Texas Tip Off Tour

Tyler | Dallas | Houston
Featuring Baylor Basketball Head Coaches Nicki Collen and Scott Drew
Get ready for an unforgettable day as Baylor Alumni bring you the Texas Tip Off Tour! Join us in Tyler, Dallas, and Houston for a courtside conversation with Baylor Women's Basketball Head Coach Nicki Collen and Men's Basketball Head Coach Scott Drew.
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About Our Speakers
Baylor Women's Basketball Head Coach
Baylor Women's Basketball Head Coach
Nicki Collen enters her fourth season at the helm of the Baylor Women’s Basketball program in 2024-25 after a contract extension to 2030 that was announced in July.
In her first season with the Bears, Collen recorded the most wins by a rookie head coach in the country with 28. She helped lead the Bears to their 12th-straight Big 12 regular-season title and their 11th-straight top-two seed in the NCAA Tournament.
Collen implemented the 1-0 mentality that paid off with a 25-point win at No. 8 Iowa State where Baylor became the first team since Texas Tech in 2000 to start a Big 12 season 0-2 and go on to win the league.
After her first season ended in the second round of the NCAA Tournament, Collen saw three of her players be selected in the 2022 WNBA Draft, tying a program record. Two of them - NaLyssa Smith (No. 2) and Queen Egbo (No. 10) marked the first duo to be taken in the top 10 in program history.
In year two, Collen mentored two all-conference selections, two unanimous Big 12 All-Freshman Team picks and the unanimous Big 12 Freshman of the Year, Darianna Littlepage-Buggs. Littlepage-Buggs earned eight Big 12 Freshman of the Week awards during the 2022-23 campaign, becoming the first BU rookie to earn it eight-or-more times in program history. Additionally, she ranked second in the Big 12 all-time in freshman of the week honors.
Collen's Bears ended year three with a trip to the Sweet 16, highlighted by seven wins over AP-ranked opponents, the most among Big 12 programs. At the beginning of the 2023-24 season, the Bears compiled the second-best start in program history, behind 2012's 40-0 season, totaling 14-straight non-conference wins.
BU extended the fourth-longest active NCAA Tournament appearance streak in the country to 20-straight with two wins to advance out of the Virginia Tech Regional.
Collen came to Baylor from the WNBA’s Atlanta franchise, where she spent 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 former 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.
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.
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. In 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 and Reese are both enrolled at Baylor, while Logan completes high school.
Baylor Men's Basketball Head Coach
Baylor Men's Basketball Head Coach
The greatest rebuild in college basketball history reached its completion in 2021, as Scott Drew led Baylor to its first National Championship and the first Big 12 title in school history.
Entering his 22nd season in 2024-25, Scott Drew is tied as the Big 12’s longest-tenured head coach and has notched a school-record 444 victories in his first 21 years, including a 30-12 postseason record since 2009.
Over the past 17 seasons, Drew has led Baylor to 12 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 is one of four programs to earn No. 1 national rankings in four of the last eight seasons, joining Duke, Gonzaga and Kansas, while being one of five programs to reach the top-10 in five-straight seasons. The Bears have 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 18 straight seasons with at least 18 wins and 12-straight postseason appearances.
Drew has coached 14 players to All-America recognition in the last 16 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, 2020 NBC Sports National Coach of the Year and 2023 John Wooden "Keys to Life" Award winner, as well as the Big 12 Conference Coach of the Year in three of the last four seasons. Drew joined Gene Keady (Purdue) and Jay Wright (Villanova) as the only high-major coaches to win three-straight conference coach of the year honors from 2020-22. In 2024 he was honored by the National Association of Basketball Coaches with the Award for Leadership.
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.