Baylor Basketball: Beachin’ Bears III
Part 3: Baylor men win the Battle 4 Atlantis Championship 75-58 over Michigan State; the Baylor women defeated Arizona State in Cancun 62-52
It is deja vu for Baylor head coach Scott Drew.
Celebrating a championship in the Bahamas after three consecutive, ultra-physical and demanding games over Thanksgiving week. Even the opponents were similar.
In 2016, Baylor also defeated VCU and Michigan State en route to winning Atlantis over Louisville. Five years later, Baylor defeated the Rams and Spartans once again to claim a title.
Baylor Men
It was a tremendous, fun, and March-like battle between the Bears and the Spartans, especially in the first 20 minutes as the teams traded blows. Baylor went up six early, but Michigan State led 36-31 with about 2:27 before halftime.
Then Baylor found one last gear. The Bears proceeded to rip off a 32-10 from that point to about 10 minutes remaining to take control. Leading that charge was point guard James Akinjo, who had a complete 180-degree turnaround from his game against VCU.
Akinjo—the MVP of the tournament—had two assists and seven turnovers against the Rams, but had 15 points, five assists, and only three turnovers (Baylor had 10 today compared to 18 vs VCU). He basically improved five points on his assist-to-turnover ratio, going from negative three-to-one to a positive near two-to-one.
At the peak of that run by Baylor was Akinjo picking off a pass on a full court press and nailing a three to cap a 24-6 Baylor run. Then, Akinjo provided the exclamation point by spinning between two defenders to get into the paint and throwing an alley-oop lob to a slashing Jeremy Sochan. Here is what he said about that play:
“Throughout the whole game, I’d been kind of getting them with my reject, not using the ball screen, so when I rejected [the screen] he was kinda on top of [me]. So I mean its just instinctual, working on your game everyday, so I just countered [the defense]. I [saw] Jeremy cutting backdoor, so I tried to put it where I know he could get it. But I almost thought it was a little too high, but he ended up catching it. Amazing play by Jeremy.”
Baylor showed off their balanced squad once more as seven guys scored eight or more points: Kendall Brown (12 points); Adam Flagler (11); Jonathan Tchamwa Tchatchoua (10); and Matthew Mayer, LJ Cryer and Sochan all had eight. The Bears also out-rebounded the Spartans 21-13 in the second half.
Baylor won by overcoming unique styles of play. Arizona State was shooting lights out; VCU pressed them and forced 13 first half turnovers; and Michigan State had a tenacious and physical post presence with seven footer Marcus Bingham Jr (7 points), six-foot-nine Julius Marble II (5 points), and six-foot-eight Gabe Brown (team high 13 points).
I asked Baylor’s Adam Flagler if overcoming adversity against a myriad of styles with little turnaround time will help them as the season progresses.
“It’s so beneficial. I mean we want to make a long run in March Madness and this is a resemblance of how it’s going to be like. As a team we came out strong every game, obviously there are some really good teams so there’s some ups and downs, but as long as we stayed together and put God first we knew we could get the job done.”
Winning a championship is never easy. Baylor, under coach Drew, has made it look routine. They have now won four of their past five regular season tournament titles: Atlantis in 2016 and ‘21 (joining Villanova as the only two-time winner of the event); the 2017 Hall of Fame Classic; and the 2019 Myrtle Beach Invitational.
And of course, the Bears won last year’s national championship. They are now attempting to be the first team to repeat since Florida did it in 2006-07. Eleven of the past 12 national champions have won a regular season tournament.
Baylor Women
Baylor was once again paced by All-American NaLyssa Smith who had 17 points on 50 percent shooting and 12 rebounds in the Bears’ victory over Arizona State. Baylor stifled the Sun Devils and held them to 11 points or fewer in the first three quarters.
Jordan Lewis had another nice performance with 15 points and Queen Egbo responded well with 11 points after an 0-for-9 shooting performance (though she still shot 4-for-14 from the field). Baylor will play Houston tomorrow for their final game.