THE GAME WE WAITED FOR SINCE DECEMBER
Long droughts and deja vu as 10 battle for final four spots
HAPPY EASTER & HAPPY 81st BIRTHDAY DAD, CA (smt) – Both #1W-Gonzaga and #1S-Baylor are making just their second final and seeking their first NCAA title. Baylor has not trailed in the second half except for a brief 2-point deficit midway through the 2nd half vs #5S-Villanova and demolished #2MW-Houston while, until the Final Four, Gonzaga had not trailed since early in the first half vs #8W-Oklahoma. But, oh, that game vs #11E-UCLA. The Zags, having had won 27 straight by double-digits, could have choked or played tentative when it was close late but persevered against a well-coached Bruin team (for once) and needed a denial of an easy UCLA dunk, a gutsy charge call, and buzzer beater bank shot to prevail in overtime. Despite the close call, Gonzaga is still favored by five with a very high over/under of 160.
While Baylor slipped to #3 after a loss in the Big 12 tournament, the past two years and this tournament has shown these have been consistently the best two teams in the country (both were #1-2 in the NET rankings though). The highly anticipated Dec 5th matchup was cancelled due to COVID so now we get to finally see these teams play each other. However, people still picked Illinois more than Baylor (29 vs 19, 72 vs 49 to make final) as Baylor did have a tougher region to start. The only times the top 2 teams were picked to make the Final were in ’07 (42 Ohio St, 36 Florida), ’05 (45 Illinois, 36 UNC), and ’99 (32 Duke, 15 UConn).
Continue reading