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  • Isaiah Austin’s NBA Dreams Are Over, Player Has Marfan Syndrome

    Isaiah Austin, 20, was expected to be a second-round pick in the NBA draft, but his dreams of playing in the NBA have ended.

    Before the draft, Austin underwent genetic testing and results showed that he is suffering from Marfan syndrome, a rare genetic disorder that affects one in 5,000 people. The disorder is inherited and it affects the eyes, skeleton, heart, and circulatory system. People with Marfan syndrome are also described as tall and thin, like Austin’s physique.

    On Sunday, the 7’1” player announced that he will not be able to play basketball anymore because of his condition.

    “The draft is four days away, and I had a dream that my name was going to be called.” He turned to Twitter to apologize to his fans. “I’m sorry (my supporters) couldn’t see me play in the NBA. But it’s not the end. It’s only the beginning,” he said.

    Austin has already proved that he is a qualified player. He has almost no vision in his right eye, due to a detached retina. However, he still performed well on court while playing for Baylor. In the past season, he averaged 12.1 points, 6.9 rebounds, and 2.4 blocks in 28.9 minutes.

    Baylor coach Scott Drew was devastated by the news, but said that Austin has the best support system that he needs at this time. “His health is the most important thing, and while it’s extremely sad that he won’t be able to play in the NBA, our hope is that he’ll return to Baylor to complete his degree and serve as a coach in our program,” he said.

    Austin also thanked everyone who gave him support through his ordeal. “I would love to thank EVERYONE who has reached out to me. Toughest days of my life. But not the last! Life goes on. GOD IS STILL GREAT!” he wrote on Twitter.

    Austin will now focus on his health.

    Image via YouTube

  • Brittney Griner Says Baylor Kept Her in the Closet in New Book

    While Baylor University certainly enjoyed Brittney Griner’s talents on the court, the former player claims that officials at the university told her to keep her sexual orientation a secret. Griner, who is now openly gay, wrote about her experience at Baylor in her new book In My Skin.

    Baylor University is a private Baptist college in Waco, Texas. Griner played for Baylor from 2009-2013. To say that Griner, who stands at 6’8″ and has an 88″ wing span, was a standout at Baylor would be putting it lightly. Griner led her team to an NCAA Championship in 2012 and was named the AP Division I Player of the Year and the NCAA Final Four Most Outstanding Player in the same year. Griner is so good, in fact, that one NBA team didn’t rule out drafting her.

    While Griner’s efforts on the court were appreciated, she says in her book that she was encouraged to hide her homosexuality while playing for Baylor. Baylor women’s basketball Coach Kim Mulkey is one person Brittney Griner mentioned that told her to keep her homosexuality to herself. In addition to telling the star player to watch what she posted on Twitter, Griner says that Mulkey also told her to keep “her business quiet.”

    Since Baylor is both a Christian university and includes the following in their Statement on Human Sexuality, it’s no surprise that Griner’s sexuality was an issue.

    Baylor University welcomes all students into a safe and supportive environment in which to discuss and learn about a variety of issues, including those of human sexuality. The University affirms the biblical understanding of sexuality as a gift from God. Christian churches across the ages and around the world have affirmed purity in singleness and fidelity in marriage between a man and a woman as the biblical norm. Temptations to deviate from this norm include both heterosexual sex outside of marriage and homosexual behavior. It is thus expected that Baylor students will not participate in advocacy groups which promote understandings of sexuality that are contrary to biblical teaching.

    Even though the school makes it crystal clear where they stand on same-sex relationships, the fact that Griner’s coach and others knew about her sexuality and tried to hide it so they could utilize her talents was frustrating for the young star.

    “The more I think about it, the more I feel like the people who run the school want it both ways: they want to keep the policy, so they can keep selling themselves as a Christian university, but they are more than happy to benefit from the success of their gay athletes,” Griner said in her book. “That is, as long as those gay athletes don’t talk about being gay.”

    After staying quiet about her sexual orientation for four years, Griner came out to the public in April of 2013, right after being selected number one in the WNBA Draft.

    And, after being told to watch what she posted online all those years, Griner has since become very open about her sexuality on Twitter:

    Despite having to hide her sexuality for so long, Brittney Griner doesn’t have any ill feelings towards Mulkey or Baylor University. Griner says she wouldn’t change her decision to attend Baylor, even with the knowledge that she would have to conceal her homosexuality. Even though Griner loves her university, she doesn’t see herself becoming an ambassador anytime soon, though.

