Everything Baylor coach Scott Drew said ahead of Bears' opening game vs. UTRGV

The Baylor Bears are set to open up their regular season on Monday against UTRGV. The Bears went 1-1 in their exhibition games and now Baylor will open up for real.

Here is everything Scott Drew said about his team.

On energy playing against an opponent

You can tell when you get to a point where you're getting tired of practicing against each other and the exhibitions are great. There's a lot of things that you learn and you can work with and try to improve at the same time they're so spaced out after a couple days practicing against each other you're like all right who we got so first game of the year. Everybody's excited and the good thing is that always competing against each other now now you're back cheering for each other.

What they learned from the exhibition games

I think we got everything we wanted out of them from the standpoint the first one we got a chance to invite the fans they got a chance to see the guys for the first time. Our players got a chance to see just how we do starting lineups and how games are run at the Foster so there's some familiarity so at least when we have the first game, they'll know okay I got it now I know where to go, what to do. So now they can focus on basketball.

With the IU it was great because you're in a big venue we'll have that several times this year in neutral games or other arenas that are kind of similar and playing a different opponent that you don't have a lot of scout films so you really have to rely on your you rtendencies, your base defense, base offense and what you can work on and iimprove from there. At the same time playing on the road and just how gameday routines will work so we got one at home got one on the road now we're ready for the season to begin and most importantly no one got injured in those games.

Idea of roles on the team

That's something that I think will continue to evolve. It was great in Germany but we didn't have our full roster there and so now I mean we've had a couple games with guys that couldn't play in Germany to see how they respond at the same time as such a small sample size. And in the the tough thing is in practice to make lineups competitive sometimes they're even and not you don't get to see well how would this lineup look or that lineup look. And so I would think the non-conference season for most programs nowadays will be really important to try to know what they're doing come conference time and lineups that we might not have seen yet.

We'll get a chance to see in the next couple weeks and those might be better lineups than the lineups we put out there so far and we don't know because again sometimes like if you for instance go really small well now you're going against really big guys. So it's not position it doesn't match up and gives you a false sense if you go with a real big lineup well you're not matching up against guys that you go in a game against. So again first couple games will give us opportunities to see some things.

On expectations for the season and how analysts view Baylor as a tournament team because of Scott Drew

I know that anything we do it's because the players do it. They're the ones on the court and headc oach is only as good as his staff and we've been blessed to have great staffs over the years and I think we have a really good staff this year. A lot ofexperience a lot of wisdom a lot of knowledge the staff really gets alongand we've gotten along and and and I think the humility and Jesus came to serve not be served.

I think that starts with your staff and then transcends to your team but I say all that to say with such a new roster you understand why people don't have us picked. At the same time I think if you learn anything from college football I mean three of the teams that were in the top five aren't in the top five anymore and so there's a lot of uncertainty. There's alot of okay this team's talented but they might not fit together this team's talented but they might not respond to the style the culture of the coaching.

I mean so there's gonna be a lot of speculation with not a lot of facts behind it if 71% of Big 12 starting lineups are new. I mean no one knows really how things will go including us coaches so the best thing is fans we're all witnessing things for the first time together. But we do it together so hopefully you could be loud and in the in the stands and cheer for these guys because they've done a great job on and off the court thus far.

I mean academically great summer one of the best GPAs were have a chance to have the best GPA in the fall in schools history. We had five people part of our program baptized last week so I mean our pillars of preparing champions for life, spiritual, academic, character formation, basketball the first three we've been doing really well in. And the basketball part usually follows because if you're right off the court you're right on the court

What he wants the fans to say about this team

I think everyone in that locker room wants them to walk away being proud of the effort, the togetherness, the chemistry, the love for the front of the jersey. How hard they play for each other and and again I think that's part of why the first home game in the exhibition the first road game was important because when nerves uncertainties it slows you down. And what you do and we want to be able to play care free and they'll get that more and more as they get used to playing in the Foster and playing the opponents will be playing but for most of them they haven't been in these environments so it's great that they'll have that opportunity come Monday and we had the exhibition. But obviously real games are a little different especially with the students here.

Status of Juslin Bodo Bodo

Bodo Bodo is still TBD to be determined. So won't play in the first game and hopefully he keeps progressing. His attitudes been great but don't have an exact date when he will return.

What that does to the rotation

Well I think that's that's part of sports. You put together any roster like hey we're gonna build it and and we got a great left tackle we got a great running back we got a great quarterback and then once they go it's next man up. Now we're in basketball season same thing, we got it bringing in a center that was one of the nation's best in a lot of categories last year. And until he's able to get on the court next man up and the good thing is we got options and we got depth we got some length and those were two things we tried to add in the offseason. Because we already have one ACL injury that's why we got knock on wood we don't get any more but we were built to handle more injuries than in the past because of the depth and length.