The comeback of March Madness after a years' long hiatus due to the COVID-19 Pandemic felt like a breath of fresh air. All the excitement, emotions, and of course the madness, all leads to the National Championship game.
This years National Championship game featured the 31-0 Gonzaga Bulldogs going up against the 27-2 Baylor Bears. This is Baylor's first National Championship appearance since 1948 and Gonzaga's first since 2017. Both teams came into the game looking for their first ever national Championship victory. These two teams were supposed to meet in the regular season. However, the game had to be cancelled due to two members of Gonzaga's travel party, including one player, testing positive for COVID-19.
In the first half, Baylor came out with a hot 9-0 start and grabbing almost every rebound possible. It took Gonzaga nearly 4 minutes to score their first bucket. With a little over 5 minutes gone in the first half, Baylor got out to a 16-4 lead and every shot seemed to be falling for them. Gonzaga then started to pick up their scoring by keeping the deficit at 12 with the score being 38-26. At halftime, the deficit for Gonzaga was now down to 10 as the score was 47-37 in favor of the Baylor Bears.
A key factor that went against Gonzaga early on was that they struggled to get the ball to Drew Timme. On top of that, they struggling to defend against Baylor's three point shooting (7/12 from three at half) led by Jared Butler as well as not having an answer for Baylor's stellar rebounding. Baylor stellar three point shooting does not come as a surprise because they led the nation in three point shooting percentage (41.2%).
In the second half, Baylor's Jared Butler came out firing with threes made on back-to-back possessions. Gonzaga then managed to cut the Baylor lead to 9 points, hitting single digits for the first time since Baylor led 13-4. However, this only lasted for a few seconds as Baylor brought the scoring gap to 16 points with the score being 67-51. Gonzaga's struggles continued as Drew Timme got in foul trouble halfway into the second half. It was also around this time that Baylor got their biggest lead of the nigh at 20.
Baylor would continue to stay strong all the way to the end of the game, defeating Gonzaga by a score of 86-70. This is the Baylor Bears Men's Teams' first National Championship title in program history. This loss makes the 2020-2021 Gonzaga Bulldogs the third undefeated team to lose in the National Championship.
Ladies and Gentlemen, this has been March Madness.
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