    “I would love to be an ambassador for Baylor, to show my school pride, but it’s hard to do that,” Griner said. “I’ve spent too much of my life being made to feel like there’s something wrong with me. And no matter how much support I felt as a basketball player at Baylor, it still doesn’t erase all the pain I felt there.”

    Griner’s book In My Skin (cover below) came out on April 8.

    Image via Twitter

  • Fiesta Bowl Preview: No.15 UCF vs. No.6 Baylor

    When the BCS Bowl Game line-up was first presented, analysts and fans were excited about the plethora of fantastic games slated for January, especially the national championship game pitting Auburn against Florida State. However, one game produced groans of a blow-out, much to the dismay of Florida residents and Knights fans.

    This year’s Tostitos Fiesta Bowl pairs the University of Central Florida Knights against the Baylor University Bears. The Knights come into the game ranked No. 15 in the nation (with one loss to South Carolina), while the Baylor Bears are ranked No. 6 in the nation (with one loss to Oklahoma State).

    Despite their equal records, the groans of despair stemmed from the fact that many believe UCF to be an unproven program which played in a weak conference, the newly minted American Athletic Conference.

    While this is UCF’s first ever BCS bowl game, the same is also true for Baylor. The Bears have the upper-hand in the media, however, due to playing in the historic Big XII conference and playing in the national spotlight for most of the year.

    Instead of relying on preconceived notions and Vegas (who has Baylor as a 16.5 point favorite) to form one’s opinion on who will win tonight’s match-up, let’s look to the numbers instead.

    Offense:

    This game promises to be a contest between offensive juggernauts, pitting two of the nation’s leading offensive squads against one another.

    Baylor comes into tonight’s contest having accrued more yards in one season than all but 1 other football team in FBS history, putting up a staggeringly impressive 624.5 yards per game (second only to the 1989 Houston team which average 624.9 yards per game). The Bears’ offense is led by quarterback Bryce Petty, perhaps one of the most offensively prolific quarterbacks in recent FBS history. This season. Petty led the nation in yards per pass, averaging 17.4 yards per pass. Petty also ranked second nationally in passing efficiency at 179.2 and finished 8th in passing yards per game at 320.3.

    What UCF’s defense really has to prepare for with Petty, however, is the big play. This year, Petty led the nation in passing plays of 25 yards or more with 46, along with completing 13 touchdowns longer than 25 yards.

    While Petty brings a big arm and much confidence in tonight’s game, UCF’s quarterback, Blake Bortles, is a star in his own right. In his last 7 games, Bortles has completed 70% of his passes, with 13 of those passes going for touchdowns while allowing only 4 interceptions. For the season, Bortles ranked 9th nationally in passing efficiency at 163.3. While Bortles’s arm may not be as explosive as Petty’s, his intelligence and game-making ability ensure that he will keep the Knights in the game.

    The quarterback match-up is honestly the duel to watch this game, seeing as both UCF’s and Baylor’s star running backs have accumulated a touch over 1,000 yards for the season with 11 touchdowns each, evening the match-up in the backfield.

    Defense:

    With such explosive offenses on the field, the key to the game may be which defense can hold the opposing offense in check. While neither Baylor nor UCF will impress audiences with their defensive might, neither team is awful on the defensive-end of the ball. UCF comes into tonight’s game allowing only 346.3 yards per game and allowing just 19.6 points per game, ranking 12th nationally in scoring defense.

    Baylor, on the other hand, ranked 20th nationally in points allowed per game at 21.2 ppg, slightly more than UCF. Despite being known almost exclusively for its offense, Baylor did rank 6th in the nation in yards allowed per play at 4.53 and 7th in tackles for loss per game at 7.9. If the Baylor Bears want to win tonight, they will have to find a way to get to QB Blake Bortles, who has faced sack issues in the latter half of the season, getting sacked 14 times in his last 5 games.

    Prediction:

    Due to the fact that this is both Baylor’s and UCF’s first BCS bowl game, one cannot give UCF the underdog edge. Both teams have something to prove on the national stage and will use this opportunity to its fullest. However, one has to believe that UCF’s strength of schedule from playing in the AAC (76th nationally, as opposed to Baylor’s 6th ranked SOS) will do them no favors when playing against a Baylor team which has seemed unstoppable on the offensive side of the ball this year. Edge goes to the Bears.

