After eerie NCAA season, Gonzaga and Baylor are set for historic championship game

One question remains: Can Gonzaga (31-0) win one more game to make Suggs’s miracle part of a historic season?

The answer is simple: maybe.

Gonzaga will face Baylor in a championship game Monday that matches the two teams that were clearly the best in the country all season and were the top seeds coming into the tournament. The Bears embarrassed Houston in the Final Four opener Saturday, taking complete control of the game after it was tied 8-8 four minutes in. They outscored the Cougars 37-12 the rest of the half and then toyed with them in the second half, cruising to a 78-59 victory that wasn’t even that close.

Marcus Sasser scored 17 points for Houston in the first half. The rest of his teammates combined to score three. Seriously. The Cougars had beaten four double-digit seeds to get here, and it was clear early they didn’t belong in this weight class. Coach Kelvin Sampson has coached two Final Four teams — the first at Oklahoma in 2002 — and lost the two games by a combined 28 points.

There was a break of close to 90 minutes between games to make sure the court area was washed down. About 8,200 people were in the building: Houston fans had fled, Baylor fans were celebrating, and UCLA and Gonzaga fans were on the mostly empty concourses searching for something to eat.

The entire eerie — and frankly boring — evening changed completely when the second game began. It had all the intensity the first one lacked, and UCLA was clearly not intimidated even a little bit. Again, the notion of UCLA as lovable underdog is still difficult to wrap your head around even though the Bruins have won just one national title (1995) since John Wooden stopped winning them almost annually (10 in 12 years) when he retired in 1975.

The Bulldogs had won 29 games by at least double digits during their remarkable season, with their only single-digit victory coming here in Indianapolis in early December when they beat West Virginia, 87-82. Brigham Young had given them a mini-scare in the West Coast Conference championship game, leading by 12 in the first half before Gonzaga pulled away for an 88-78 win.

Beyond that, it had been dominance, including routs of teams such as Kansas, Iowa, Auburn and Virginia. The Bulldogs put up 98 against the Cavaliers. No one scores 98 points against a Tony Bennett-coached team. Except the Bulldogs did it and made it look easy.

Saturday, though, was different. UCLA simply wouldn’t go away. Somehow, the 11-time national champions had become Cinderella in this event, riding a wave that began with an overtime win in a play-in game against Michigan State and carried them all the way through to Lucas Oil Stadium for 45 scintillating minutes.

On Tuesday, the Bruins scored 51 points in their upset of Michigan in the East Region final. On Saturday they scored 44 in the first half — and trailed by one. They shot 57.6 percent from the field and made 8 of 17 threes — and lost. Barely. Every time it seemed Gonzaga was about to take control of the game, UCLA had an answer.

Until Suggs hit his shot and there was, at last, no chance to answer. It was probably the first time all season the Bulldogs celebrated after a victory. The first 30 had pretty much been ho-hum. This was anything but ho-hum. It was thrilling from the first minute to the last.

It’s worth taking a moment to give UCLA Coach Mick Cronin some credit. He was about the fourth choice to take over a fallen program two years ago, and he has proved that his largely unnoticed record of 296-147 in 13 seasons at Cincinnati was no fluke. His last three teams there were 89-18, and it was clear Saturday that his team was prepared and believed it was going to win. Let’s not go with the “no one lost this game” cliche, but the Bruins can certainly hold their heads high.

Years ago, the NCAA insisted the semifinal losers stick around for the championship game — which was torture for the players. Fortunately, that horrific “tradition” is long gone. No one is more entitled not to be forced to watch Monday than this UCLA team.

In 1976, when Indiana went undefeated, the Hoosiers had to survive a difficult round-of-16 game against Alabama and a nervous region final win over Marquette. Then they won their two Final Four games — including the semifinal against UCLA — with ease. But those Hoosiers, the team Gonzaga will try to match Monday, never faced a scare like the one Gonzaga faced Saturday.

If not for Drew Timme, who was superb all night with 25 points, taking a last-second charge on UCLA’s brilliant Johnny Juzang (29 points), the game probably wouldn’t have reached overtime.

To win, Gonzaga needed every bit of verve and guts and skill it could muster. The question now becomes: How does their exhausting escape affect Monday night?

There is no doubt the Bears, whose game ended four hours earlier than Gonzaga’s, will be the better-rested team. Like UCLA, they have a bevy of talented guards whose quickness with the ball can cause trouble for anyone — including the Bulldogs. They aren’t 27-2 for nothing.

But Gonzaga’s 31-0 mark isn’t a fluke, either. Suggs, as Few said, has a “magical aura” and a maturity well beyond what you would expect from a freshman. Timme, a sophomore, is the most improved player in the country. And Corey Kispert, the only senior starter, was quiet Saturday, which might make him dangerous Monday. The unsung hero for Gonzaga against UCLA was Joel Ayayi, who scored 22 points, many of them coming when his teammates were starting to look discouraged.

These two teams were supposed to meet a few blocks from Lucas Oil Arena in the Indiana Pacers’ home arena in December. It was called off because of coronavirus issues. Now, at last, they will get to play on the sport’s biggest stage.

Baylor last played in a national title game in 1948 — long before either coach, Few or Scott Drew, was born. Gonzaga played in the championship game four years ago, losing a down-to-the-wire game to North Carolina. Now it gets a chance to take the final step and make history in what should be a dramatic final 40 minutes of college basketball’s strangest season.