The Curse of Rick Barnes

There's no way to talk around it. Rick Barnes has absolutely owned the Baylor Bears since he landed in Austin. How have we not beat this guy? Lord knows we've had chances. Even a couple of Drew's worst teams have caught Barnes' teams on a bad night or looking past to the next game. Every time, the Horns come through.

Sometimes its been purely talent. Having Kevin Durant take over a game in the conference tournament is one thing, getting tactically undressed is quite another. In the game in Waco, Texas' second half game plan absolutely destroyed us. They got Abrams going with designed plays for him. Baylor's version of designed plays for someone involves inbounding the ball to that player after a made opponent basket and letting him heave it on the other end.

Drew has to beat Texas. Plain and simple. Coach has gotten a ton of slack for racking up wins against teams below us in the standings the past couple of seasons. Even as bad as Texas has been this season, it's still big. It shows Baylor fandom that there is hope for this team and staff. It's always a big deal when Texas goes down. Goal posts have come down celebrating a win over a very bad Mack II team in football. I'd rush the court purely for breaking this awful streak we have going against them.

Just an aside, how has Barnes cornered the market in Texas for 7 foot white kids that can shoot from the outside? Boddicker, Buckman, Atchley (I think I'm missing one other). How has he cultivated this pipeline?

Back to the game tonight. This is our last game on a semi-national scale until the conference tournament. Even with Texas down, it would be a big win. It would give some confidence heading into Saturday/Conference tourney and it might knock the horns into the NIT. That would take the edge off of what had been a really disappointing season for us.

Complete analysis tomorrow
Murph