When I was covering college football’s Texas Bowl between the Illinois Fighting Illini and the Baylor Bears, a fellow media member turned to me, after hearing “Whitney Merciles” and Corey Liuget (pronounced “legit”) turned and said to me “wow, these names your team has.”

I said, I feel the same way about your college basketball team: Tweety Carter, Stargell Love, Quincy Acy, J’mison Morgan (two different popular alcohols in one name there) and of course LaceDarius Dunn.

But while the Bears have plenty of great names on their roster; they lack much NBA tradition.

By Paul M. Banks

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