By Dylan Fink | Sports Writer
Redshirt sophomore guard Cameron Carr is the lone player on Baylor’s current roster who has even shared a practice court with last season’s team. The former 4-star and ESPN top 100 recruit enters the season carrying the burden of an expected leader for the Bears.
Carr began his college career at Tennessee, but entered the transfer portal midway through his sophomore season. A thumb injury had kept the lengthy, 6-foot-5 guard from seeing much playing time after an early exit against Austin Peay on Nov. 17.
Carr entered the portal in December; by Jan. 23, he was committed to head coach Scott Drew’s Baylor Bears.
When he first signed, Carr’s journey to the Brazos seemed spontaneous. Baylor was in the midst of a down year while the SEC powerhouse he left was experiencing a renaissance. But Carr’s ties to the green and gold trace all the way back to high school.
Carr transferred to Link Academy in Branson, Mo., for his final two years of high school. There, he played alongside former Bear (and current Toronto Raptor) Ja’Kobe Walter and under the tutelage of former Baylor assistant coach Bill Armstrong, now the head coach at McNeese State.
Carr’s connections to Baylor kept him from staying on the transfer market very long. Having seen Walter’s experience with the program, he quickly sought to become part of the Baylor culture.
“Ja’Kobe’s my guy,” Carr said. “He definitely did play a role in me coming here. Seeing what he had done, coming here and being a one-and-done. Him achieving all the goals he had wanted to achieve and knowing that I could possibly do the same thing if God leads me down that path.”
Because midseason transfers are ineligible to compete in games, Carr joined the Bears’ practice squad. It was a challenge, but he looks back on his first semester in Waco with gratitude for the learning opportunity.
“I met a lot of good people on that team and built some really good bonds,” Carr said. “I want to give a shoutout to VJ [Edgecombe] as well, watching him come in here and develop and now get to be playing at the next level was inspiring to me.”
When all of Baylor’s rostered players left the program over the offseason, Carr had the opportunity to re-enter the transfer portal — but instead, chose to stay with the Bears out of trust for the program. Carr is now using his experience with Drew as an opportunity to be a leader in the locker room for the Bears this season.
“These past months together, we’ve gotten to bond a good amount,” Carr said of Drew. “He knows he can trust me on the court to go out and do what I need to do, but also that I can coach my teammates and hold my teammates accountable as well.”
Throughout his efforts to become that locker-room leader, Carr carries a chip on his shoulder as the only player on Drew’s roster that could remotely be referred to as a returner.
“I got to learn from last year’s team by being a part of it for a bit,” Carr said. “This year kind of is a reset, and having the same thing over again, where I’m just learning how to be better from what I took away from last year.”
Amid the program’s roster overhaul, Baylor enters the season as a relative unknown, receiving little recognition from national pundits. Carr views this not as discouraging, but rather as an opportunity to lead his team to prove the spectators wrong.
“We’re all carrying a bit of a chip,” Carr said. “Knowing that people are looking down on us, like, ‘Oh they’re not going to be as good as what they think,’ or doubting the people we brought in. It’s an opportunity for us to prove what we are.”
Baylor will host an open exhibition at the Foster Pavilion at 4 p.m. on Oct. 10 against Grand Canyon. The Bears will officially open their season at Foster Pavilion on Nov. 3 against UTRGV.