By Jackson Posey | Sports Editor, Aiden Richmond | LTVN Sports Director
The roads were already iced over when the final buzzer sounded on Saturday night.
Baylor (11-8, 1-6 Big 12) wrapped up its sixth conference loss with an errant full-court shot as time expired. The shot tied a poetic bow on the Bears’ third home loss to rival TCU in three years, this one a 97-90 defeat which featured season-highs in turnovers and fouls committed.
LTVN’s Aiden Richmond has more on the story.
Baylor is one of only seven college basketball teams to appear in the past six NCAA Tournaments, and one of three to win a game in all six, alongside Gonzaga and Houston. That run of success is unprecedented in program history. Now, it’s in peril.
“We’ve been losing too much,” freshman wing Tounde Yessoufou said after the Bears’ loss to TCU. “None of us really like it.”
Saturday night’s loss dropped the Bears to 1-6 in Big 12 play for the first time since 2013-14. The roster was assembled from scratch after losing every player from last season, including star point guard Robert O. Wright III, who entered the portal after the Bears’ coaching staff reportedly turned down “multiple elite players” to center the offense on him.
The hits kept coming. Transfer center Juslin Bodo Bodo, expected to anchor the defense after winning back-to-back conference Defensive Player of the Year honors at High Point, suffered a season-ending arm injury. Freshman forward Maikcol Perez tore his ACL. When Baylor was omitted from the preseason AP Top 25 Poll for the first time since 2019, it didn’t come as a shock.
Early wins offered glimmers of hope, but gold flakes kept washing out of the pan. Combo guard JJ White hasn’t played since before Thanksgiving with a foot injury. Midseason transfer James Nnaji “hasn’t been right” physically since arriving in Waco and didn’t play in Saturday’s loss, while multiple walk-ons saw action in crunch time. Head coach Scott Drew said Nnaji was in “recovery mode.”
“Winning is [an] amazing feeling,” Yessoufou said. “I don’t believe any of us really enjoys these types of feelings [after losing], and we want to get that taste out of our mouth.”
The Bears have been outscored by 13.7 points per game in their six conference losses. They have dropped to No. 51 on KenPom and rank 134th nationally in adjusted defensive efficiency.
Perhaps most notably, Baylor is the worst team in the country in playing up to competition, per EvanMiya data, part of a long-term trend. The Bears were the seventh-worst team in opponent-adjusted performance in 2025 and fourth-worst in 2024.
“At the end of the day, offensively, I think we have some limitations,” Drew said after the Bears’ loss to Texas Tech on Jan. 20. “Defensively, we have to be really good, and we’ve got to get that together.”
Yessoufou believes the Bears are finally gelling around a shared mindset. For a team with no returning players and plenty of injury baggage, the delay may not be surprising. But it might also be too late.
“To be honest, this is the first time in a long time we all have the same mindset, in a way where we all want to fight,” Yessoufou said. “I feel like we’re just headed in the right direction. I’m super excited, honestly. I’m super excited for what’s coming.”
The Bears will have a chance to get back in the win column Wednesday night at Cincinnati (10-10, 2-5 Big 12). Tipoff is set for 5:30 p.m. on FS1.
