What the heck's wrong with Baylor?

The Baylor Bears mens basketball program was picked by many in the preseason to be a top five team with Perry Jones III generally acknowledged as the best NBA prospect among collegiate big men. The cover boy on the New York Times Sunday Magazine, Jones was a preseason pick for player-of-the-year in the Big 12 and a consensus first team All-American.

Now, 24 games into their season, the Bears have only lost three games and, as of this week, were a top ten ranked team. Yet, it's the way they've lost their three games, including last night's second loss to Kansas, which makes me wonder what the heck is wrong in Waco?

Last night, Jeff Withey played, in Baylor head coach Scott Drew's words, like an "All American" with his 25 point career best outing. KU's offense played through Withey once Thomas Robinson went to the Jayhawk bench with foul trouble and the Arizona transfer responded with a personal best 17 points by halftime.

The other Baylor loss, beyond the two to Kansas, came against Missouri and in that game Ricardo Ratliffe torched the Bears for 27 points on 11 of 14 shooting.

The sobering fact for Bear fans is that Ratliffe and Withey have gone into Waco and, combined, scored 52 points while Baylor star Jones III had a whopping 13 in those two games.

Jones III has been knocked for playing soft and being too passive. But, the real culprit here is Drew. The Baylor coach insists on sticking with his zone defense even though, last night, KU shredded it during a 37-7 run. When the Jayhawks went on that tear, they were scoring 1.6 points per possession compared to their normal 1.1 points per possession.

Baylor has length and athleticism and observers of the team have publicly questioned why Drew insists on the zone. Or, they wonder why he plays a 2-3 variety versus a zone approach which uses the length of guys like Jones III, Quincy Acy and Quincy Miller, plus guys like Anthony Jones and Cory Jefferson off of the bench.

It'll be a minor miracle if Baylor somehow finds a way to yet win the conference regular season title--it now appears to be a true two-horse race between Kansas and Missouri. But, Baylor still has an opportunity, in the postseason conference tournament and NCAA tourney, to tap their potential and deep bench in order to win the Big 12 and make a run into the later rounds of the Big Dance. The question now may become the guys sitting on the bench who aren't in uniform--even Baylor PG Pierre Jackson acknowledged Kansas' coaching staff by saying "they made adjustments" and the Bears' staff did not. How Baylor responds to last night's loss, in a game on the road at Missouri on Saturday, will be very telling.