Indiana on Friday.
Acy said the experience of losing to Duke has better prepared the Bears.
“I think it’s more about business now,” Acy said. “We know what we can do. We knew it’s going to be a tough game.”
RGIII in the house
Baylor’s basketball players credit some of their success this season to the women’s basketball team and to Robert Griffin III, the quarterback who is expected to go No. 2 in this year’s NFL draft.
The women’s team’s trophy case is filled up, and may add another this year if the Bears continue their run in the NCAA tournament. They defeated Georgia Tech on Saturday. The men’s trophy case ... “is kind of empty,” Acy said. The women’s team won the national championship in 2005 and went to the Final Four in 2010.
“It’s kind of motivation,” Acy said.
The team also has been driven to succeed by the school’s star football player. Griffin, last year’s Heisman Trophy winner as a junior, would hang out in Baylor’s locker room more than the coaches when he was a freshman, according to coach Scott Drew. Though Griffin hasn’t been able to spend time with the team as much because he has been preparing for the NFL draft, Perry Jones III said that camaraderie has rubbed off on all the teams.
The uniforms
Like Oregon’s uniforms in football, most people either love Baylor’s fluorescent uniforms or hate them.
Acy, said as long as they have Baylor across the front, he doesn’t care about the color. Quincy Miller said he likes them because they stick out.
Baylor’s fans have responded by wearing similarly colored T-shirts and socks at games.
Drew joked that the brightness of the uniforms, made by Adidas, helped his team cut down on the turnovers they were making earlier in the year.
“We pass to the right guys because we stand out, so I’m good with that,” he said.
Jones answers critics
Jones said he has grown tired of the criticism he has received this year, which even stretched to a grade he received on a paper in English.
Jones, a 6-foot-11 sophomore, has averaged 13.4 and 7.6 rebounds per game this season. However, some wanted him to do more after he compiled similar stats last season.
After Jones tweeted that he got a B-plus on an English paper, he said someone responded that needed to stop worrying about his papers and work on his shooting.
“I mean, I’m a student-athlete,” he said. “I’m worried about my grades. My mom is worried about my grades. I do like school. I guess since I don’t perform at the level everyone wants me to perform, I guess everything I do is criticized.”
Don’t expect Jones to try to take over against the Wildcats, which features Anthony Davis, a 6-10 freshman who is being pegged as a top-three pick in the NBA draft.
“I’m a team player,” Jones said. “I’m not going to shoot the ball every time I get it.”
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