Last summer—before a global pandemic would upend Baylor’s path to a No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament and make navigating the NBA Draft process difficult—MaCio Teague was learning a new defense. And as Teague tells it, things weren’t going well for them. He told me, “Every guard, starting the first four weeks, was shooting 65%. We were so open. With that defense, we were either playing really bad defense or we were the best guards of all-time. Better than Kemba. Better than Jimmer and Trae Young. We really weren’t that good. It took time.”
In time, Baylor would develop that “no middle” defense to No.