Keeping Up with Baylor Basketball
Ahead of the madness–March Madness, that is–the insect and pest control brand Raid jumped into the NIL world by capitalizing on a comical coincidence. Baylor basketball stars Jeremy Roach and Darianna Littlepage-Buggs appear together as members of “Bug U” in a commercial highlighting Raid Ant and Roach Killer.
WOMEN’S – In its 21st-straight appearance in the NCAA Tournament, the No. 14 women’s team is seeded No. 4 in the Spokane Region 1. The team will host GCU at Foster Pavilion–the venue’s first March Madness appearance–in its first game at 2:30 p.m. on Friday.
Ole Miss and Ball State, scheduled for 5 p.m., will face off following Baylor and Grand Canyon. The winners of both games will move on to the second round on March 23. Tickets for rounds one and two at Foster Pavilion went on sale Monday, and a few are still available.
The Athletic’s prediction bracket favors the Bears in the first and second rounds, with a 62% chance of winning in the Sweet 16, 27% chance in the Elite 8, and 17% chance in the Final Four. Keep up with the women’s live bracket here.
MEN’S – The men’s team’s win over Kansas State pulled it off the bubble, earning the No. 9 seed in the East Region heading into the NCAA Tournament. In the team’s sixth-straight March Madness appearance the Bears will play against No. 8 seed Mississippi State at 11:15 a.m. on Friday in North Carolina.
Betting trends pick the Bulldogs over the Bears in Friday’s matchup, pointing to a short March Madness run. However, The Athletic’s staff votes the Baylor men may narrowly slip by.
Keep up with the men’s live bracket here.
Football Fix
This week’s football news hit home for those of us watching from Waco. Kaeron “KJ” Johnson, a former Baylor defensive lineman, will step away from the sideline after two seasons as University High School’s head coach. He returns to Baylor, joining Dave Aranda’s staff as the director of football relations.
Funding for Findings
A group of interdisciplinary researchers was awarded a $4.71 million grant from Templeton Religion Trust with the aim of studying patience in parents. A longitudinal mixed-methods study will be conducted over the next four years, studying parents who face adverse circumstances, such as those with children with developmental disabilities, Muslim-American parents, and parents in Southern California.
“By considering patience as a state, trait and virtue, the researchers aim to discover the dynamic processes by which patience is enacted in daily life and across the life course, ways persons and situations interact to facilitate or inhibit patience, functions of patience and the mechanisms by which people cultivate patience as a virtue,” according to a university release.
Former Students Take the Stage
2022 Baylor alumna and The Voice season 27 contestant Tori Templet gave a concert at Common Grounds on Sunday, repping her alma mater in both a Baylor Line jersey and a Chi Omega jersey at points during the performance.
Templet’s blind audition for The Voice landed her a spot on Adam Levine’s team earlier in the season. However, she was eliminated from the show in this week’s battle rounds.
And Forrest Frank (‘17), half of the hit-producing duo Surfaces and Grammy nominee, is gearing up to perform at Foster Pavilion next month. The concert marks the venue’s first public concert.
