Baylor No. 1 in AP poll for fifirst time
Bears, not ranked at start of the season, reach the top spot.
A decades-long Baylor fan got emotional with coach Scott Drew after the Bears won their last game to remain one of two undefeated teams in the country. The fan told Drew, “I thought we could go to a Final Four, but I never thought I’d see the day when Baylor was ranked No. 1.”
That day came Monday, when the Bears (15-0) moved up a spot to the top of The Associated Press men’s basketball poll for the fifirst time.
Baylor wasn’t even getting votes in the poll at the start of the season two months ago, when its football team was in the midst of a 7-6 season overshadowed by scandal. Coach Art Briles was fifired last May after an investigation that determined the school mishandled assault claims for years, including several against football players.
Now Baylor is the 59th school ranked No. 1 since the AP men’s basketball poll started in the 1948-49 season. And the two-time national champion Lady Bears remain No. 2 in the women’s poll.
“It’s great seeing the excitement for Baylor University, and seeing the people that care so much about the university be able to smile,” said Drew, who took over a tattered program when he arrived on the Waco campus in 2003.
Baylor got 55 of 65 fifirstplace votes to replace Villanova after the defending national champ lost to Butler, leaving the Bears and No. 5 Gonzaga (15-0) as the only unbeatens. The Wildcats (15-1) got one fifirst- place vote and dropped to third.
The Big 12 is 1-2 in the poll, with Kansas (14-1) moving from third to second with eight fifirst- place votes. UCLA (16-1) stayed fourth with the other fifirst- place vote.
Kentucky, Duke, Creighton, Florida State and West Virginia rounded out the top 10, followed by North Carolina, Butler, Oregon, Louisville, Xavier, Arizona, Purdue, Wisconsin, Virginia and Notre Dame. The last ranked teams are Saint Mary’s, Cincinnati, Florida and Minnesota, with Kansas State and USC tied for 25th.
Minnesota’s fifirst ranking in four seasons provides a Top 25 father-son duo with Kentucky coach Rick Pitino and the younger Richard Pitino with the Gophers. Kansas State was last ranked in 201314. Virginia Tech and Indiana dropped out of the poll.
When Drew got to Baylor in 2003, the program was ravaged by the murder of a player by a teammate and scandalized by the former coach who tried to cover up NCAA violations in the aftermath. There were significant scholarship and recruiting restrictions, and even a season when the Bears were allowed to play only their Big 12 Conference games.
They overcame all that, going to six NCAA Tournaments in the last nine seasons and twice getting to regional finals before losing to the eventual national champion.
Baylor went into this season having to replace three senior starters and faced a diffifficult early schedule. But the Bears beat then-No. 4 Oregon the fifirst week, and won the Battle 4 Atlantis tournament by beating No. 24 Michigan State and No. 10 Louisville. By the fifirst Saturday in December, they had three wins over top 10 teams in the same season for the fifirst time. The Bears’ fifirst game as the No. 1 team is Tuesday at 10th-ranked West Virginia.