[ad_1]
INDIANAPOLIS – As half time ended with less than a minute to go and Gonzaga’s players moved onto the pitch and prepared for the second half, Jalen Suggs slipped behind Omar Ballo and intentionally bumped into his teammate.
The 7-foot, 260-pound Ballo turned, wondering who was looking for trouble. He looked down to see Suggs assault for a split second, then released a playful smile. The teammates burst into laughter and went arm-over-shoulder in the team crest. The timing was quick – you would miss it if you weren’t watching – but something so simple can sometimes reveal deeper truths.
This Gonzaga team is not only great, it’s close and it borders on the impossible. The Bulldogs’ camaraderie and close bond is representative of a global culture that Mark Few has nurtured for over two decades. The occasional 85-66 annihilation of USC by GU put the Bulldogs two wins in sports history. Two more wins and this team will be one for the ages.
This major plotline leads our eight storylines to know as we head into the final weekend of the season. Consider this your first look – and cheat sheet – on the biggest stories and sidebars leading up to Saturday’s double header.
Gonzaga, UCLA, Baylor and Houston are in the Final Four. Listen to the latest episode of Eye on College Basketball to prepare for the final weekend of the season.
1. Undefeated Gonzaga is two wins away from immortality
This one dominates all the others below. Gonzaga (30-0) winning a national championship with an unbeaten record would transcend college basketball. The only major American sport that sees undefeated teams win national titles with any type of semi-consistency is college football. The Zags to get there would be something special, all the more because of the way Gonzaga has played and the league (WCC) he still plays in. UNLV (1990) is the last team to win a national championship outside of the power conference structure. Of all the schools, to be the one that finally repeats what was last done in 1976, if it’s Gonzaga, that will be poetic and also appealing. No other sport could tell you a story like this.
An undefeated Gonzaga would be a particularly seductive achievement that only college basketball can provide.
There is also something appropriate about Gonzaga having to take out UCLA in order to make a national title game and try to finish an unbeaten season. Former royalty of hoops against the most modern of programs (and King of the West) for more than a decade in a row. If Gonzaga is to match John Wooden’s undefeated feats of yesteryear, he’ll have to go through Wooden’s schedule to do so. Connection.
2. The Zags are ready to avenge Adam Morrison – again
In 2006, Gonzaga took a 17-point lead in the Western Region semifinals against UCLA. This is one of the most frustrating choke jobs I have ever seen in college basketball. (And I rarely use that descriptor for a varsity team.) UCLA stunned the Bulldogs at a time when Gonzaga was on its way to becoming a nationally viable program with National Player of the Year Adam Morrison. The sight of Morrison crying on the court after the loss is one of the indelible images of the past 20 years in college hoops.
It could have upset Gonzaga. Instead, the opposite has happened.
Fast forward 15 years and Gonzaga is in the top 10 programs as UCLA gains momentum after a decade of tearing. These teams met at the 2015 Sweet 16 (Gonzaga won), but whenever these two teams meet in the playoffs, it will always come down to 2006. Saturday’s Final Four game between the Bruins and Bulldogs pits the brave UCLA as a 14-point dog, the tallest in Final Four history. If I know Morrison, he’ll be in the house. Don’t expect this one to end in Gonzaga’s tears – although UCLA has thrived on being the underdog in four of the last five games.
3. Almost everyone wants Gonzaga-Baylor
With all due respect to Houston and UCLA for getting this far, but those who have followed college basketball since the start of this COVID-laden season know the Zags and Bears were both ranked and considered a level above the rest of the sport for the top 75% of the regular season. Then most of the Baylor roster contracted the virus, he went on hiatus for 23 days, and although it took a while the Bears are pretty much back to where we saw them from. in December and January.
Gonzaga, meanwhile, has risen to a level all his own. The stats back it up: GU’s efficiency margin at KenPom stands at +38.82. The season-ending record is 2014-15 Kentucky (+36.91), which of course lost in the national semifinals to Wisconsin – their first loss of the season.
