The South Carolina Gamecocks and the Baylor Bears will do battle on Tuesday afternoon as ESPN has a whole day full of games leading up to the champions Classic with four of five top ranked teams playing and the game between Baylor and SC will start up at 3:00 pm and will be on ESPN and streaming online from the Watch ESPN website and the game will be at the Ferrell Center in Texas.
Baylor comes into the game ranked 23rd in the nation this season in the AP Top 25 standings and the team comes in after a nice win over Colorado to start the season and now has a tough matchup with the SEC team in the Gamecocks. Junior Kenny Chery will be the focus for the offense and he had a solid start against Colorado, scoring 14 points and adding four assists and four rebounds in the game and he was also very good from the field, hitting over 40 percent of his shots and he will need to continue playing that way to help replace Pierre Jackson, the star from the team last season. Chery transferred from junior college to the Bears and after making his debut against the Buffaloes, he will get the chance to play a better team in South Carolina and while they are not ranked, the Bears understand how good they can be.
Check here for the Watch ESPN coverage for Baylor and South Carolina.
The Bears have size and speed this season and while they have to replace Jackson, who was one of the most impressive players in the NCAA tournament last season, the team has players like Isaiah Austin and Cory Jefferson to make up for it and now they have a chance to do some damage in the Big 12. The Bears surfside many last season with their run into the regional finals and the team previously had won the NIT and after Jackson led the conference in scoring, the team brought in Chery and now he will get the chance to impress as a junior.
Baylor could be one of the surprise teams in the conference and they are currently the top ranked team behind Kansas and Oklahoma State at number five and number eight within the Big 12 and it should be a good battle all season between the teams. Jefferson had a nice start to the season with a double-double of 13 points and 11 rebounds and now they have the chance to keep things going after defeating the Buffaloes, as the Gamecocks have not been too hot on the road the past few years, winning only two times over the past two seasons and that is quite a long time. The Bears play very well in Wace and they haven't lost a home opener there in nearly 10 years and it doesn't look like Tuesday will be that day.
The game continues a long day of college basketball on ESPN that started up this morning and the games on Tuesday night are expected to be great, with Michigan State taking on Kentucky first in a matchup of the top two teams in the nation and has two of the best coaches in John Calipari and Tom Izzo and after that the Duke Blue Devils and Kansas Jayhawks will play and that should be a great matchup with two of the best freshmen in the nation with Jabari Parker and Andrew Wiggins. The matchup on Tuesday gives Baylor the chance to show off its stellar defense and the Gamecocks will need a lot to go right to get the win at the Ferrell Center on Tuesday afternoon and the game will start up at 3:00 pm.