Ever wonder what became of Bryce Drew, the Valparaiso player you see every March, hitting that buzzer-beating three-point shot against Mississippi in the 1998 NCAA Tournament?

He’s the busiest man in college basketball. Not only does he have to perform the duties of a Division I assistant coach for Valparaiso University, he also has to find time to fulfill his passion as No. 1 long-distance fan of Baylor University basketball.

Wednesday night, that meant coming home from practice and spending $5.95 and 31â2 hours in front of his computer, watching Baylor defeat host Texas A&M, 116-110, in five overtimes.

“Cheaper than a movie,” said Bryce Drew, Baylor coach Scott Drew’s younger brother, of subscribing to the game via the Internet.

The biggest shot of Bryce’s life, which also happens to be one of the biggest in the history of college basketball, came against Mississippi in the first round of the 1998 NCAA Tournament in Oklahoma City.

Scott Drew was an assistant at Valpo then, and Homer Drew was, and is again, the head coach. Bryce had missed a leaning three-pointer with five seconds remaining, seemingly ending Valpo’s upset bid. But after a couple of missed free throws at the other end, Valpo had 2.5 seconds to go the length of the court. One baseball pass and a touch pass later, the ball was in Bryce’s hands in time for him to hit the game-winner from well beyond the arc. (Later that night on the same court, No. 1 seed Kansas pummeled Prairie View A&M, only to be upset by Rhode Island in the second round).

As improbable as that Valpo comeback was, it takes a back seat to the one Scott Drew is directing in Waco. Baylor, which will come to Allen Fieldhouse on Feb. 9, takes a 16-2 record and a No. 25 Associated Press ranking into today’s home game against Oklahoma.

Two seasons ago, the NCAA didn’t allow Baylor to play any conference games, the final penalty from the scandal that involved one former player, Carlton Dotson, murdering another, Patrick Dennehy, a revelation of improper tuition payments having been made for Dennehy and a recording of former coach Dave Bliss ordering an assistant coach to make up a story that Dennehy was a drug dealer as a means of explaining how he could afford tuition.

That mess made the Baylor job unappealing to some, but not to Scott Drew, who had taken over for his father for one year at Valpo, then handed it back to him and headed for Waco, optimism in tow.

“When my dad came to Valpo, a lot of people told him he couldn’t come here and win,” said Bryce, who played six NBA seasons. “He came here and turned it around. Scott has that same fire in him. When that opened up, people said it was a dead-end job and he won’t be able to win there. He was confident from Day 1 he had a chance to have a winning program.”

Scott Drew had the confidence to recruit some of the nation’s top-ranked high school players, landing one, freshman LaceDarius Dunn, one year after almost getting another, Kansas’ Darrell Arthur.

If Baylor makes it to the Sweet 16 the way Valpo did in 1998, by then it won’t be such a surprise, but Homer Drew still would want a memento of some sort from it. He could it put it next to the basketball he has displayed at home, the ball Bryce Drew swished through the net in Oklahoma City.