    Image via FiestaBowl.org

  • Baylor Dominates Notre Dame, Wins Championship

    In a near-unheard of perfect season, one player has stood out in women’s basketball this year: Brittney Griner. And not just because she’s 6’8″.

    Griner shone on the court this season, but it was the NCAA championship game on Tuesday that really brought out her star power as she drove down the court during the second half, blocking all of Notre Dame’s attempts to even up the score. All told, she ended up adding 26 points, 13 rebounds, and 5 blocks to her team’s tally for the night, bringing Baylor to the 80-61 win that clinched them a title.

    Lady Bears coach Kim Mulkey, who was recently diagnosed with Bell’s palsy–a paralysis of the facial muscles–said that Griner will go down in the history of women’s basketball as the “greatest post player in the game“. Mulkey made the announcement to her team before telling them that her condition wouldn’t affect how loud she could yell.

    “It meant everything for us to get it for coach,” said Griner. “She felt like she wasn’t there for us, but we told her every second that we could hear her loud and clear, everything she was saying.”

    Baylor hasn’t won a championship since 2005, and no NCAA team in history has gone 40-0…until now.

    Fans took to Twitter to congratulate the team:

    (image)@LisaLeslie
    Lisa Leslie    The Baylor Bears are deserving of the Nation Championship! Going 40-0 has separated them from the pack!
    Congrats!!
    #NCAAWFF(image) 10 hours ago via HootSuite ·  Reply ·  Retweet ·  Favorite · powered by @socialditto

    (image)@GATrack_404
    ?Chad X.Chad

    (image)@RuruNovoa
    Rochet Novoa    Congratulations to the Baylor girls basketball team for winning the national championship and having an undefeated season. #Baylor #NCAA(image) 3 minutes ago via Twitter for iPhone ·  Reply ·  Retweet ·  Favorite · powered by @socialditto

  • Kim Mulkey: Baylor Coach Diagnosed With Bell’s Palsy

    While in Des Moines last weekend for the NCAA regionals, Kim Mulkey discovered a strange thing: her tongue was going numb. It progressed to an odd feeling in her mouth when she was eating, and later she noticed that her left eye was sagging a bit. Her smile became “crooked”, something which concerned her enough to seek advice from Baylor’s team trainer, Alex Olson. Olson immediately recommended she seek medical attention, as those were all signs of an impending stroke.

    In fact, Bell’s palsy has many symptoms similar to that of a stroke, but is actually a paralysis of the facial muscles which strikes suddenly–often overnight–and is either caused by muscle inflammation or by a virus. Most people afflicted with the condition recover with treatment–which includes steroids to reduce the swelling–relatively quickly, sometimes in as little as two months. Some have irreparable damage to facial nerves.

    “I don’t obviously have a severe case of it,” Mulkey said. “Because I’ve seen the worst. I’ve seen people who have it where their face is totally drooping.”

    Mulkey, who is 49, is expected to begin seeing an improvement in her symptoms in the next two weeks, and there’s no reason to believe she won’t make a full recovery. The coach, regarded as something of a pistol by her peers, says she won’t let this stop her from taking Baylor into the Final Four, which they advanced to on Monday after their win against Tennessee.

    “And y’all (reporters) need to look out because they tell me these steroids make me irritable,” she joked while giving a statement about her ailment.

    With the Final Four being so close, Twitter users are reacting to the news as they try to get a better understanding of the affliction:

    (image)@LTorbin
    Leigh Torbin    Tough news about a great coach. RT @elliottctpost: @BaylorWBB coach Kim Mulkey diagnosed with Bell’s palsy. http://t.co/G0pgGMiI(image) 20 hours ago via TweetDeck ·  Reply ·  Retweet ·  Favorite · powered by @socialditto

    (image)@Health_CareNews
    Drew Tolley    Kim Mulkey, Baylor Womenâ??s Basketball Coach, Diagnosed With Bellâ??s Palsy: What Is It? http://t.co/dSbJ2q39(image) 16 minutes ago via dlvr.it ·  Reply ·  Retweet ·  Favorite · powered by @socialditto

    (image)@kk_vsam
    kk    Kim Mulkey has Bell’s palsy: An acute case of Bell’s palsy could very well be one of the scariest events a perso… http://t.co/lqISE4L9(image) 11 hours ago via twitterfeed ·  Reply ·  Retweet ·  Favorite · powered by @socialditto