Carl- I never said I wasn't a fan of Baylor. I just said I don't have deep allegiance to them. I grew up on the East Coast as a Maryland fan. So my fandom of Baylor is a recent thing. I also root for A&M (my wife's school), OU and Missouri. I probably favor Baylor over all of those due to some relationships. But I don't bleed green and gold.
I like Ford personally and think they play an exciting brand of basketball. I was at the big 12 tournament in OKC and had a chance to talk to Anthony Brown- nice kid. Ford is probably very outgoing. And if I think about it, most head coaches are. Assistants are a different story. Some of them are assistants because they love to develop kids, watch film and tend to be more introverted. Some are assistants because they love to recruit and develop realationships. Baylor has more of the latter and not the former. Drew would be the first to admit they need a grey hair who knows X's and O's to continue the program's improvements.
I will shut up about this. But Drew really gets unfairly criticized for his coaching. Here's a quick take of what we has had to work with and results since he took over:
2003-2004 Baylor 8-21 3-13 11th (best players transferred and had to rely on walk-ons)
2004-2005 Baylor 9-19 1-15 12th (returned ONE scholarship player)
2005-2006 Baylor 4-13 4-12 12th (banned from non-conference games did sweep the Aggies)
2006-2007 Baylor 15-16 4-12 11th (almost all FR/SO players)
2007-2008 Baylor 21-11 9-7 T4th (made NCAA for the first time in 50 yrs)
2008-2009 Baylor 24-15 5-11 9th (Big 12 Tourney and NIT runner-ups)
They should have had a 8-8 to 10-6 team this year in conference based on the talent they had. But my buddy tells me that Drew tried to insist the seniors play harder defense and they rebelled. This led to a lot of friction in the locker room. Losing streaks do that. Somehow, he got them refocused in the big 12 and NIT tournaments.
Lace Dunn was the key. Instead of jacking the first off balance 3 that he got... He started taking the ball aggressively to the hole. Good things started to happen for the Bears when he did that.
I realize this is an OU site and I will shut up about the Bears
Thanks for humoring me. When I post in the future, it will be an OU related topic.