“That was one of the best games I have ever seen.”

Jay Bilas

I have to keep this one on the short side, friends. Let’s start with Baylor vs Houston. Baylor won by like a billion. Nothing to see here. Moving on.

And then, there was the game of the night…the game of the tournament…and quite possibly, one for the ages. Prior to tip off of the Gonzaga vs UCLA instant classic, essentially every pundit, sportscaster, analyst, writer, and armchair hoops hero including yours truly said that the only chance UCLA had was to keep the game in the 60s or low 70s (everyone except, notably, Clark Kellogg, who said UCLA needed to match Gonzaga but maintain control of the game, which they essentially did). Forty-five minutes and 183 combined points later, everyone watching sat either in stunned silence and rose up in glorious disbelief as Jalen Suggs banked in a 43 foot heave at the buzzer to keep Gonzaga’s hopes of a perfect season alive for one more game. As I have revealed without apology on many occasions, I am a Gonzaga fan and apologist, and for 45 minutes, I was in agony. “Not like this,” as the famous meme quotes Switch from 1999’s The Matrix was running through my head. Not UCLA again. Then Suggs hit “that shot”, and my son Graham and I shouted so loud we scared the sleeping dog who came running to rescue us from whatever danger had surely come upon us.

I do not have all of the stats and superlatives that undoubtedly testify to the validity of the “best Final Four game ever” hype being bandied about. I do know that both teams combined to shoot a scorching 58.2% from the field, the best ever in a Final Four game except for the 1985 national championship between Villanova and Georgetown. I also know that the game had nineteen lead changes, the most of any game in the tournament this year. While I am thrilled that Gonzaga won, and will never apologize or abide an asterisk being placed on the game is if they were “lucky” to win, UCLA was just phenomenal and deserves high praise. Johnny Juzang made a believer out of me, and Cody Riley, Jaime Jaquez, and Tyger Campbell are no slouches, either. That being said, tonight belongs to Jalen Suggs, Drew Timme, Corey Kispert, and Joel Ayayi. They stand one game shy of history.

A final word on the upcoming national championship game. For all the drama we have seen in this year’s tournament, we are ending up exactly where we should, with the best two teams in college basketball, not just for this season, but perhaps for the past TWO seasons, meeting in the final contest. Both teams were poised for deep tournament runs last year before COVID canceled everything. Both teams were ranked #1 and #2 in the polls for most of the year until, again, COVID through Baylor a curveball that dropped them temporarily. In case you missed it, these two teams were supposed to play on December 5th, but again, COVID killed that appointment. So, here we are, a literal date with destiny. It doesn’t always happen that the best two teams play for the championship. It is that nature of any tournament format. But this year, they will. Neither school has ever won a national championship, though both have played for one. For Baylor it was 1948, a year after my parents were born when the tournament had just eight teams. For Gonzaga, the memory is much more recent, when they lost to UNC in 2017. A win for Gonzaga will make them the only undefeated champion in the 64-team era and the first since the 1976 Indiana Hoosiers did it in a 32-team field. Buckle up, friends. It should be a good one.

Quick Awards

• The Masked Singer “Take It Off” award goes to Emilia Grunden, who has obviously been reading the commentary and used her alias to reveal her true identity, or, at least, her first name. Emilia spent a long time in first, but alas, she has been failed by UCLA and Arkansas, and her glorious ride has come to an end.
• The Watching These Games Would Be Boring Without You Texting Me Non-Stop award goes to my good friend Brad Schafer, who entered the contest as Avedis Zildjian for reasons known only to him, and sent me such gems as these during tonight’s games.
  • “Am tired of fawn boy and werewolf babe” – referring to the cherry-vanilla and orange-vanilla Coca-Cola commercials featuring the halloweenish characters.
  • “FWIW we used to have a sheep named Clarice” – said in response to the ubiquitous ads for the series Clarice, based on the chief protagonist from the film The Silence Of The Lambs. How apropos.
• The Call Tech Support award goes to Brock Zagel, who alerted me of an issue with the website loading the Overall Standings report VERY SLOWLY shortly after the Gonzaga game concluded. I noticed, and it seems to be ok now, though I have no idea what the problem was. Brock sits in 30th and hopes to beat the Wizard on the back of his pick of Baylor over Gonzaga. The Wizard is sore displeased.
• The Agony Of Defeat award goes to two, and there were only two – out of 733, contestants who picked UCLA to advance to the national championship game with their original picks. Those two sad contestants are Tim Miles and Isabel Snyder. That UCLA win would have given them 48 points each, which would have put Tim in first place and Isabel in the top 10. To quote the guy from the Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup commercials, NOT SORRY.
• And finally, the I Hope This Makes You Feel Better award goes to contest leader and recent recipient of an appendectomy, Bryce Hand. Bryce, it turns out, is trying to make some history of his own, becoming the first two-time champion of Jeff’s March Madness Contest.

Ok, minions. I wish you all a happy and blessed Resurrection Day, and I will see you again on Monday night for the final commentary and awards.