The 2021 NCAA men's basketball tournament probably should have ended Saturday night about the time Gonzaga's ridiculously talented Jalen Suggs tossed in a banked 40-footer to knock off UCLA 93-90 in overtime.
As ESPN analyst Jay Bilas gushed afterward: "That was one of the best games I have ever seen."
But could we get a better one Monday night when coach Mark Few's Zags, seeded No. 1 overall in the tourney and now 31-0 in this pandemic-shortened season, meet the second-ranked Baylor Bears (27-2) for either program's first NCAA title?
In a year of so much imperfection, isn't it a perfect ending that these two titanic teams - they were supposed to meet back on Dec. 5 before the game was canceled hours before tipoff due to a positive COVID-19 test in the Gonzaga program - are now finally facing each other on the sport's biggest stage for its biggest prize? Is it not the Godzilla-Kong showdown of the 2020-21 season?
After the Bears blew out Houston 78-59 in the first semifinal of Saturday's Final Four in Indianapolis, Baylor coach Scott Drew was asked about the possibility of a title matchup with Gonzaga, which hadn't tipped off yet against UCLA.
"Coach Few and I joked when the game got canceled, 'You know what, if we end up playing this game in the Final Four or the championship game, that sounds like a better idea,' so that was obviously the goal for both of us," Drew said.
AP photo by Michael Conroy / Baylor guard Jared Butler gets a hug from coach Scott Drew during the second half of the Bears' rout of Houston in the Final Four on Saturday.So here we are, the two best teams for most of this uncertain season, the two teams almost every college basketball junkie wanted to see play - the game the sport desperately needed to be played in order to shore up this year's sagging tourney television ratings and hopefully renew interest from casual, March Madness-only fans - being played on the season's final night.
But can it live up to the perfection that was the UCLA-Gonzaga semifinal?
In fact, as semifinals go, you might have to go back to 1974, when North Carolina State knocked off seven-time reigning champ UCLA - yes, seven-time reigning champ - in double overtime to top the Zags over this year's Bruins.
After UCLA took a seven-point lead in that second extra period - in today's world some graphic would have popped up at that point proclaiming the likelihood of a Bruins victory at something like 98.9% - the Wolfpack somehow went on a 13-3 run to win it. And in a play eerily similar to Suggs' stunning block of Cody Riley - some might say he fouled Riley on his right arm - N.C. State's David Thompson blocked UCLA's Keith (later Jamaal) Wilkes from behind at the rim.
Such games don't come along often, and this year's Gonzaga-UCLA contest will enjoy a similar shelf life of excellence. Yet Bears-Zags could actually top it, especially if Baylor can turn in the same kind of overwhelming performance it did against Houston while racing out to a 45-20 halftime lead before coasting home.
"That's the best team that I've seen in the seven years I've been at Houston," Cougars coach Kelvin Sampson said. "They're really, really good."
Pressed for details, he focused on Baylor's guard trifecta of Jared Butler, Davion Mitchell and MaCio Teague, who totaled 40 points, 21 assists, nine rebounds, four steals and but three turnovers against the Cougars.
"Those three guards are unique in that they can shoot 3s, make free throws and then get to the rim and finish," Sampson said. "Teague is a great finisher, Mitchell is a good finisher and Butler is just a natural scorer."
That doesn't necessarily mean Baylor can score enough to keep up with Gonzaga, which has aveaged more than 91 points a game this season and hung 81 in regulation against UCLA, which gave up but 59.8 points per game in regulation in its previous five tourney contests.
After all, against the Bruins, the Zags hit 59% of their shots from the floor and dished out 26 assists on 37 made field goals, with center Drew Timme leading all five Gonzaga starters into double figures with 25 points. And this was on a night when the Zags, 37% 3-point shooters this season, knocked down 33% against the Bruins as they went 7-for-21 outside the arc.
Said UCLA coach Mick Cronin afterward: "They do have really good players. Timme is a great offensive player. But they have to overcome some things. I don't want to sit here and tell you my opinion; point those things out. But the reason I bring that up is that Mark is such a great coach that very few teams execute at their level, at their pace. They do a lot of changing of what they're doing, and it was such a chess match to coach against him. He's just vastly, vastly underrated as a tactician because people say they've got all this talent."
Both Baylor and Gonzaga have a lot of talent, as well as experience. Suggs will be the only freshman starter in the game.
As the Bears' Butler noted Saturday of this showdown: "They've got (future) pros. We've got (future) pros."
But only Gonzaga has Timme and Suggs, who just might be the overall No. 1 pick in this summer's NBA draft.
So I'll somewhat reluctantly stand by my Friday pick of Zags 81, Bears 73, but hope that the final will somehow become "One Shining Moment" better than Gonzaga-UCLA. At the end of an uncertain, tumultuous season, college basketball may or may not deserve it, but it certainly needs such a finish.
Mark WiedmerContact Mark Wiedmer at mwiedmer@timesfreepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @TFPWeeds.