I figured it was only fair to give Gonzaga a few days of mourning after the rubble that was left at the Zags’ doorstep Monday night. College hoop fans are probably still wondering how a game that looked like it had so much potential to become an ESPN Classic turned into a 86-70 Baylor breeze.
Simply put, Baylor was and is better than Gonzaga and deserving of a national championship. In an earlier blog, I made the case that Gonzaga and Baylor were clearly college basketball’s best and should meet for a national title, with the prediction the Bears would win a close one. I even joked that if the two national powers squared off in an NBA best-of-seven series, it would probably go the distance. I thought the two teams were that evenly matched. I have to admit I was seriously wrong on that count, although the five reasons I had for Baylor beating the Zags were mostly on the mark. After watching Gonzaga (31-1) go down for the first time this season and fall short of becoming the first team since Indiana’s 1976 squad (32-0) to go unbeaten, it was clear to me that if both teams played their best basketball, Baylor would win most of the time. In an NBA best-of-seven series, the Zags would make it to six games if they were lucky.
So Baylor finishes the year at 28-2, and with all the hype surrounding Gonzaga’s chase to equal Indiana in the record books, what seems to have been forgotten is that the Bears could have been unbeaten, too. Baylor was every bit as dominating as Gonzaga until late in the season, when a three-week Covid layoff threw the Bears off their game and resulted in losses to Top 20 Big 12 foes Kansas and Oklahoma State. For that reason alone, it didn’t make much sense to me that I couldn’t find one college basketball pundit who was picking Baylor to beat Gonzaga in the final. In fact, some pundits were flat out disrespecting the Bears. After Gonzaga squeezed past UCLA 93-90 in overtime in the semifinals (now that was a future ESPN Classic!), ESPN’s Jay Bilas said there wasn’t another team in the country other than the Zags that could have beaten UCLA on that night. Seriously, Jay, were you taking a nap when Baylor was pummeling a very good Houston team, 78-59, in the other semifinal?
In the national title game, Baylor’s aggressive switching defense grounded the Zags’ electrifying offense. On the other end, Gonzaga’s same switching defense was shockingly bad when the Zags’ big men Drew Timme, Corey Kispert, and Anton Watson switched on ball screens and were caught trying to contain Baylor’s dynamic three-guard lineup of Jared Butler, Davion Mitchell, and MaCio Teague. Yes, the Bears’ guard combination is among the best in NCAA history. Certainly, the best I’ve seen since future NBA players Deron Williams, Dee Brown, and Luther Head took Illinois to the national title game (a 75-70 loss to North Carolina) in 2005. The Zags’ big men might have had a fighting chance of stopping Baylor’s guards if tripping was allowed in the NCAA rule book.
Matters looked so bleak for Gonzaga in the first half that Coach Mark Few even switched into a 2-3 zone for one of the first times all season. Give Few a lot of credit for this gutsy coaching move because it actually worked for a while and helped keep his team within striking distance (47-37) at halftime. The way Baylor’s guards were exploiting the Zag switches and burying open 3’s, my hunch is Few’s troops would have been down 20 or more at the break if he hadn’t made the move.
Just minutes into the second half we knew this hyped-up battle was over and falling way short of an ESPN Classic (it was boring enough watching it once). I must confess watching Gonzaga huddle up after the game in a unity circle had me teary-eyed. It was hard not feeling sorry for the Zags after such a magical season. I hope not too much attention is given to the fact that Few has fallen short in two NCAA championship tries, with critics claiming he can’t win the big one. The Zags lost to a superb Baylor team, not UCLA. Few is an amazing coach and what he has done at Gonzaga in his 22 years is one of the sports world’s (not just college basketball’s) all-time success stories.
And finally, some well-deserved praise for Baylor boss Scott Drew. Baylor’s program was in a shambles when Drew took over in 2003 and without much fanfare, he has built the Bears into one of college basketball’s elite programs. Now with a national title on his resume, it’s only a matter of time before Drew heads to the Hall of Fame. Someday, Few will get there, too, and I suspect he will add a national title (or more) to his resume on his way there.