KANSAS CITY, Mo. — It's been a historic season for the reigning national champion Baylor men's basketball team.
The Bears won their second-straight Big 12 regular-season championship, something the program hadn't done in 72 years. But the path there had plenty of twists and turns.
"They remain positive," ESPN college basketball analyst Seth Greenberg said ahead of Baylor's recent clash against Kansas in Waco. "It's not woah is me, but it's 'OK, what can we do about it?'"
Those injury issues began before the season ever started, when Langston Love tore his ACL in a preseason scrimmage. But it was only worse from there.
"Jeremy (Sochan) goes down, (James) Akinjo goes down," Greenberg said. "Then, obviously, Jonathan (Tchamwa Tchatchoua) goes down."
In a season the Bears already lost four professional athletes from their national championship roster, losing a handful more to injury could have discouraged them. Instead, it catapulted Baylor in to another title-winning season, something that seems familiar to Scott Drew.
"Scott has reinvented them before," Greenberg said. "People forget Tristan Clark goes down and that begat the three-guard lineup which ended up being good enough to win a national championship."
The Bears have leaned heavily on their "Culture of Joy," and making the best of the hand they're dealt.
"Scott has a gift with his words, where he says something to his team and they listen," Greenberg said. "He's like, 'OK, we'll figure this out.'"
Figuring it out seems to be working for Baylor, which sits at No. 3 in the latest AP rankings, with a 26-5 record and, now, as two-time Big 12 regular-season champions.
The No. 2 seed Bears open the Big 12 Tournament at 6 p.m. Thursday against No. 7 seed Oklahoma inside the T-Mobile Center in Kansas City.