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More than a dozen times per year, students wearing identical green and gold striped shirts cram into the baseline bleachers at the Ferrell Center in Waco. There are various reasons they do this, but the biggest is that they are proud again. And they seldom look prouder than when a classmate named after a cartoon character looks up at them and smiles.

On a party weekend in March, with flights overbooked and highways congested with Spring Breakers, thousands of Baylor fans make it to New Orleans anyway. There are various reasons they do this, but the biggest is that something is pulling them there. And when a short man with a flat-top haircut comes racing out of the locker room, pointing at them in thanks, the source of the magnetism is obvious.

On any number of days throughout the four years, some of the most sought-after basketball players in America have made the decision to attend Baylor, a school better known for scandal than athletic excellence. There are various reasons they do this.

Or maybe there aren't.

“For me,” said Ekpe Udoh, one of those prized talents, “it was really just Tweety.”

“Tweety” is Demond Carvez Carter, and he makes the Pied Piper of Hamelin look like a chump. Whereas the Piper led his followers to a river and abandoned them, Carter somehow led his to a far less inviting place, then stuck around to help them rebuild it.

Of the many program-changing moments that brought the Bears from the Big 12 cellar and the 2003 murder of player Patrick Dennehy by a teammate to this weekend's appearance in their first Sweet 16, Carter's arrival is indisputably one of the most important.

At Reserve Christian in Louisiana, he was the nation's highest-scoring high school player in history. He was a McDonald's All-American, and no one with that designation ever had played at Baylor before. The record will show that Bears coach Scott Drew signed Carter, but in reality, even Drew concedes Carter is usually the one doing the convincing.

“He's just one of those people that you just gravitate to,” Drew said. “When he came to Baylor, that opened a lot more recruiting doors for us. ... I know our players would run through a wall for him.”

Carter, whose Bears will take on Saint Mary's in the South Regional semifinals Friday at Reliant Stadium in Houston, is part of a senior class that has won more games (87) than any group in Baylor history. The kid whose love of the little yellow bird on “Looney Tunes” provided him with a lasting nickname at the age of 5 isn't an intimidating presence, but he's effective nonetheless.

At 5-foot-11, 185 pounds, Carter averages 15.1 points, 6.0 assists and 2.8 rebounds per game. Far more important, though, is the way the senior point guard runs the show for a team that was picked 10th in the Big 12 and now is just two victories from the Final Four.

“Winning is the most important thing,” Carter said, “and I think we do a great job of winning.”

Said Udoh: “We go as he goes.”

In recent weeks, Carter has been inundated with questions about why he came to Baylor, why a player with his choices would have taken such a risk. Each time, he shrugs his shoulders. To hear him tell it, he always saw the potential for kids sitting in the bleachers, and fans trekking to the tournament, and talented teammates following him to unprecedented heights.

“This was the reason why I came here,” Carter said. “I gave everything to them; they gave everything to me. I (wanted) to come here to be part of something special and be part of a changing program. I think that's happened.”