Baylor Bears Men's Basketball at Ferrell Center
Waco, Texas, is home to some of the best college basketball around, and a dominant force in Big 12 women's and men's basketball. The Baylor Bears play out of Paul J. Meyer Arena at the Ferrell Center, which opened in 1988 and seats 10,284. They are coached by Scott Drew, who previously was an assistant and head coach at Valparaiso before taking the Baylor job in 2003.
Baylor Bears Men's Basketball History
Baylor University first fielded a men's basketball team in 1907. The 1927 season was tragically cut short when a train hit the team bus at a railroad crossing in Round Rock, Texas, killing 10 students, with "The Immortal Ten" now memorialized by a statue on campus. Under coach Ralph Wolf, the Bears overcame the tragedy, eventually winning the Southwest Conference championship in 1932. Baylor had their greatest period of success in the 20th century under Bill Henderson, who led the Bears to four conference championships, three NCAA tournament appearances and two Final Fours from 1946 to 1950, losing to Kentucky in the 1948 national championship game. Baylor men's basketball would largely be a non-factor until the late ‘80s, when coach Gene Iba would lead the Bears to their first two NIT tournaments in addition to an NCAA tournament appearance in 1988.
With the dissolution of the SWC in the mid '90s, Baylor joined what soon became known as the Big 12 Conference. Tragedy again struck the program in 2003 when forward Carlton Dotson shot and killed teammate Patrick Dennehy. The ensuing aftermath exposed corruption in the men's program, and directly led to the firing of coach Dave Bliss. Scott Drew led the Bears out of some of the harshest penalties in NCAA history, including probation until 2010, and rebuilt the Baylor men's program. Baylor won the NIT finals in 2013, and reached the Elite Eight in the NCAA tournament twice, in 2010 and 2012. The 2019-20 Baylor season saw the Bears reach new heights, starting the season 20-1, and reaching the No. 1 ranking — for only the second time in their history — in January 2020 behind the play of senior power forward Freddie Gillespie, and sophomore shooting guard Jared Butler.
