Madness Marches On, But Gonzaga Vs. Baylor Is What Polls Told Us All Along
It will be hard for the NCAA championship game to match, well, the madness of Gonzaga's win over UCLA. But here where are -- the No. 1 Zags vs. No. 2 Baylor, Monday night in Indianapolis.
Be there.
But let's take a step back for a second. Let's focus for one (shining) moment on Gonzaga's miracle 93-90 victory against UCLA. It was a back-and-forth overtime game. It seemed whoever had the ball last would win.
Gonzaga had the ball last. More specifically, the ball was in the hands of guard Jalen Suggs, a likely top-five NBA draft pick. The game was tied. Suggs barely crossed half-court before rising up. Bank shot at the buzzer. Ball game. The unbeaten Zags are still alive.
Needless to say, the Twitter world reacted -- including some of the biggest names in the game. No, not just the college game, and not even just the basketball game.
While Gonzaga played its first close game of the tournament (and really, the season), Baylor made easy work of Houston. And what is so interesting about this tournament, as great as it has been, is that we truly are right back where we started.
Gonzaga was No. 1 in all the polls all year. Baylor was No. 2. There were undoubtedly some major upsets this year -- from Oral Roberts to Abilene Christian to those crazy kids at Loyola-Chicago. Heck, even UCLA was a No. 11 seed and had to win in a play-in game.
But here we are anyway. Gonzaga vs. Baylor. It's what everyone predicted, but probably not what anyone expected. And in some cases, it took some madness to get to this matchup.
And now . . .