Daily Bears Report 12/19

Baylor Athletics: Winter Graduation 2016

A total of 31 Baylor University student-athletes walked across the stage to receive their degrees at commencement Saturday inside the Ferrell Center. From Baylor Bears dot com.

Thirty earned bachelor's degrees and one earned a master's degree. Since Baylor joined the Big 12 Conference in 1996, 1,655 have earned bachelor's degrees and 84 have earned master's degrees.

Just Ready for Miami

Basketball

“Hoops Hype” Posted on YouTube by Kendall Kaut

Baylor 82 - Jackson State 57

Highlights - Post Game

Baylor considers it a privilege to play for the soldiers at Fort Hood and wanted to show them what the No. 4 team in the country looks like. The 2,500 fans at Abrams Gym had to wait until the second half, but they eventually got to see the real stuff. WacoTrib’s John Werner has more on this story.

Al Freeman scored a season-high 19 points and made a career-best five 3-pointers and No. 4 Baylor returned to Fort Hood with an 82-57 victory over Jackson State on Saturday night. From Baylor Bears dot com:

It was the second straight year that the Bears played on the nation's largest Army post, about an hour's drive south of their Waco campus. Baylor is 10-0 for the first time since starting 17-0 in 2011-12.

There was a near-capacity crowd that included soldiers and their families in Abrams Gym, which has a large American flag on the wall behind the benches opposite the only permanent set of stands.

Grid View

• Ray Carlin-USA TODAY Sports
• Ray Carlin-USA TODAY Sports
• Ray Carlin-USA TODAY Sports
• Ray Carlin-USA TODAY Sports
• Ray Carlin-USA TODAY Sports
• Ray Carlin-USA TODAY Sports
• Ray Carlin-USA TODAY Sports
• Ray Carlin-USA TODAY Sports
• Ray Carlin-USA TODAY Sports
• Ray Carlin-USA TODAY Sports
• Ray Carlin-USA TODAY Sports
• Ray Carlin-USA TODAY Sports
• Ray Carlin-USA TODAY Sports
• Ray Carlin-USA TODAY Sports
• Ray Carlin-USA TODAY Sports
• Ray Carlin-USA TODAY Sports
• Ray Carlin-USA TODAY Sports
• Ray Carlin-USA TODAY Sports
• Ray Carlin-USA TODAY Sports
• Ray Carlin-USA TODAY Sports
• Ray Carlin-USA TODAY Sports
• Ray Carlin-USA TODAY Sports
• Ray Carlin-USA TODAY Sports
• Ray Carlin-USA TODAY Sports
• Ray Carlin-USA TODAY Sports

Baylor 107 - John Brown 53

Highlights - Postgame

If there was ever a game for No. 4 Baylor's depth to show, it was Sunday against an overmatched NAIA school in John Brown. From the Miami Herald.

All 11 Bears who played scored at least one basket, and Johnathan Motley had 20 points and nine rebounds in a 107-53 victory.

"John Brown is a different level, but I think most of the older people remember Virginia-Chaminade," Baylor coach Scott Drew said. "Each and every year you have non-Division I teams that get upsets. The first year we were in the NCAA tournament, we were upset in an exhibition by Tarleton State. That stuff happens. You have to be on point every game."

"We were just thankful for the opportunity today," John Brown coach Jason Beschta said. "You don't come in resigned that you're going to get smashed. You come in and we want to compete and get better in a game like this. But it is exciting for a small school to be able to come into this kind of environment."

Playing its third game five days, the fourth-ranked Baylor Bears took care of business in a 107-53 rout of John Brown University Sunday afternoon at the Ferrell Center. Baylor Bear Foundation’s Jerry Hill has the complete story at Baylor Bears dot com.

An NAIA school from Siloam, Ark., John Brown (9-4) had no answer for Baylor's inside trio of Johnathan Motley, Jo Lual-Acuil and Terry Maston, who combined for 41 points and 26 rebounds and made 17-of-26 from the floor.

"We looked at them as another team that we have to come out against and do what we do," said Motley, who finished a rebound shy of a double-double with 20 points, nine rebounds and a career-high five assists. "The best part of the season is playing games, so we try to have as much fun as possible."

It was a quick turnaround for the Bears (11-0), who defeated Jackson State, 82-57, Saturday night at Fort Hood and stayed long after the game to sign autographs.

"Our guys did a great job signing autographs for a long time after the game," Baylor coach Scott Drew said. "A couple of them were cramping from sitting for so long, but they really did a great job embracing the opportunity to say thank you to the kids and the soldiers' families at Fort Hood. Getting back, having the cold front come in, and being able to get up today and be effective was good."

Grid View

• Ray Carlin-USA TODAY Sports
• Ray Carlin-USA TODAY Sports
• Ray Carlin-USA TODAY Sports
• Ray Carlin-USA TODAY Sports
• Ray Carlin-USA TODAY Sports
• Ray Carlin-USA TODAY Sports
• Ray Carlin-USA TODAY Sports
• Ray Carlin-USA TODAY Sports
• Ray Carlin-USA TODAY Sports
• Ray Carlin-USA TODAY Sports
• Ray Carlin-USA TODAY Sports
• Ray Carlin-USA TODAY Sports
• Ray Carlin-USA TODAY Sports
• Ray Carlin-USA TODAY Sports
• Ray Carlin-USA TODAY Sports
• Ray Carlin-USA TODAY Sports
• Ray Carlin-USA TODAY Sports
• Ray Carlin-USA TODAY Sports
• Ray Carlin-USA TODAY Sports
• Ray Carlin-USA TODAY Sports
• Ray Carlin-USA TODAY Sports
• Ray Carlin-USA TODAY Sports
• Ray Carlin-USA TODAY Sports

Two Tweets

Do Baylor Regents think a Baylor education left many alumni incapable of basic reasoning?

(Famous OBF Quote: “I often wonder.”)

Because I desperately want to believe it, I’ve been telling myself that the Baylor University Board of Regents loves Baylor. Story by Nell Hawkins, guest columnist of the WacoTrib.

Probably they do. But their estimation of a Baylor education borders on contempt because they clearly think a Baylor education left many alumni incapable of basic reasoning.

Last year, the regents hired a law firm to investigate the university’s handling of cases of alleged sexual violence and hailed the firm as an independent investigator. This Philadelphia law firm charged Baylor an estimated $5 million for several months’ work. Regents claimed these lawyers would review Baylor’s institutional response to Title IX compliance issues. Since regents are at the top of the institutional leadership chain, this investigation would ostensibly include a review of what role regents played in this tragedy.

So when the law firm’s fact-gathering was complete, what did regents do? They instructed the firm, which reports solely to regents and has duties of loyalty and confidentiality only to it, not to issue a written report. Instead regents literally wrote the law firm’s conclusions for them. You almost can’t make this up.

Naturally, those conclusions written up by regents don’t mention any regent culpability. They contain no facts. Not a single fact. Others were blamed and fired for colossal institutional failures. Careers and good names were ruined.

And when educated, rational Baylor alumni ask for the facts that underlie this so-called independent investigation, they’re told no. When a chorus of alumni asks for an investigation not controlled by the subjects of the investigation, regents say no. They even conduct their own inquiry of their own prior investigation. They go into a room alone, review a report that supposedly does not exist, come out and declare with no facts that the investigation was true to the task assigned. A “united” board of regents even declares in a press release that alumni concerns about this are unreasonable and have no basis in fact. And of course regents tell us again that they’re not to blame for any aspect of this 100-year flood of a crisis. They tell the Baylor family — alumni, faculty and students — that we just need to trust them.