John Blanchette: For Bears, bumpy road smoothing out

Before they try to win the Big 12 this year, it appears as if the Baylor Bears are going to try to win the Southwestern Athletic Conference.

Here’s a taste of the November and December basketball schedule: Texas Southern, Alcorn, Grambling, Prairie View. No, it’s not Murderers’ Row. There is a South Carolina and a Syracuse thrown in there, but there’s also Texas State and North Carolina A&T. In other words, what in the old days would have been called the John Thompson Have-Another-Cupcake Tour.

But never mind who’s on the schedule. For the Bears, it matters only that there is one.

“There is no team in America,” agreed Baylor coach Scott Drew, “more excited for its non-conference schedule than us.”

That certainly includes Baylor’s detour to the Spokane Arena tonight and Wednesday for the NIT Season Tip-0ff, in which the Bears qualify as the guests of intrigue – should anyone care to dial down his or her obsession with the local team for a few minutes.

The glare from Gonzaga tends to blind us to the idea that out there in the rest of the NCAA hoop universe there is tragedy and corruption and atonement and little victories of blind faith that don’t get much run in the Top 25.

At Baylor, there has been all of that.

Which is a quantum improvement over a year ago at this time, when the Bears were, well, non-persons.

In one final roundhouse at the program for rules violations committed by former coach Dave Bliss, the NCAA took away the Bears’ non- conference schedule in 2005-06. Baylor didn’t play until Jan. 11 and didn’t win until February, and predictably finished last in the Big 12 – though the Bears’ four victories were as many as they’d had in the previous two years combined.

“The way I put it was that everyone else in the league was on the freeway going 65,” said Drew, “and we were still on the ramp going 20, 30, 40.”

Getting up to speed on the court is one thing, but it may be a while yet before Baylor outruns the hangover from the scandal and heartbreak of its recent past.

The tragic shooting death of forward Patrick Dennehy at the hand of teammate Carlton Dotson in the summer of 2003 set off an investigation and revelations that rocked the Baptist foundations of the university.

That Bliss, once one of Bobby Knight’s acolytes, had paid for Dennehy’s tuition during a redshirt season was the least of it. In what may have been the single most despicable act in the history of college athletics, Bliss then was caught on tape instructing players and staff members to lie to police that Dennehy had been making his own coin by dealing drugs.

Bliss, it turned out, had been just as big a cheat at SMU 20 years before, if not so execrably amoral. Naturally, he should never have been allowed near a basketball and young men ever again, yet in a culture where bad judgment is king he soon showed up at his son’s high school as a volunteer coach – then was actually hired by the Dakota Wizards of the Continental Basketball Association.

Any day now we can probably expect him to enroll at Knight’s Redemption Ranch, which previously rehabilitated old sinners like Norm Ellenberger and Tates Locke, whether it was a good idea or not.

But enough of ignorant Bliss. The current Bears have paid plenty for his sins – in subtracted scholarships and other competitive shackles. What’s remarkable is how brisk the recovery seems to be going.

The son of longtime Valparaiso coach Homer Drew, Scott Drew had taken over for his father in 2002. He surely wasn’t looking to move on when Bliss resigned in August 2003 – but he didn’t have to feel guilty about it, either.

“After my dad had retired, I could see that he really missed the relationships and the challenges and that he was looking to get back into coaching,” Drew said. “It turned out to be the perfect transition – that he could step back in as head coach and I could do this.”

Left with just six scholarship players when he arrived, Drew has managed, against considerable odds, to put together three classes that ranked in the Top 20s of various recruiting services. The group he brings to Spokane includes nine freshmen and sophomores, eager for the opportunity – and willing to see past old headlines.

As was the coach.

“Definitely there was some soul-searching,” he admitted. “But I was blown away by the character and conviction of the leadership here, with their vision. I was convinced they were committed to doing things the right way.”

They had better be. Baylor has been on basketball probation three times since 1986 for serious violations, including academic fraud. Condemn the NCAA all you want for misbegotten governance that inevitably winds up penalizing players who did nothing wrong, but not for the quality of its mercy. On paper, the program should have received the death penalty and been shut down.

Instead, it’s already on its feet, eager for a full and promising season that must feel a lot like spring.