preamble
No matter what Baylor does in the next few hours, it’s all about Gonzaga. As we made our way to the start of the men’s tournament, the main story was whether any team could stop Gonzaga’s attempt not to ever win the first NCAA championship, but to end an undefeated season.
In fact, I probably just witnessed Gonzaga Bulldogs’ biggest challenge in the UCLA Bruins, who managed to make the unprecedented journey from the First Four to the Final Four and then forced Gonzaga to play an overtime and almost take forced them to play a second. . Then, of course, Jalen Suggs instantly made a legendary three-point from almost half of the field to put a game away from perfection.
Jalen Suggs beat three.
It was a great game, to the point where the instant analysis came to be “maybe it was really the Men’s Championship Game.” Well, the Baylor bears could hope that everyone overlooks them. After all, before Gonzaga proved vulnerable for the first time in any tournament, he struggled to put an 11of-sowing arrived, Baylor absolutely surpassed the 2nd place Houston 78-59. If they are overlooked as just a footnote to Gonzaga’s story, maybe that will work for them.
This is the opposite of what the Bulldogs are all about: the pressure is still on Mark Few’s team. Gonzaga spent most of his life as the middle major who could never win the big game, always hesitating at the biggest moment. Until this run, their most memorable moment was Adam Morrison who burst into tears on the field, while they were crushed by (of all the teams) UCLA. Literally unmatched all season, there is a real chance that if he does not win this final game, then the time will never come. They almost saw that everything fell apart on Saturday, and if they fight today, Baylor will start to smell blood. Maybe this will go as it is written, with Gonzaga easily handling Baylor or maybe … or maybe it’s just who has the last ball.
That’s how it should work, of course, it’s all about the players on the field. We talk about programs, coaches, rankings, parentheses and everything that surrounds the tournament, but it’s up to the athletes on the field. They are the reason we follow and ultimately control the outcome. Okay, that sounds like a lot, but that makes college basketball even for those of us who remain extremely cynical about everything that happens behind the scenes.
If you want to join today’s liveblog, feel free to email your thoughts to [email protected] or send them to Twitter @HunterFelt. It is the game of the NCAA Men’s National Basketball Championship at Lucas Oil Stadium. They say we’ll start around 9:20 PM EST, but we’ll be back here a long time.