Baylor Bears Top Preseason Big 12 Men's Basketball Poll
After winning the last two Big 12 regular season championships, the Baylor Bears have been picked to win the conference yet again as they earned the No. 1 spot in the preseason poll Thursday.
Notably, the Bears are picked to win the conference over the defending national champion Kansas Jayhawks, who shred the conference title with Baylor a season ago.
Scott Drew has bolstered his lineup even though the Bears lost All-American James Akinjo and superstar freshmen Jeremy Sochan and Kendall Brown were selected in June's NBA Draft. The Bears landed a rare intra-conference transfer with forward Jalen Bridges leaving West Virginia after starting more than 50 games for the Mountaineers over the last two seasons.
The Bears are also bringing in freshman sensation Keyonte George, a McDonald's All-American who was one of the biggest recruits in program history. George was already named Preseason Big 12 Freshman of the Year this week and lit up the GLOBL JAM tournament this summer with the Bears, averaging more than 22 points a game.
George wasn't the only one getting acclaim from the conference this week, as guard L.J. Cryer also earned All-Big 12 honorable mention and will be a lethal scorer for the Bears after missing 15 games in 2021-22. Guard Adam Flagler was selected to the Preseason All-Big 12 team, coming off a year where he led the team in scoring with almost 14 points a game.
Baylor edged out Kansas in first-place votes, securing five to the Jayhawks' four. The Texas Longhorns also received a first-place vote and sit in third place. Here is the complete list:
1. Baylor
2. Kansas
3. Texas
4. TCU
T-5. Oklahoma State
T-5. Texas Tech
7. Oklahoma
8. Iowa State
9. West Virginia
10. Kansas State
🏀 #Big12MBB 2022-23 Preseason Poll 🏀
— Big 12 Conference (@Big12Conference) October 13, 2022
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Covering Baylor for Inside The Bears and the Locked on Baylor podcast. You can follow me for more Baylor content at @realcamstuart on Twitter. Originally from Rockland, Massachusetts and a Baylor alum, so I might mix the occasional bias and/or Boston sports tweet in there every once in a while.