Baylor manager Scott Drew is hugged by security guard Mark Vital after the Bears defeat Gonzaga for the national championship in Indianapolis on Monday. Baylor won 86-70. Darron Cummings / Associated Press
INDIANAPOLIS – Damn it, everyone is entitled to a night off. But that blow to Baylor prevailed over Gonzaga with the national title – no one saw it coming.
Baylor striker Jonathan Tchamwa Tchatchoua plays Gonzaga in the second half of the championship game on Monday in Indianapolis. Darron Cummings / Associated Press
The newly mated bears erased Gonzaga’s shaky-legged march Monday night in an 86-70 runaway that brought the first national title of this once-suppressed program back to Waco, Texas.
Jared Butler scored 22 points and MaCio Teague had 19 for the Bears (28-2), who finished second or third on the AP poll all year round – but never first, all because of a team.
Baylor hit the offensive glass and scrapped – and won – the lion’s share of the 50-50 balls. He never made this a miracle by Jalen Suggs. The Gonzaga newcomer’s summer beater near the Half-Court logo brought the Zags to the final in a game that was considered the first real test of the season.
You went against UCLA. Against Baylor? Not even close.
After gaining a 19-point lead early on, the Bears never let Gonzaga get closer than nine. Butler made four 3-points and added seven assists and was named Most Outstanding Player of the Final Four.
“They came out, they fed each other, we made a great start and we’re pretty good defensively,” said Baylor coach Scott Drew.
Guard Davion Mitchell – nicknamed “Off Night” because so many opponents meet you when they go against him – finished the race with 15 points and did his best at Suggs. The freshman finished the race with 22 points – most of that after the Zags were in a desperate mode – and is likely to go to the NBA lottery next.
Gonzaga’s first loss in 32 games this season – 36 from 2019-20 – leaves Indiana’s team the last to go undefeated from 1975-76. If Bob May, Quinn Buckner and the rest of Coach Knight’s team had kept the champagne cold to celebrate – a la the perfect ’72 Miami Dolphins – they could have uncorked it by half time.
Or earlier.
Baylor had taken a 9-0 lead after 2 1/2 minutes and the Bulldogs only suffered their fourth double-digit deficit of the season 11-1. They recorded their biggest deficit of the season – 15 points – at 7:10. By then, Suggs had had two fouls and was watching from the bench.
He made an effort to breathe fire into his teammates or the Zags fans – who made about as much noise as the cardboard cutouts scattered around Lucas Oil Stadium to make it look full.
“Let’s go!” Suggs yelled after being fouled in a layup early in the second half. He missed the free throw.
But especially in the title game, it was Suggs’ memorable basket two nights earlier that laid the foundation for this one. His bench shot on summer brought to a close one of the most exciting college basketball games of all time. About 46 hours after that emotional roller coaster ride, it was clear again that the Zags had been gassed.
The sequence that best illustrated the energy gap came about six minutes into the competition when Jonathan Tchamwa Tchatchoua knocked the ball out of Drew Timme’s hands and the bears worked the ball in front of Mitchell. He missed a layup, but Tchamwa Tchatchoua got the offensive rebound and fed Adam Flagler for a 3rd.
Gonzaga was practically there for everything.
This was one of the most anticipated finals in recent history, a get-together of the top two teams of the past two seasons – this one and in 2020 when COVID-19 scrapped the action before tournament time. They were supposed to meet in Indy on December 5th this season, but a COVID-19 outbreak on the Gonzaga team put an end to those plans.
But the game didn’t live up to the hype and got out of hand early on.
Baylor had nine offensive rebounds in the first half, which led to nine points of the second chance, and wore down the Zags in defense. Gonzaga shot 54% off the ground in the first 20 minutes, but Baylor had 16 more tries – the kind of math that doesn’t fit for a team playing in the title game.
A glimmer of hope for the Zags came when Tchamwa Tchatchoua joined another great Baylor man, Flo Thamba, with four fouls on the bench and was 14:43 left.
Andrew Nembhard’s basket on the next possession brought Gonzaga’s deficit below double digits for the first time in its earliest days. Baylor responded with a 9-2 run interrupted by Mark Vital’s rejection from Corey Kispert, then a quick pause that resulted in an easy 3 from Flagler.
From there it was over. Yes, Gonzaga was perhaps the most observable team of the year with its dramatic run to perfection, not to mention the shot of the tournament.
But Baylor cut the nets. It is the culmination of an 18-year renovation that no other program has seen before.
Drew took on a roster of just seven fellows and a team that stared at years of NCAA parole after a teammate was murdered by a teammate in 2003. The Bears won only 21 games in Drew’s first three years.
It took a lot of imagination and more than a little trust to believe that a day like this could happen.
It took the same thing to hang a loss on the Bulldogs.
But that kind of loss? Only Baylor could have seen it coming.
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