Baylor Top Ten Due To Other Failures
Is Baylor a top ten team? Perhaps based solely on talent, but not right now. The Bears are too erratic, capable of competing with the best of the best, or faltering, playing down to the level of their competition. But Baylor finds itself in the national top ten in the rankings or right around there, but I could list 15-17 teams playing better basketball right now. Unfortunately, with the losses of Ohio State, Georgetown and Michigan, Baylor has leapfrogged them all to rise in the rankings despite more mediocre play.
Perry Jones III, the conference's pre-season Player of the Year and a potential lottery pick in the 2012 NBA Draft continues his on-again, off-again play despite his sheer talent that says the sophomore should be dominating his competition. At 6'11" with impressive length and tremendous athleticism, Jones is averaging 8 points on 29.7 percent shooting from the field and just five rebounds per game in Baylor's last six games, where the team has posted a 3-3 record.
JuCo point guard Pierre Jackson, arguably the team's second-best player, has been streaky, scoring 7.3 points on 31.2 percent shooting and nearly four turnovers per game in a recent stretch, before turning it on the last two games, scoring 21.5 points on a much-improved 45.8 field-goal percentage, yet still turned the ball over 4.5 times per.
Freshman forward Quincy Miller, a 6'9" super-athlete, cannot decide if he is a perimeter-player or a post-player and the Bears are lost in-between his identities. He has 49 points in two games against Missouri this season, including 20 earlier this month, but manages to put up zeroes across the board last week against a much-less-talented Texas team?
Can this Baylor team put it all together for the tournament? I feel like we've been asking that question all season long and the answer is even less-likely than before. Yes, they have answered questions from critics if they can win on the road, but they have not proven the ability to beat top-flight competition, posting 0-4 records against Kansas and Missouri, splitting with Kansas State and posting a narrow victory over a Mississippi State team that may no longer make the tournament.
By President Corey Ruff - 2 - 27 - 12
