By Jackson Posey | Sports Writer
On the heels of a busy offseason which saw two big-time transfers and two five-star recruits head to Waco, Baylor men’s basketball earned a No. 8 ranking in the preseason AP Top 25, its fourth top 10 placement in the past five seasons.
The Bears finished last season ranked No. 16 following a second-round NCAA Tournament loss to Clemson, 72-64. Head coach Scott Drew spent the offseason retooling a roster that returned just three rotation players, bringing in over a half-dozen players to compete for minutes.
The new guys bring a lot of pedigree to Waco. Fifth-year senior transfers guard Jeremy Roach (Duke) and forward Norchad Omier (Miami) each have Final Four experience and All-ACC honors to their names, while graduate guard Jalen Celestine (Cal) ranked among the nation’s top three-point snipers before getting injured, shooting 44.0% on four attempts per game.
The green and gold find themselves in the midst of, again, arguably the toughest conference in America. The preseason top 10 features five Big 12 teams — No. 1 Kansas, No. 4 Houston, No. 5 Iowa State, No. 8 Baylor, No. 10 Arizona — with No. 20 Cincinnati peering in and Texas Tech, Kansas State, BYU and Arizona State receiving votes.
Between a characteristically tough Big 12 slate and a loaded non-conference schedule, the Bears will play six of their fellow top 10 teams, as a showdown with two-time defending national champion No. 3 UConn and a late-night, season-opening tilt against No. 6 Gonzaga loom large.
Analytics back up the Top 25 poll, which coincided with the release of KenPom’s preseason Adjusted Efficiency Margin rankings. Baylor slotted in at No. 11, trailing Big 12 foes Houston (No. 1), Kansas (No. 6), Iowa State (No. 7) and Arizona (No. 8). No other conference has more than five teams in the top 21; the Big 12 boasts eight.
The Bears are set to open their season at 10:30 p.m. on Nov. 4 against Gonzaga in Spokane, Washington. It’ll be the teams’ second matchup since the 2021 National Championship game; in 2022, Baylor knocked off the Bulldogs in South Dakota, 64-63.