Baylor Postgame Thoughts

I've spent all day today reflecting on the win last night and what it means. A few thoughts:

• I don't know if it is a carryover from the 5 OT loss to them last season, and then the ugly way our blowout win ended over them in Waco, with their fans throwing basketballs onto the court, but this basketball series has taken a turn for the nasty. The first few minutes of the game last night were some of the most physical play I've seen out of our team in quite a while. We normally don't see that type of physical play and ball-to-the-wall aggressiveness unless we're playing texas, or some other team we have a reason to hate.
• If Mark Turgeon's questioning his manhood is what has made Junior Elonu a better player lately, he needs to keep doing it. Elonu was dominating inside early, and ended the game with 17 points, 16 rebounds, and 2 blocks. More importantly, he established the paint as his domain.
• Bryan Davis had 17 points, 5 rebounds, and 2 blocks himself, in addition to getting under the skin of seemingly every Baylor fan on the planet. Apparently, the residents of Waco don't believe it is a foul unless a trip to the Emergency Room is required. The elbow Davis took to the throat? That's a love tap.
• I could actually see what we were trying to do on defense last night. For the most part, our rotation and switching in our zone was executed well.
• This win over #21 Baylor is our first win over a ranked team since we beat #10 texas on January 30, 2008.
• Baylor hasn't changed much from what they were last season: they have good guard play and they can really hurt you from the three-point line if you let them, but you can beat them if you have a halfway decent inside game.
• Despite the whining from Baylor fans about officiating (Baylor never loses to A&M, it is always the refs giving us the win *sigh*), I did think the refs were fairly loose with the calls on the Bears last night. They were hacking and slapping our big every time we were in the paint on offense and the refs let'em play. Meanwhile, if we breathed on one of their guards on the perimeter, we were whistled for the foul.

 More after the jump.....

• Scott Drew apparently doesn't pay much attention during games, or doesn't want to admit what he sees to the media.

"I'll have to go back and look at film and see what happened. Normally we do a better job causing turnovers and scoring off of them," Baylor coach Scott Drew said.

 I'll tell you what happened, Coach. You have no interior defense, and our bigs roamed free inside the paint. You couldn't match-up with our height and depth in the post, and we took advantage of it. There is no mystery here, and no need to watch it again on film to figure it out.

• Dash Harris contributed 2 points, 2 assists, and 1 rebound in 15 minutes. Harris' influence was felt on the defensive end, though, as he helped shut down Baylor's guards early. I'm just happy he continues to improve as the season goes on.
• Weirdest line of the game has to be Nathan Walkup only getting two minutes of playing time, no points, no rebounds, and no assists.

This was a great win for A&M, and our first big conference win of the year. Of course, it is also our only conference win of the year so far.