Huggins: No. 1 Baylor is best man-to-man defensive team he’s seen this season

MORGANTOWN, W. Va. — Like the rest of us, Bob Huggins is on the outside looking in at the No. 1-ranked Baylor men’s basketball team.

Unlike the rest of us, Huggins is charged with trying to figure out a way to beat the Bears, when No. 14 West Virginia visits Waco, Texas at 4 p.m. Saturday.

If the country has been caught off guard with the Bears’ dominance this season, it is simply because Baylor (22-1, 11-0 Big 12) has gone off script in its journey to the top.

It began the season by suspending one of its top returning players in forward Mario Kegler, who then withdrew from school and decided to turn pro.

Baylor was hoping the return of 6-foot-10 forward Tristan Clark, who missed the second half of last season with a knee injury, would be a nice bonus.

WVU vs. No. 1

Dec. 21, 1957: No. 8 WVU 75, No. 1 North Carolina 64
Feb. 7, 1966: WVU 94, No. 1 Duke 90
Dec. 21, 1968: No. 1 UCLA 95, WVU 56
Feb. 27, 1983: WVU 87, No. 1 UNLV 78
Feb. 23, 1988: No. 1 Temple 62, WVU 61
Feb. 28, 1988: No. 1 Temple 78, WVU 69
Jan. 27, 1995: No. 1 Massachusetts 97, WVU 94, OT
Jan. 9, 1999: No. 1 Connecticut 80, WVU 45
Feb. 18, 2006: No. 1 Connecticut 81, No. 11 WVU 75
March 26, 2015: No. 1 Kentucky 78, No. 18 WVU 39
Jan. 12, 2016: No. 11 WVU 74, No. 1 Kansas 63
March 12, 2016: No. 1 Kansas 81, No. 9 WVU 71
Jan. 10, 2017: No. 10 WVU 89, No. 1 Baylor 68
Jan. 26, 2019: No. 1 Tennessee 83, WVU 66

But, Clark, who was a all-Big 12 preseason first-teamer, hasn’t responded from his recovery from knee surgery as well as the Bears would have liked and he’s been limited to 18 games played and 13 minutes per game.

Beyond that, the Bears’ second and third leading scorers, Macio Teague and Davion Mitchell are transfers from UNC Asheville and Auburn, who sat out last season.

Freddie Gillespie, the Bears’ leading rebounder, began his college career at a Division III school in Minnesota and began his career at Baylor as a walk-on.

For those looking for a No. 1-ranked team filled with blue-chip recruits and cruising through the season facing little adversity, Baylor isn’t it.

So, just how are the Bears one win shy of matching the 1996-97 Kansas team for the longest win streak in the Big 12’s history at 22 games?

“That’s hard for me to answer, because I’m not on the inside,” Huggins said. “From the outside, sometimes less is more. I think that’s happened to all of us at some point and time in our careers where you lose a couple of guys and you think, “Oh my goodness,’ and then you have a couple of other guys step up.

“There’s that will to prove that they can be what they think they are, I guess. You see it happen. You see people lose star players, and all of a sudden, the whole becomes better.”

No. 14 West Virginia (18-6, 6-5) will take on a No. 1-ranked team for the 15th time in school history today.

Unlike many of those previous top-ranked opponents, the Mountaineers will likely not be facing a future NBA overall No. 1 pick like Lew Alcindor (UCLA), or Karl-Anthony Towns (Kentucky), a future NBA Defensive Player of the Year like Marcus Camby (UMass) or even a future three-time NBA All-Star like Richard Hamilton (UConn).

What the Mountaineers will see is maybe the best team in the country with the best chemistry.

“They share the ball,” Huggins said. “I can’t speak to their chemistry other than the fact that they play together and I’ve said a lot lately that defensively they do a really good job. They are far and away the best man-to-man defensive team we’ve seen all year.”

Even that has been a change for Baylor and head coach Scott Drew this season.
Known in the past as a zone defensive coach, Drew has switched philosophies this season.

The result? Baylor leads the Big 12 in fewest points allowed at 58.3 points per game, while only two teams all season have scored at least 70 against the Bears.

“I think they’ve gradually gone to more man-to-man over the years, but Scott was primarily known more for the 1-1-3 and a 2-3 zone,” Huggins said. “I think here of late, he’s gone more man-to-man, because he’s a good coach. Good coaches try to accentuate the positive and he’s got a team that is very good man-to-man. He’s got a guy in (Mark) Vital who can guard anybody. He can guard a 7-footer and he can guard a 5-foot-6 guy. So they are able to switch more things, because he can guard anybody. Their whole team can switch and guard and that makes it easier for them.”

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