We all remember the preseason hype that came with Baylor. They reached the top ten in every poll as other teams began losing. Then reality hit in the form of a desperate Gonzaga team. It's hard to say if Baylor has actually recovered, or they just went back to easy teams. My thoughts are it's a little bit of both. A.J. Walton is the question mark for this squad, but he's been steadily improving with respect to the little things throughout the year. There's no question LaceDarius Dunn can score, and Perry Jones III might be the most raw talented player in college basketball. But Scott Drew needs to find a way to make his talent mesh. The road win against Texas Tech wasn't a huge victory, but conference road wins are hard to come by no matter which team (just ask Michigan State).
Baylor really needs to win and win big to help gain confidence before their next four games: at Iowa State, against Kansas, against, Oklahoma State and at Kansas State. That's a brutal schedule, especially for a team that hasn't shown they can beat good teams.
On the other side of the floor, Oklahoma has been having the season everyone thought they would. That is to say, they're bad. Lost-to-Division-II, haven't-beat-major-conference-opponent bad. Waco probably isn't where their season will turn around, but the Bears have looked vulnerable. Cade Davis and Andrew Fitzgerald have been very good offensively for coach Capel this year. Now if he can just find a way to get Davis more involved and Fitzgerald more aggressive on the boards, they could become more of a lower-half-of-the-conference bad. It's still nothing to cheer about considering where they were a couple of years ago, but it'd be a huge improvement.
The game is at 8:00 PM and can be watched on ESPN3.
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