BearsTruth Board

This guy hits the nail on the head in trying to figure out the Bears. Interesting takes and observations:

The Baylor Bears have the most interesting dichotomy in college basketball.
On one hand, Baylor has the most impressive quartet of power forwards in the entire country. Most programs are lucky to get one or two effective big men in a decade. Baylor has four players on their roster that are taller than six-foot-seven that contribute regularly. The problem is that those “big men” play more like Thaddeus Young than Tim Duncan. Ironically, Baylor’s shortest frontcourt player, Quincy Acy, is the only one that can consistently score on the block. Perry Jones III, Quincy Miller and Anthony Jones are all longer than a cross-country ski trail but your more likely to catch them shooting a jumpshot than making a strong move at the basket.
The only thing keeping Perry Jones from being the best player in the country is the existence of Anthony Davis. Jones has all of the physical tools to become an absolutely dominant player, especially in the college ranks. And yet, in round one against South Dakota State Jones had just two points on one-of-six shooting and last night against Colorado the talented sophomore scored just seven points on eight shots. Jones having such poor games against the Jackrabbits and Buffaloes is absolutely indefensible and the only person to blame is Jones. For ever reason, much like his namesake from Kentucky, Terrence Jones, Perry just doesn’t seem to have a competitive fire. Someone with his tools should be averaging at least 25 points, 10 rebounds and five assists a game. Instead, most folks around the country know him more for his no-shows than his incredibly versatile skillset.
Hit the jump for the rest of Mark’s piece…

On the other hand, Baylor routinely plays two point guards no taller than I am (and I’m five-foot-nine and three quarters) and their starting off guard is solely a spot-up shooter on the offensive (though he is a darn good one). The only player on the roster that provides a middle ground(Pierre Jackson and A.J. Walton) between Baylor’s long power forwards and undersized point guards is Duece Bello, a crazy athletic freshman that has averaged 10 minutes per game this season. His role isn’t large, though, and he’s mostly used as a stopgap when Scott Drew tries to get his point guards rest.
Pierre Jackson is the little engine that makes this team go. Jackson is the classic undersized guard with the heart of a lion that refuses to back down from challenges on either end of the floor. Jackson’s bulldog mentality has helped him put up the best numbers in the country as the pick and roll ball-handler this season. Of guards with at least 150 possessions in the P&R Jackson ranks first in points per possession created and he’s shooting 52% from the field. Jackson is such a fun player to watch if only because he brings a constant spark to a team that has a number of lethargic players.
If Baylor’s bigs switched mindsets with their point guards in a Freaky Friday sort of way, the Bears might be the most unstoppable team in the country. The Bears are a better three-point shooting team than the Kentucky Wildcats and even though Kentucky has Davis on the backline defensively, the Bears 2-3 zone is a great fit with their long forwards and lightning quick guards. The Bears could give Kentucky a pretty good game if they end up facing off in the Elite Eight in a few days but if this Baylor team started off the season with a different balance of attitude, we’d be in for one heck of a #1 vs #1 in the National Title game.
That’s the thing that is so frustrating about this Baylor. This is already a pretty good team, one that very much their number three seed. But they could be so much better if their best player, Perry Jones III, had the same heart and desire to dominate that fellow Baylor Bear and third generation superstar Robert Griffin has. Griffin took a pretty mediocre football team and made them much better than the sum of their parts. Jones, while not a total negative, has had a bit of the opposite effect on Baylor’s basketball team. If he were a bit more outgoing and perhaps more confident, Baylor would be a powerhouse.
And yet, this is still a team with a pretty good shot at getting to the Final Four, even if Kentucky stands in their way. That’s what makes Baylor so awesome. Most teams would be sunk if their best player never established himself as the leader of the team emotionally and physically but the Bears are a well coached bunch that can win games against good teams without significant contributions from their most talented players (as we’ve seen in the first two rounds of the tournament).
Last night’s round of 32 game against Colorado was very fun to watch because it was one of the first games of the tournament in which a team run solely by running their offense. The NCAA Tournament can often times turn into a riveting marathon of hero shots, mostly threes, that are rarely taken within the offense. Baylor beat Colorado yesterday because of an incredibly intensive set of plays designed for Brady Heslip. The sophomore guard that was discarded from Boston College during a regime change has completely changed the look of this Baylor team, giving them a Ray Allen presence, so to speak, that can absolutely destroy an opponent simply by running to open spots. Baylor’s big men did their best Kevin Garnett/Kendrick Perkins impersonations last night while Pierre Jackson played the role of Rajon Rondo and the result was a brilliant shooting night for Heslip. The Ontario native finished the night with nine triples on just 12 attempts and none of them were taken off the dribble.
That kind of performance won’t happen again against a team like Kentucky that is longer and faster, but it’s a testament to Baylor’s depth of options. Despite the team’s lack of traditional positional flexibility (they really only have point guards and power forwards), this is a team with a cast players that has an extreme diverse of individual talents. Jackson’s ability to create his own shot off the dribble, Heslip’s dead-on spot-up shooting, Acy’s post-up skills and non-stop motor, PJIII’s all-around skillset, Walton’s push-the-pace mentality, Miller’s top notch scoring ability, and Anthony Jones’ swiss army knife mentality (he’ll get to the rim, hit the open three and play that wing on the zone like none other). All you can ask for in a basketball team is there, but the brilliant masterpiece this unique palette can paint is not always, if ever, put on display.
The Bears may have as many as three games left in their season and I’m hoping they max that number out. It will be disappointing if Baylor ends up falling short of the national title game but it will be even worse if they do so because Jones fails to pick up his intensity. This is a weird team to analyze and a frustrating team to root for but most of all, this is a pretty awesome group. They may not take it all the way this year but that doesn’t mean I won’t appreciate the mysterious roller coaster this team has taken us on this season.

http://dishingtherock.com/34267/baylor-is-wierd-frustrating-and-awesome/