TEMPLE, Texas — On Thursday, the first episode of "Our Time: Baylor Basketball" debuted on ESPN+, chronicling the Baylor men and women's basketball teams through the 2021-22 season.
We saw Scott Drew's understanding of how hard the opportunity the Bears currently have to repeat will be to pull off. We saw Nicki Collen's continued emphasis that she is going to do things her way.
More than that, we got a better look at two key things: the rings the Bears won in Indianapolis in April & NaLyssa Smith off the court.
First, the rings are as big as advertised in the episode. Our department had the chance to see them up close the morning after the ring ceremony, ahead of Baylor's showdown against Oklahoma in football.
Sports Information Director David Kaye was gracious enough to show the 6 News Sports team (Matt Lively, Niki Lattarulo and myself) his and it was intimidating. He offered to let us hold them, but I was so scared I would break it I just awed over it.
Drew's statement "The Toronto Raptors had the biggest championship rings, now the Baylor Bears have the biggest championship rings," toward the end of the men's team's portion of the show seemed to me to be a genuine moment to help his players understand the gravity of what they'd accomplished seven months earlier.
It was also refreshing to see that the crew talked to Matthew Mayer about why he returned. He was lauded as arguably Baylor's best pro prospect before the NCAA Tournament, and you've seen the success Davion Mitchell and Jared Butler continue to have in the NBA.
When they got to the women's team, I think I had the same reaction many had: NaLyssa's a painter?
I don't care if she's tracing or doing paint-by-number (which it didn't seem like she was), I envy her artistic skills. The mountain painting she finished while FaceTiming with her family in San Antonio was seriously impressive. It's such a unique outlet for stress, I applaud her focus to be able to do it.
John Morris' description of NaLyssa Smith was on the money. She very well might be the most dominant player in women's college basketball and the Bears tend to play well when she plays well.
All-in-all, I thought it was a great scene-setting episode. I think I'm most excited to see what we see from players like Adam Flagler, James Akinjo and Caitlin Bickle in the coming weeks, players who recently saw their roles expand or transfer in.
Episode 2 is scheduled to release next Thursday.