Another subplot: Gonzaga and Baylor were supposed to play against each other in early December. Mark Few and Scott Drew arranged the game at the end of the summer, only to cancel it when Gonzaga’s COVID issues prompted the game to be canceled two hours before the tip. The two teams have traveled separate routes, but GU-BU for the 2021 natty would be the most appropriate and deserved end to this season.
USATSI
4. The battle for Texas
This is the first time in Final Four history that Texas has had two representatives. Programs have a lot in common and a lot not. Both ended final four droughts for decades: Houston 35, Baylor 71. Houston was a leading program from the mid-1960s to the mid-1980s. Then it fell into the no- relevance and decay for nearly three decades.
Baylor? It was a non-entity in men’s basketball for most of the second half of the 20th century. The early years of the 21st century brought the worst scandal ever in men’s college basketball.
Now, both programs appropriately represent Texas after the state sent a record seven schools to the NCAA tournament. Will the Cougars fully restore their roar or will the Bears gain one more and help fulfill the Gonzaga-Baylor prophecy? The last Texas team to win it all was in 1966 (Texas Western).
5. Jalen Suggs’ Luck at No.1 in the NBA Draft
While Drew Timme won the Western Region’s Most Outstanding Player title, the first-year point guard Gonzaga is the team’s top draft prospect and is the element that elevated the Zags to a level they’ve never been before. Suggs is a fictional novel in transition and generally someone you can’t take your eyes off of when the ball is in their hands. Fresh out of a 10/18/8 game, Suggs averaged 12.3 points, 5.5 rebounds, 4.8 assists in 30.5 minutes in the rack. The numbers aren’t outrageous, but Suggs’ penchant for mind-blowing games is. Can he overtake Cade Cunningham for No.1 status in the 2021 NBA Draft? Maintaining those averages while leading Gonzaga to his first national championship could only fuel this debate.
6. Kelvin Sampson’s return from exile to the Final Four
For an in-depth read on this, my post-Houston post-win column is an overview of who Sampson is, what got him out of college basketball, how he came back, and why it had to be. done in a school like Houston. Sampson’s first Final Four trip was in 2002 with Oklahoma. Now 65, Sampson will have a moment on the big stage that revalidates him as one of the best coaches in the sport. Many of his contemporaries would rank him among the top 10-15 tacticians in the game. This whiteboard reputation will grow from corporate recognition to national recognition through the revitalization and complete overhaul of UH.
Sampson isn’t a true redemption story, but the complicated layers of his past make his journey even more interesting. In 2008, the idea that he would one day come back to this point was unthinkable.
7. The Pac-12 dream tournament is alive
The Pac-12 went 13-4 in this tournament and covered almost every ATS game. It was a phenomenal march for the Conference of Champions. Even bringing a team to the Final Four is cause for celebration in the West, as the league doesn’t bring a team to the big stage every year. The UCLA party crash is only the sixth time since 2000 that a Pac-12 / Pac-10 team has made it so far.
The 2021 NCAA tournament will ultimately be remembered for three things: 1) Gonzaga either winning it all or losing just shy to make history 2) being the most upset tournament ever (we’re at 14 and count in light of UCLA which succeeds Tuesday night) and 3) the relaunch of Pac-12. This flag is still waving, courtesy of UCLA.
The Pac-12 run has benefited the league more money than ever before on NCAA tournament units, and that could signal – could – signal a change in direction for the league over the next half-decade. I have to understand that Bill Walton is going to make his way into Lucas Oil Stadium on Saturday, right?
8. A once in a lifetime tournament experience comes to an end
I can write with first-hand experience that the coronavirus and all of its dangers and threats still loom over Indianapolis and this tournament. Don’t keep that in mind. To date, only one game has been called off between the NCAA Men’s and Women’s tournaments. There are six games left in total between the two. There are five days left to finish this tough season, but we haven’t finished it yet. Each morning brings reasons for cautious optimism. This tournament has been as logistically difficult as anything that has been done in sports around the world since the pandemic struck. When it’s all over, everyone can finally breathe a sigh of relief. But we’re not there yet, and until the end of the tournament, COVID-19 is still the most important story attached to this tournament, even if it is the least joyous and the most unwanted.
Can we do five more days without more disruption? Hopefully the chaos is left at court and nowhere else.
[ad_2]
Source link