By Jackson Posey | Sports Editor
“The object of a New Year is not that we should have a new year. It is that we should have a new soul and a new nose; new feet, a new backbone, new ears and new eyes,” the late essayist G.K. Chesterton wrote. “Unless a man starts afresh about things, he will certainly do nothing effective.”
Baylor men’s basketball (1-0) is starting afresh after turning over the entire roster this offseason. This weekend, the Bears will send their fresh faces to the wolves — well, the Huskies. Their first nationally televised game of the season will be a bout with Washington (1-0) Sunday at Foster Pavilion.
“You can tell when you get to a point where you’re getting tired of practicing against each other,” head coach Scott Drew said last week.
Drew’s Bears knocked off UTRGV (0-1) in the season opener Monday, 96-81, led by redshirt sophomore Cameron Carr (28 points, 5 rebounds, 3 blocks, 2 steals) and freshman Tounde Yessoufou (24 points, 7 rebounds). The Bears were without junior center Juslin Bodo Bodo, who remains out with an injury and does not have a timetable to return.
Carr, a Tennessee transfer who joined Baylor’s practice squad midway through last season, brings length and multi-position athleticism to a team that has shown a willingness to run in transition. He shuttered Monday’s game with a highlight poster dunk.
Yessoufou, a five-star recruit and projected lottery pick, has drawn rave reviews for his blend of strength and agility. He runs a hot motor defensively and showed burgeoning offensive upside against UTRGV.
“He will have ups, he’ll have downs — just like every player, but freshmen tend to have a little bigger swings,” Drew said. “The great thing is, there are certain things Tounde provides with his size, athleticism, that should be constant, and his physicality, his rebounding, his defense should travel.”
With Bodo Bodo in street clothes on the bench, Baylor trotted out a center-less lineup in the opener: Obi Agbim (6-foot-3), Carr (6-foot-5), Yessoufou (6-foot-5), Dan Skillings Jr. (6-foot-6) and Michael Rataj (6-foot-8). All five players are listed as guards.
Rataj, a senior, transferred in from Oregon State after being named First Team All-West Coast Conference last season. He’s expected to play up and down the lineup, serving as a switchable guard/forward hybrid alongside Carr and Skillings, a senior wing who brings 100 games of Big 12 experience from Cincinnati.
Agbim, a fifth-year Wyoming transfer, is a classic microwave scoring guard. He averaged 17.6 points per game last season for a Cowboys team with no true second option. He led the Mountain West in 3-point percentage (43.7%) on 6.3 attempts per game, many with a high degree of difficulty.
Waco native Caden Powell, a senior center from Rice, should get an increased workload with Bodo Bodo out. He led the Owls in scoring during conference play and is Drew’s first scholarship Wacoan.
Sophomore Isaac Williams IV (Texas A&M-Corpus Christi) is a tough, multi-tool athlete who helped lead the Islanders to 20 wins last season. Fifth-year guard JJ White rounds out the guard rotation; he led the Summit League in assists per game (4.0) and shot 44.2% from three for Omaha in 2024-25.
More than a decade after Omaha made the transition to Division I, White helped guide the Mavericks to their first NCAA Tournament berth in program history. He said he sees parallels between that team and this year’s Bears.
“It feels like a little bit of déjà vu,” White said. “Last year, my team was picked second-to-last in our league, so we kind of had that same something-to-prove mindset.”
Baylor will open high-major play against Washington (1-0) Sunday at the Foster Pavilion. The game will be broadcast on ESPN.
