By Dylan Fink | Sports Writer
Monday at 11 a.m., every college basketball fanatic in the country frantically began to search for the release of this year’s preseason AP Top 25 Poll.
The hunger to know who the best sports writers in the country believe to be the top 25 teams at the start of the greatest season of the year has finally been satiated.
The Big 12, coming off a down year for the formerly dominant basketball conference, shared the lead with six teams in the rankings. Houston led the way at No. 2, followed by No. 8 BYU, No. 10 Texas Tech, No. 13 Arizona, No. 16 Iowa State and No. 19 Kansas.
For the first time since the 2018-19 season, Baylor did not make the cut.
While Baylor fans may be disappointed with the lack of preseason attention (outside of one faithful voter who put the Bears in their personal top 25), the lack of media attention for head coach Scott Drew’s team this season is a positive.
The Bears saw complete roster turnover at the end of last season, leading Drew and his staff to forge a completely new team out of the fires of the transfer portal and incoming freshmen.
While a total roster change in years past would be a great concern for the well-being of a program, Baylor’s recent cleanse provides an eccentric opportunity to start from scratch.
“It’s been a chance for us to reset some terminology,” Drew said. “A lot of times you try to carry over what you’ve been doing, but now we get to find something that fits for this team.”
The Bears are coming into the season with a fresh-start mentality, and being left out of the ranking just adds to this opportunity.
The Bears began their past four seasons ranked No. 8 (2021), No. 5 (2022), No. 20 (2023), and No. 8 again (2024). While each experienced their own highs and lows, each ended the same way — with a second-round exit in the NCAA tournament.
It is too early to tell whether this season will end any differently, but a change in the beginning may be just what Drew’s team needs to get this season going.
Experience is far from lacking among the newest squad to don the green and gold. As the start of the season looms closer, chemistry is far from lacking as well. Drew seems to have learned from the lessons of past seasons and done everything in his power to create the most well-formed team he can.
A successful summer spent competing in the FISU World University Games, followed by a 79-73 victorious open scrimmage against Grand Canyon and another publicized exhibition on the road against Indiana scheduled for later this month, all serve as positive attempts to build the experience needed to be a winning college basketball program.
The Bears came into last season with some of the highest expectations in the country. The preseason No. 8 team faced one of the most difficult non-conference gauntlets in Baylor history.
While the thought of a jam-packed non-conference schedule provided the opportunity to gain tournament experience, the Bears repeatedly found themselves blown out and morally defeated by teams they really stood no chance against.
Drew is taking a different approach this season.
A more traditional non-conference schedule sees such challenges as Creighton and No. 11 St. John’s over Thanksgiving week as part of the Players Era tournament. The majority of the Bears’ non-conference schedule, though, is made up of home games against mid-major opponents.
This off-the-radar start to the season for the Bears should allow fans to get excited about what Drew’s newest team can hone and perfect before Big 12 conference play begins in January.
While a lack of a preseason ranking may be found disappointing by some, it is worth remembering that other college basketball lists of the best teams in the nation do exist. The analytically-driven KenPom, for example, has the Bears at No. 17 in the nation, with the 15th best offense and the 19th best defense — the highest the defense has been rated in KenPom’s metrics since 2022.
The Bears will close their preseason slate with an exhibition against Indiana at noon Oct. 26. The game will be streamed on B1G+.
