If Arizona beats Baylor on Tuesday at least in part because of all the scouting video the Wildcats and their coaches prepared with this week, Bears coach Scott Drew may have only himself to blame.
That’s because one of Drew’s many former video-conversant staffers, Arizona assistant coach Rem Bakamus, is the guy who is scouting the Bears this time.
A former walk-on player at Gonzaga from Longview, Washington, who was the son of a longtime, successful high school coach, Bakamus said he always had a “coaching lens” when watching the game. But he said he found that vision grew sharper in three years at Baylor as a graduate assistant before re-joining former Gonzaga assistant coach Tommy Lloyd at Arizona in 2021.
“It was a very video-centric graduate assistant program where you’re the one cutting up a lot of film,” Bakamus said of his Baylor experience. “You’re the one delivering film to coaches. You got your eyes on everything as a GA to help your coaches. So that’s where I really cut my teeth with scouting.”
Arizona staffer Rem Bakamus (right) joins USA players celebrating their gold medal in the 2024 FIBA AmeriCup in Buenos Aires on Sunday.
Bakamus said Baylor would typically have two graduate assistants assigned to work with a fulltime assistant coach on any one Baylor opponent. The fulltime assistant would take the boiled-down clips and lead on the scouting strategy, while the GAs also provided other support.
“We would do a lot of side projects with personnel analytics, like what percentage of the time does a player drive less? Or what percentage of the time are they in horns alignment?” Bakamus said, referring to what types of sets an opponent. “We would create these databases for the coaches so that they could have that stuff readily available, and then we just provided whatever they needed.”
Toward the end of his Baylor stint, Bakamus picked up a championship ring in some pretty unique circumstances. Not only did the Bears pick up the 2021 NCAA title during a weird, COVID-restricted season in which the entire tournament was played in Indiana, but they also did so by beating Gonzaga, of all teams, in the championship game.
“It was definitely a unique experience,” Bakamus said. “It was tough because I love those guys. They gave me a lot to help my career.”
After the championship, Lloyd was hired off Gonzaga’s staff to replace Sean Miller at Arizona, and Lloyd then invited Bakamus to join the Wildcats as their Director of Player Development.
Bakamus “went to Baylor, and he did an incredible job for them,” Lloyd said. “Rem is someone I’ve known and been close to for a long time. So we were able to give him the opportunity to get his full time coaching career started here, and he’s done a great job.”
When NCAA rules allowed basketball staffs to carry five fulltime assistants instead of just three before last season, Lloyd promoted Bakamus and Ken Nakagawa, UA’s Director of Advanced Scouting, to assistant coaches. He also invited Bakamus to join him last summer on USA Basketball’s U18 staff as a special assistant.
For the first time this season, Lloyd also began assigning both Bakamus and Nakagawa to become the lead scouts for selected games. Bakamus debuted on Dec. 7 against Southern Utah, while Nakagawa had the scout for UA’s Dec. 21 game against Central Michigan.
Former Gonzaga player Rem Bakamus is the Wildcats’ new director of player development.
Both had already scouted countless games before over their three previous seasons at UA, just with one of the fulltime assistants as a lead scout. Bakamus said he often worked with UA associate head coach Jack Murphy.
“It was just whatever he needs,” Bakamus said. “Murph already is elite with the scout. So if there was something he has a question on, like ‘Hey, can you go check this?’ or you’d help him with the players tendencies. Murph’s always so dialed in, it’s hard to find anything he doesn’t already know about a team.”
As a lead scout now at UA, Bakamus said he’ll watch an opponents’ games and occasionally consult with Lloyd or Murphy in making a strategy.
“I’ll send a video or two to coach Lloyd or coach Murph if I’ve got a question, `Hey, do you think we should do this? Or ‘What do you think about guarding it this way?’ “ Bakamus said.
“It’s pretty much how they did it at Gonzaga, and it really works, because you’ve got your eyes on everything yourself and then coach Lloyd always watches a ton of film on whoever we’re going to play. He’s the best in the business at scouting and figuring out ways to help us win. So we collaborate on the plan and then deliver it to the guys.”
Rim shots
- Baylor jumped back into the Associated Press college basketball poll at No. 25 while Arizona received the 29th most points in voting Monday.
Auburn (15-1) took over the top spot in the AP poll after Tennessee (15-1) was crushed at Florida (15-1) while Iowa State (14-1) jumped from No. 3 to No. 2 and Duke from No. 4 to No. 3.
Among other UA opponents this season, Kansas (12-3) jumped from 11 to 9, Houston (12-3) moved from 12 to 10 while Oklahoma, West Virginia and UCLA all dropped out.
- Iowa State’s Curtis Jones (player) and Joshua Jefferson (newcomer) swept Big 12 men’s basketball weekly awards after the Cyclones beat Utah and Texas Tech last week.
Jones averaged 24.5 points, 3.0 rebounds, 3.0 assists and 2.0 steals while not committing a single turnover. In Iowa State’s 82-59 victory over Utah, Jones scored 23 points on 10-of-17 shooting from the field, adding five rebounds and six assists. In an overtime win at Texas Tech, Jones scored a game-high 26 points.
Jefferson scored 17 points in both ISU wins. His buzzer-beating layup sent the game at Texas Tech to overtime, where he then hit the game-tying and game-winning free throws with four seconds left. The forward from Las Vegas went 5-of-10 from the field and added seven rebounds against Utah.
