By Randy Fiedler
With many potential players still overseas serving in the world war, the under-manned 1944-45 Baylor basketball team faced an apparently insurmountable challenge. On Feb. 21, 1945, the Bears lost to TCU 55-25, ending the only winless season in Baylor basketball history (0-17; 0-12 in conference).
Just how depressing was that 1944-45 season? The most points Baylor scored in a game was 41, in a 56-41 loss to West Texas A&M. Some games were little more than routs. Baylor lost its opener 63-16 to Oklahoma State, then went on to suffer other lopsided losses to Rice (95-24 and 68-26), Arkansas (94-28 and 90-30) and a team from Lackland Air Force Base (49-19). It must have been an absolutely dispiriting season for the Bears.
From that lowest of low points, however, Baylor men’s basketball produced one of the most dramatic athletic turnarounds in school history. The very next season (1945-46), under the direction of head coach Bill Henderson, the Bears won 25 games — their most ever up to that point. They finished 11-1 in Southwest Conference play and gave Baylor its second SWC championship in basketball. The Bears’ record and championship also qualified the team for its first trip ever to the NCAA Tournament.
If that wasn’t enough, over the next four years Baylor’s basketball team continued to put memories of that winless season even further behind them. After a disappointing 11-11 season in 1946-47, Baylor roared back in the 1947-48 season to finish 24-8 with a third Southwest Conference championship and a second trip to the NCAA Tournament.
In that 1948 NCAA Tournament, Baylor made it through the Final Four to the championship game against Kentucky. In the titanic struggle for the national title, the Bears, lead by junior guard and future Olympic medalist Jackie Robinson, lost to Kentucky 58-42, but brought their second place honors home to a rousing crowd of thousands that met the team in Waco and treated them to a parade through town.
The magic would last another two seasons, as the 1948-49 Bears won a Southwest Conference co-championship, and the 1949-50 team earned a SWC co-championship as well as a third trip to the NCAA Tournament and a spot in the Final Four.
All in all, during the five years following Baylor’s winless 1944-45 basketball season, the Bears won 88 games against 47 losses, won the Southwest Conference four out of five years, made the NCAA Tournament three times and captured No. 2 and No. 4 finishes following NCAA Tournament play.
Not a bad way to avenge what was without a doubt one of the worst seasons in Baylor basketball history.