Hell, no, it wasn't supposed to be this easy. Not at Baylor, a Baptist school that in the past four months has seen evil -- real evil, not just the imitation stuff that attracts NCAA investigators.
Baylor has seen the imitation stuff, too. Since late July, Baylor basketball has seen it all: death, destruction, drugs, duplicity.
For this, Scott Drew left his family job at Valparaiso.
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| 'Recruiting is an every-day event. It's like shaving -- you miss a day, you look like a bum,' Scott Drew says.(AP) |
Wrap your mind, then, around job one for Drew -- selling recruits on Baylor less than four months after a player was discovered murdered, allegedly by a teammate, with the former coach accused of engineering a cover-up of NCAA violations.
Doesn't exactly fit onto a recruiting postcard, but Drew has managed. His first Baylor recruiting class is ranked in the top 35 nationally -- out of 327 Division I schools -- and he's got the inside track on one of the best remaining players in the high school class of 2004. Drew also has a head start on his next two classes, with commitments from a top Texas player from the classes of 2005 and '06.
Sure looks easy.
"I wouldn't say it's been easy," Drew says. "Recruiting is an every-day event. It's like shaving -- you miss a day, you look like a bum."
Baylor could have lived with Drew looking like a bum. That would have been a step up from his predecessor, Dave Bliss, who urged players to lie about murdered teammate Patrick Dennehy -- to paint Dennehy as a drug dealer who got his money from criminal activity instead of from Dave Bliss.
Drew has not looked like a bum. He has looked like a magician.
"I couldn't be happier with him," McCaw says.
McCaw might have to try. Drew is a contender for 6-foot-8, 250-pound Tello Palacios, a Colombian power forward by way of Long Island ranked among the top 25 seniors nationally.
Two years ago, as an assistant at Valparaiso, Drew helped place Palacios at Our Savior New American private school. While Palacios has played his way out of Valparaiso's league, he lists Baylor along with UCLA, Pittsburgh and St. John's as his favorites. If Palacios signs in the spring with Baylor, it would give Drew a possible top 10 recruiting class.
"As a staff we feel very good about what we've been able to accomplish in a short period of time," says Drew, who has been granted nine scholarships over the next two years -- one more than NCAA rules allow -- because Baylor lost three transfers and one recruit after the Dennehy saga.
Drew left Valparaiso, where he built an extensive network of international contacts, for Baylor on Aug. 22. Two weeks later he had his first Baylor commitment, Senegalese center Mamadou Diene, a skilled but skinny 7-footer whom recruiting analysts say would be a top 50 recruit if he played for a U.S. high school. Drew, who had been recruiting Diene for two years while at Valparaiso, calls him "one of the best young big men in the world."
A few weeks later Drew struck again, getting a commitment from Australian point guard Aaron Bruce -- another top 50 talent, according to recruiting analysts. Bruce torched the U.S. World Men's Junior team for 25 points this summer, going against the likes of Illinois sophomore Dee Brown.
Earlier this week Drew landed Louisiana State transfer Tim Bush, a former top 100 recruit who fell behind at LSU because of weight problems and a dislocated shoulder. Bush will be eligible next winter.
Drew says he pursued international players out of necessity, because most of this country's top seniors were taken -- not because Diene and Bruce wouldn't know about Baylor's problems.
"If anything, more had to be explained to the international kids who knew about Baylor only from the (recent) headlines," Drew says. "(In America) a lot of people are familiar with Baylor and know what it stands for and what it's about."
He was hailed as the squeaky-clean savior of Baylor basketball, but some people are starting to wonder what Scott Drew is about after he filled his staff with one of the most controversial high school coaches in Texas.
On Sept. 15 Drew hired Jerome Tang from Heritage Christian Academy, where in 10 years he won four state championships before Heritage was suspended from its state association for recruiting violations. Tang's 10-plus Division I recruits included current Houston sophomore Cedrick Hensley, who once scored 101 points in a 178-28 Heritage victory.
Twelve days after Drew hired Tang, Heritage's best junior committed to Baylor. Rashad Woods, a 6-6 wing, had been getting interest from Kansas and Arizona.
Five weeks later, Heritage's best sophomore committed to Baylor. Chris Roquemore, a 6-8 forward, had been getting interest from Texas.
Texas public-school coaches have seethed over Drew's hiring of Tang, saying Baylor will have a difficult time signing players from that state. Their decibel level surprised Drew.
"I was a little taken back by it, but I guess to me it was an eye-opener how much the microscope would be on Baylor," Drew says. "When I moved to Texas I did not know Jerome Tang, but people I know and respect recommended him."
As for Heritage Christian's expulsion from the Texas Association of Private and Parochial Schools (TAPPS), Drew says the school didn't contest the charges of illegal recruiting because it planned to withdraw from TAPPS anyway to pursue more of a national profile, like Oak Hill in Mouth of Wilson, Va.
"I wouldn't have thought it was that big a deal," Drew says. "The school (Heritage) was always fully behind Coach Tang and what the basketball program did. Coach Tang has been in youth ministry, and he's a good disciplinarian. He's a perfect Baylor fit."
How Tang fits into the post-Bliss era of Baylor basketball remains to be seen. Drew's place as foreman of a massive rebuilding project is secure -- and looking much easier than anyone could have imagined.
Mr. Teacher Man 
