KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Two NBA players, a G-league player, and an NFL prospect. Those were some of the key elements that made up the Baylor Bears 2021 National Championship team.
Now, they've moved on.
“We’re halfway through the NBA season and it’s a grind, I've already played more games than I did in a college season," Jared Butler said.
Butler was a massive piece to the Bears puzzle. He was a former Big 12 Player of the Year and the Final Four's Most Outstanding player.
He knows that this current team is much different from last year's. There are four major players making their Big 12 tournament debut in Kansas City this week.
I’ve been watching, I feel more like a parent now watching the games," Butler said. "I'm super excited, jumping around, every bucket, every mistake. It’s almost hard for me to watch, I know how my parents feel now about watching a game.”
Somehow, Scott Drew has found success with a team that has been badly injured all year. But he has coached James Sochan to a Big 12 Sixth Man of the Year award, the defense is stellar, and Kendall Brown is blossoming into a star. He has fallen back on returners Adam Flagler, Matthew Mayer, and Flo Thamba and found newfound love for transfer James Akinjo.
The Bears shared part of the Big 12 regular season title this year with Kansas, in a season where the conference played more like the wild, wild west.
“The Big 12 is not easy, they’re gonna have ups and downs and just games where you can’t win them all, they’re doing great, as long as they’re trying to get better for the postseason, that’s all that matters," Butler said.
Despite being more focused on guarding stars like Lebron James and Devin Booker in the NBA, Butler remains at a Bear at heart.
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