INDIANAPOLIS – – Jalen Suggs opened his first game after hitting one of the biggest shots in the history of the NCAA Tournament with a 3-point fault and then an immediate offensive foul when he ran over a defender.
It was the first sign that Gonzaga’s effort for perfection, built around an often continuous execution, was in trouble against Baylor.
The offensive that reached a huge total struggled to get a clean appearance at the beginning or to hit three points. A reliable defense could not delay the Bears’ 3-point shot or keep Baylor away from the glass.
And on the last night of the season, the Bulldogs – who apparently had everything working since the season’s opening hint – ended with an out-of-sync and disconnected display in the 86-70 Monday night loss to the Bears in the championship game. NCAA.
The defeat ended his chance to become the first undefeated national champion since Indiana in 1976.
Gonzaga (31-1) hit 51%, but ended up with 70 points, the lowest of the season, after an average of 91.6 points – more than six points better than any other team in Division I. In addition to these numbers, however , was the simple fact that the Zags seemed to be struggling to put everything together in one night when the Bears went on the attack.
Suggs recorded his name in the history of the tournament by hitting a straight shot across the court to beat UCLA in overtime in a national electric semifinal on Saturday night. But he took a starting position after suffering two initial fouls in this one, leaving aside the best prospect for the Zags in the NBA, while the Bears jumped on them to a 9-0 advantage.
He finally came back and finished with the team’s best score, 22 points, 15 of them after the break. The problem was that the Zags never seemed to be able to keep everyone together as they did throughout the season, and that made them face a huge deficit almost all night.
The American Corey Kispert, from the first team of the Associated Press, did not receive many clean looks and finished with only 12 points and two of 3 points. Runner-up Drew Timme also made 12, but made just seven shots while getting involved in a foul problem in the second half and recovering from an apparent injury.
Gonzaga hit only 5 out of 17 points out of 3, the lowest total of the six games in the NCAA Tournament.
The Zags had already been here once, taking a team from defeat until the final night of the season, four years ago, before losing to North Carolina. This is perhaps more painful for a team that has won every game except two, all year round, by double-digit margins and has coach Mark Few a victory for winning the national championship for which he has spent years building.
In the final minute, Kispert and Joel Ayayi were checking out of the game with a hug for Few as they went down the bench. Soon Suggs joined them and started to cry, crying first in Andrew Nembhard’s arms and then Kispert when the Bears celebration started.
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