Former Baylor guard Rob Wright leads No. 22 BYU into Waco to face a Baylor squad that has turned its season around.
WACO, Texas — A few weeks ago, BYU’s only basketball game at Baylor this season held a lot of intrigue because it marks the return of former Bears guard Rob Wright III to Foster Pavilion.
Wright averaged 11.5 points, 4.2 assists and 2.1 rebounds per game last year for Baylor, and was named to the Big 12 All-Freshman Team before transferring in controversial fashion to BYU.
Understandably, Baylor coach Scott Drew and the Baylor faithful were not happy about it.
That aspect of Tuesday’s 5 p.m. MST matchup is still in play, obviously.
But for the reeling Cougars, the Big 12 encounter at the three-year-old arena across Interstate 35 and the Brazos River from Baylor’s football stadium means much more than that. It is not too much of a stretch to say that BYU’s once-promising season could reverse course, or plummet further into mediocrity, pending the results of its 11th league game.
The rematch of BYU’s 93-89 overtime win over the Bears last year in Provo will be televised by ESPN.
“I think they just played Iowa State tough,” Wright said late Saturday night after the Cougars’ 77-66 loss to No. 8 Houston. “It is on the road. It is the Big 12, so it is going to be a tough game. Just trying to get a win.”
Asked if it will mean anything extra or special to him, the 6-foot-1 point guard from Wilmington, Delaware, shook his head.
“Nah, it is just (about) trying to get a win,” he said.
When he was asked about his return by BYUtv, Wright said it is “nothing personal at all” and repeated that the only thing he is focused on is ending the Cougars’ four-game losing streak.
In an exclusive interview with the Deseret News last April after he had signed with BYU, Wright said BYU assistant coach John Linehan, a former Providence College standout, reached out to his family to gauge his interest in visiting Provo, and the rest is history.
Wright said the opportunity to play with freshman AJ Dybantsa, who is leading the country in scoring with a 24.0 average, and BYU’s newfound emphasis on getting guys ready to play in the NBA were the major factors in his decision.
“My year at Baylor, it was good,” he said back then. “There were a lot of ups and downs, just on the basketball side. I had a lot of fun at Baylor. I appreciate their fanbase and everything like that. But I just felt like I was ready for something different and things like that.”
At the time, Baylor fans accused Wright of taking his game to the highest bidder, the place where he could get more name, image and likeness funds than he could in Waco. But he said NIL “didn’t really factor too much into my decision. It was really just for my growth and for my development and my game.”
Partly because of season-ending injuries suffered by fellow guards Nate Pickens and Dawson Baker, Wright leads BYU in minutes played per game (33.9) and is everything the Cougars hoped he would be. He’s the Cougars’ third-leading scorer (17.3 ppg.) and is also averaging a team-high 5.1 assists per game.
The sophomore is shooting 44.1% from 3-point range, the best percentage from deep on the team.
On Jan. 19, Wright said BYU has “definitely been what I thought it would be coming in” and that he was prepared to play a lot of minutes, if necessary.
“That was kind of their pitch, and that’s what has happened,” he said.
Wright said Waco and Provo are similar in terms of both being college towns, but there are a lot of differences.
“It is like two completely different vibes,” he said. “It is very low-key here in Provo, and the fans are very welcoming. This is a great place once you get here. … Baylor, and Waco, are in the middle of everything, and the college is everything for them there in Waco. There are diehards fans there, too.”
Fans who will probably let Wright know what they think of his departure. The Bears have been a mild disappointment this year, although they have righted the ship the past few weeks after a 1-7 start in league games.
Young said that he planned to talk to Wright later Monday about what the atmosphere will be like at 7,500-seat Foster Pavilion, but isn’t too concerned about it.
“In terms of people saying stuff to him, and him getting sideways, I don’t see that,” Young said. “I think he’s got a great demeanor. But at the same time, he poured a lot of blood, sweat and tears into that program, and I’m sure he’ll have some kind of feelings headed back there.”
“He poured a lot of blood, sweat and tears into that program, and I’m sure he’ll have some kind of feelings headed back there.”
BYU coach Kevin Young on Rob Wright returning to Baylor
With the Cougars slipping to 5-5 in the Big 12 (eighth place) and 17-6 overall after a 16-1 start, Young obviously has more pressing matters.
One of those concerns is his team’s morale, after BYU suffered its fourth-straight loss for the first time since February 2023, when it was in the West Coast Conference. A BYU team hasn’t lost five-straight games since the final five games of the 2004-05 season, when the Cougars were in the Mountain West Conference.
Young said the morale remains high and noted that BYU could have beat Houston — which moved up to No. 3 in the country, while BYU dropped to No. 22 — if it had made a few more free throws and kept UH off the offensive glass late in the game.
“They beat us. Let me be very clear. I’m not a moral victory guy, but I’m also a realist,” he said. “If you talk about UConn, Arizona, Houston and arguably Texas Tech, any one of those teams could win the national championship this year. So the fact that we’ve been in it (against them), and we’ve given ourselves a chance to beat all those teams (is a positive sign).”
BYU is No. 18 in the NET rankings, No. 22 in Kenpom and has a Quad 1 record of 4-6. So the Cougars aren’t completely out of consideration for a No. 4 seed or better in the NCAA Tournament, but their opportunities to climb are slipping away.
“For me, we’re not there yet. We’re still pounding a rock, and that thing’s gonna break eventually,” Young said. “That’s what I’m trying to teach our guys, (that) you learn from the losses, but you don’t lose confidence from the losses.
“That’s the challenge of coaching, the psychology piece of it, where we’re doing a lot of good things, we’re just not doing them long enough or hard enough.”
Category: General Sports
