Drew builds joyous culture
Baylor’s first 18 days in the NCAA Tournament bubble in Indianapolis mirrored coach Scott Drew’s first 18 years in Waco.
“Scott has done such a great job of allowing staff and our young men to enjoy the moment,” Baylor athletic director Mack Rhoades said Thursday. “He’s done an exceptional job of balancing the time to have fun and the time to lock in and focus. It hasn’t been just a grind every moment and every day for the players. There’s been time for joy.
“That’s part of the culture that Scott has built at Baylor: There’s going to be joy within the program.”
The joy has arrived in waves for the Bears and their fans this season, with Baylor (26-2), a No. 1 seed, preparing to take on Houston (27-3), a No. 2 seed, at 4:14 p.m. Saturday in the Final Four.
Eighteen years ago, in the aftermath of a murder and scandal that shook college basketball, the joy Baylor is experiencing as a Final Four participant for the first time since 1950 seemed unimaginable. Then the unflappable Drew, 32 at the time, strolled into the Ferrell Center.
“I prayed about it. I felt led to come here,” Drew recalled. “I really believed in the vision of the school, from the president and the administrators during that time, and what they wanted Baylor to … become. I wanted to be a part of
that.”
He did give the situation further review. Following a lone and quite successful 20-11 season at Valparaiso in his home state of Indiana in 2002-03, Drew scanned the Baylor roster he inherited from the deposed and denigrated Dave Bliss.
“Once you found out that most of your team were walk-ons and most of them weren’t over 6foot-2, then you realized it might be tougher than you originally thought,” Drew said with a slight smile. “But the goal was always to build a program that could consistently compete and have an opportunity to play in March.”
In June 2003, two months before an unnerved Baylor turned to Drew for an unprecedented rebuild, Bears forward Patrick Dennehy was shot in the head by teammate Carlton Dotson in a field about four miles from campus, following what Dotson later described as an argument between the two. It was one of the few documented instances of one teammate killing another in any sport.
Dotson is currently serving a 35-year prison sentence. Bliss was forced to resign for myriad misdeeds relating to the murder, including urging players to claim Dennehy was a drug dealer as the coach tried to cover up that he had helped pay for his tuition.
Drew, son of revered former Valparaiso coach Homer Drew and brother to former Rocket Bryce Drew, now head coach at Grand Canyon, arrived to a staggered program hit by NCAA probation
and a big-time cut in scholarships.
“You think about where this program was when he took it over,” said Rhoades, who arrived at Baylor from the same AD role at Missouri in 2016. “The scandal has been well-documented, and it’s got to be one of the most — if not the most — prolific rebuilds in all of college sports. Not just basketball, but in all of college sports.”
Baylor did not play a nonconference game — which programs use to tune up for league action — in 2005-06 under NCAA penalty and went 4-13, all against Big 12 foes. Two years later, the Bears finished 21-11 and lost in the first round of the NCAA Tournament to Purdue — a big-picture victory for an imminently patient Drew.
“This team has accomplished a tremendous amount this year,” Drew said following the loss in the 2008 opening round. “It’s something they can be proud of the rest of their lives.”
Since that time Drew, 50, has directed Baylor to unparalleled success. The Bears made the Elite Eights in 2010, 2012 and this year and are in their first Final Four in 71 years. With two more victories, Baylor will own its first national title in men’s basketball. How has the former Butler University student manager done it? It starts with an upbeat approach to tackling any issue, large or small.
“He’s genuine and enthusiastic. Scott never has a bad day,” Rhoades said. “If he ever does have a bad day, he is elite at covering it up, because you never see it. He’s one of the most selfless people, not just selfless coaches, that I know. All the success he’s had — and he’s always thinking about others before he thinks about himself.
“He takes great joy in others’ success rather than his own. He’s just a good dude.”
Jay Wright, who’s led Villanova to two national titles and lost to Baylor in the Sweet 16 this season, simply dubbed Drew a “great coach.” CBS analyst Seth Davis said Drew has engineered “one of the greatest building jobs I’ve ever seen in sports.”
Drew’s relentless recruiting, including a willingness to add talented transfers, has led to Baylor’s perhaps possessing the top trio of guards in basketball this season.
“I’m really happy for coach Drew. He’s been here 18 years,” said one of those guards, MaCio Teague. “He has the biggest comeback story — to come back from nothing. People need to talk about that. He’s spent a lot of time, dedication, hard work, blood, sweat and tears building this program.”
Leading to this weekend’s Final Four, one national writer dubbed Drew a “little bit of a corny guy at times” in a question to Teague, prompting a grin from the guard and then a defense of his coach who seems straight out of Mayberry, the mythical town of the old Andy Griffith Show.
“He connects with us because he cares about us,” Teague said of the married father of three. “When I first got here, honestly, I was unsure of the guy. When you get recruited, coaches kind of switch (approaches) when you get to a school. They show you all the good stuff (in recruiting), and then when you get to school, they’re not really catering to you as much.
“As time went on, I understood that coach Drew truly cares about his players. … He tries to get to know his players and tries to keep that connection. … He builds trust, and not just for basketball.”
Teague recounted witnessing Drew send a player from more than a decade ago, Matt Sayman, a care package to let the former Bear who was part of the early rebuild know he was remembered by his appreciative coach.
“Coach Drew truly cares about people and the program and trying to put (us) in the best situation possible,” Teague said. “That’s the reason he connects with people — because we feel that he cares about us.”