If there was ever a college basketball season where two teams appear to be on a collision course to meet in the NCAA championship game, this would be it. Top ranked Gonzaga, and No. 2, Baylor are clearly college hoops’ two best teams but will they meet in the finals?
The biggest problem for both teams is the NCAA tournament is single elimination. With only 40 minutes (usually pressure-free for the underdog) needed to pull off an upset, the best teams don’t always go the distance. Gonzaga and Baylor will be burdened with the enormous pressure that comes with being the teams everyone expects to be in the title game. With all the extra stuff that is going on game jerseys these days, the Zags and Bears might as well include oversized Bull’s Eyes on their tops.
History is definitely not on the side of a Gonzaga-Baylor championship matchup. Let’s assume both teams are unbeaten heading into the NCAA tournament. Note: Gonzaga in the WCC is pretty much a lock but Baylor in the rugged Big 12 is not. Taking a look at how the seven unbeaten teams going into the NCAA’s have fared since 1975 (when the tourney expanded from 16 to 32 teams), only one club won a national championship and just one other made the title game.
Here’s a closer look at these seven unbeaten teams:
1975 Indiana — lost in regional finals to Kentucky.
1976 Indiana — beat Michigan in national championship.
1976 Rutgers — lost in national semifinals to Michigan.
1979 Indiana State — lost in national championship to Michigan State.
1991 UNLV — lost in national semifinals to Duke. Noteworthy: the Runnin’ Rebels had walloped Duke by 30 points in the previous year’s title game.
2014 Wichita State — lost in second round to Kentucky.
2015 Kentucky — lost in national semifinals to Wisconsin.
If you’re looking for the best comparison to this year’s Gonzaga and Baylor teams, it would probably be the 1991 UNLV squad that was shocked by Duke in the semifinals. Last week, Baylor broke the 1991 Runnin’ Rebels’ record of 16 games starting the season with wins by eight or more points. The Bears reached 17 in style with an 83-69 win over sixth-ranked Texas. And with a little luck Gonzaga would be challenging Baylor for this record as well. The 18-0 Zags have won every game by double figures other than an early-season five-point victory over West Virginia. Both teams have dominated their competition facing challenging schedules. Baylor has Top 25 wins over Illinois, Oklahoma, Kansas, Texas Tech, and Texas while Gonzaga has beaten nationally ranked Kansas, West Virginia, Iowa, and Virginia.
Finally, I’m left wondering when was the last time we had a situation like this in college basketball, with two teams so destined to meet in the finals? You might have to go all the way back to 1979 when Larry Bird’s unbeaten Indiana State club was top-ranked and Magic Johnson’s Michigan State team was No. 3. Yes, Michigan State (22-6) was ranked behind No. 2 UCLA (24-4) in the AP’s final regular-season poll but there was no way the Bruins were beating Magic’s Spartans that season. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to understand that these two future NBA greats were more than capable of carrying their teams to the championship. A look back in history reveals that Magic and Michigan State handed Bird’s Indiana State squad its only loss of the season in what was a prelude to arguably (Wilt vs. Russell?) the NBA’s all-time greatest individual rivalry.
With an NBA playoff format, Baylor and Gonzaga would surely meet in the finals much like Bird’s Boston Celtics and Magic’s Los Angeles Lakers were fixtures back in the 1980s. As a college basketball fan with no allegiance to any school, I am really hoping that we see a Gonzaga-Baylor title game. In my basketball fantasies, I would even like to see these giants who play great team basketball face off in an NBA style best-of-seven series. These teams are so evenly matched, I think they would go the distance. I must confess after watching both the Zags and Bears play multiple times, I am torn on who I think is better. Neither team has any weaknesses. I need a few more looks to make a final decision, maybe in my next blog!