Featuring Baylor Basketball Head Coaches Nicki Collen and Scott Drew
Baylor Alumni presents a special in-person tour across Texas featuring Baylor University Women's Basketball Head Coach Nicki Collen and Men's Basketball Head Coach Scott Drew.
Join Baylor alumni, family and friends as John Morris, the Voice of the Bears, sits down with Nicki Collen and Scott Drew to discuss the upcoming 2023 season.
Baylor Women's Basketball Head Coach
Baylor Women's Basketball Head Coach
Nicki Collen was introduced as the fifth Head Coach in Baylor women’s basketball history on May 5, 2021.
Collen comes to Baylor from the WNBA’s Atlanta franchise, where she spent the last three seasons at the helm for the Dream. Her rookie season in Atlanta resulted in a 23-11 season in 2018, where she earned WNBA Coach of the Year honors and helped the franchise to the WNBA Playoff Semifinals.
Prior to her arrival in Atlanta, she spent two seasons under head coach Curt Miller of the Connecticut Sun, helping the franchise improve from fifth in the East Division to second from 2016 to 2017, respectively.
“I am thrilled to be the head coach at Baylor University. I believe it is the top job in the country for women’s basketball,” said Collen. “I am excited to begin working with this extremely talented team and I am grateful for the unwavering support of President Livingstone and Mack Rhoades. The success of this program speaks for itself, and I will begin working today to ensure Baylor women’s basketball continues to be a program that excels at the highest levels.”
Collen’s collegiate coaching career spanned for nine seasons prior to her WNBA arrival. She spent two seasons as an assistant at Colorado State from 2000-2002, one season at Ball State from 2002-2003, one at Louisville from 2003-2004, three at Arkansas from 2011-2014 and two at Florida Gulf Coast from 2014-2016.
Her teams’ combined record in nine seasons as an NCAA Division I assistant was 214-74, good for a .743 win percentage. As an assistant, Collen guided four different squads to the NCAA Tournament, reaching the second round in three of those seasons.
She spent six of her nine seasons as an assistant under her husband, Tom Collen’s head-coaching tenures at Colorado State, Louisville and Arkansas. She also discipled under Tracy Roller at Ball State and Karl Smesko at Florida Gulf Coast, who has the third-highest active winning percentage in NCAA Division I. Collen helped the FGCU program to a 64-9 record and the school’s first NCAA Tournament win in her two-year tenure.
In her nine seasons at the collegiate level, Collen coached three All-Americans and saw three players selected in the WNBA Draft.
Collen’s collegiate playing career began at Purdue in 1993-94, when the Boilermakers made an NCAA Final Four run with a 29-5 overall record and a 16-2 mark in the Big Ten. Her sophomore season, Purdue made another deep run with an Elite Eight appearance to go with a 24-8 overall record. She transferred to Marquette, where she tallied 421 assists in her final two seasons, averaging 7.0 per game in her last 60 collegiate games. She helped the Golden Eagles to two-straight NCAA Tournament appearances in 1997 and 1998.
Nicki and her husband Tom have three children, Connor, Reese and Logan.
Baylor Men's Basketball Head Coach
Baylor Men's Basketball Head Coach
The climb to build a National Championship team reached its completion in 2021, as Scott Drew led Baylor to and through a historic season.
Entering his 20th season in 2022-23, Scott Drew is tied as the Big 12’s longest-tenured head coach and has notched a school-record 397 victories in his first 19 years, including a 28-10 postseason record since 2009.
Over the past 15 seasons, Drew has led Baylor to 10 NCAA Tournament appearances, five Sweet 16 berths, three trips to the Elite Eight, the 2021 National Championship, the program’s first No. 1 national ranking in 2017, a Big 12 Conference-record 23-game winning streak in 2019-20, a five-week streak at No. 1 in 2020, and an entire season ranked in the nation’s top-3 in 2021 and another five-week streak at No. 1 in 2022.
Baylor joins Gonzaga as the only programs ranked No. 1 nationally in each of the last three seasons and is one of four programs to earn No. 1 national rankings in four of the last six seasons, joining Duke, Gonzaga and Kansas. Baylor has averaged 24 wins per season since the first year Drew led BU to the NCAA Tournament in 2008, becoming one of the nation’s most consistent programs with active streaks of 14 straight seasons with at least 18 wins and 10 straight postseason appearances. Drew has coached 12 players to All-America recognition in the last 15 seasons, including the first consensus first-team All-American in program history. His efforts have led to numerous coaching awards, including being named the 2017 Basketball Times National Coach of the Year and 2020 NBC Sports National Coach of the Year, as well as the Big 12 Conference Coach of the Year in each of the last three seasons. Drew joined Gene Keady (Purdue) and Jay Wright (Villanova) as the only highmajor coaches to win three-straight conference coach of the year honors.
Drew is a former first vice president for the NABC Assistant Coaches Committee and previously served on the National Invitation Tournament advisory committee.
A 1993 graduate of Butler University with a Bachelor of Liberal Arts degree, Drew earned a master’s degree from Valparaiso in 1994. Drew worked with Butler’s men’s basketball program from 1991-93.
Drew and his wife Kelly are the parents of one daughter, Mackenzie, and two sons, Peyton and Brody.
Voice of the Bears
Voice of the Bears
Recognized by the National Sports Media Association in 2019 as the Texas Co-Sportscaster of the year, the "Voice of the Bears", John Morris is in his 29th year as the signature voice of Baylor Athletics. This is his 37th year overall including eight years (1987–1994) working alongside the legendary "Voice of the Bears" Frank Fallon. Officially, he is Baylor's Assistant Athletic Director for Broadcasting and his duties now include play-by-play for Baylor Football and 2021 National Champion Men’s Basketball in addition to third tier television broadcasts on Big 12 Now on ESPN+. Entering the 2023 football season, Morris has broadcast 417 consecutive B.U. Football games. Morris has also been behind the mic for Baylor Baseball, Softball, Women’s Basketball, Tennis, Soccer, Volleyball, Equestrian, Track & Field and Acrobatics & Tumbling.
A December, 1980 Baylor graduate, Morris worked 15-years as TV sports anchor and Sports Director on Waco's CBS affiliate, KWTX-TV before moving to Baylor Athletics full-time. At Homecoming in November, 1999, Morris was named one of Baylor's outstanding young alumni. In November, 2002, he was honored with the Frank Fallon Sportsmanship Award named for his mentor from the Greater Waco Chamber of Commerce.
John Morris is a native of Louisville, Kentucky and graduated with honors from Danville (Ky.) High School in 1977. A proud father of three and grandfather of four, Morris is married to the former Terri Melton, a 1985 Baylor graduate. They are the parents of Meagan (34) a Baylor graduate, Maddie (30) a Baylor Nursing School Graduate, and M.J. (26) a Baylor Mechanical Engineering Graduate. The Morris family is active at Harris Creek Baptist Church.
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