Officials from the city of Waco and Baylor are "at least talking about the possibility of a downtown riverfront site" for the school's new $105M basketball arena, according to a source cited by Waco-based KWTX-CBS. Baylor announced last May that it "planned to use a portion of a record" $100M donation to "help fund the Baylor Basketball Pavilion." At the time, the school said that the pavilion, with a "projected capacity of 7,000 to 7,500, would be built on the south side of the Brazos River between the Baylor Ballpark and the Ferrell Center." However, the source said that the discussions now underway "revolve around a possible location near the proposed site of the city's Riverfront Project." Once the facility is constructed, the men's and women's basketball programs "would move into the new arena and the Ferrell Center would be renovated to accommodate the school's volleyball and acrobatics and tumbling programs" (KWTX.com, 2/19).
FINDING THEIR WACO: In Houston, Brent Zwerneman writes Baylor has "become the most successful college athletic department" in Texas. Nearly four years after Baylor fired former football coach Art Briles in the "midst of a sexual assault scandal, the university and athletic department have emerged from the other side seemingly stronger than ever." Baylor men's basketball coach Scott Drew said "this whole year, from volleyball to women's basketball, football, up and down the list" are reasons for the turnaround (HOUSTON CHRONICLE, 2/21).
