Men’s College Basketball 2021-2022 Season Preview: Baylor Bears

The Big 12 had a successful year in men’s college basketball in 2020 as the Baylor Bears closed out the season as the national champs. It was a dominant run, and they truly were the best team in college basketball.

The conference comes into the new year looking strong from top to bottom, but there was some drama in the offseason with a few teams planning to leave for the SEC. Texas and Oklahoma will be headed to the SEC in the near future, but for this year at least it’ll be business as usual.

Like many other conferences around the country, Big 12 teams took advantage of the expanded transfer portal and loaded up with all sorts of new faces. Figuring out rotations will be especially important for this group so let’s dive in and take our best crack at deciphering the best players for each squad.

In this one, Baylor.

(Check out our full college basketball season preview!)

Baylor Bears 2021-2022 Season Preview

2020-2021 record: 28-2 (13-1 Big 12), first in Big 12
Postseason: National champions

Key Departures | Baylor Bears

• Davion Mitchell (NBA draftee)
• MaCio Teague (NBA)
• Jared Butler (NBA draftee)
• Mark Vital (graduated)

Key Additions | Baylor Bears

• James Akinjo (transferred from Arizona)
• Kendall Brown (top 20 recruit)
• Langston Love (top 40 recruit)
• Jeremy Sochan (4 star recruit)

Returners | Baylor Bears

• Adam Flagler (9 PPG)
• Matthew Mayer (8.2 PPG/3.8 RPG)
• Jonathan Tchamwa Tchatchoua (6.3 PPG/5 RPG)
• Flo Thamba (3.6 PPG/3.9 RPG)
• LJ Cryer (3.7 PPG)

Baylor Bears Outlook for 2021-2022

This is a new-look Baylor squad after the Bears brought home a national championship last year. The Big 3 of Mitchell/Butler/Teague was fantastic for DFS over the past couple of years, but now it’s time to move on.

Everyone’s favorite mullet wearer, Matthew Mayer, is back and expected to become one of the alphas on this team. In a bench role last year, he had 24.4% usage rate and a 25.6% shot rate. He paid off his sub-$5k price on DK many times in under 20 minutes because of his efficient play. Give him 30 minutes and he just might be breaking slates with ease. Everyday Jon (Jonathan Tchamwa Tchatchoua) returns, and he will be a key cog in the frontcourt for the Bears. He had a 12.1% offensive rebounding rate and a combined rate of 31%. Adam Flagler was a top-80 three-point shooter in the country and knocked down 44% of his 106 attempts.

James Akinjo averaged 15.6 PPG and 5.4 APG last year at Arizona and will be counted on to initiate the offense for Scott Drew. Top-40 recruit Langston Love tore his ACL recently and will miss the season, which is obviously a big hit for this team’s depth. Kendall Brown is best when attacking the rim, but he will have to develop a more consistent jump shot as he matures. With the Love injury they’ll need LJ Cryer to step up and be a bigger impact.

(Check out our rankings of the top 100 teams and top 100 players for men’s college basketball in 2021-2022.)

Summary

This Baylor team is well coached and still has plenty of talent to make a run in March. This team doesn’t have the depth of some of the other upper tier Big 12 squads, but everyone has a well-defined role, and that will prove to be valuable for fantasy purposes.