UCLA gets shot to stop Gonzaga
No. 11 seed latest to try to take down unbeaten top seed at Big Dance
Next up on the long list of wannabes eager to stop, or even slow, the undefeated Gonzaga Bulldogs is a team basketball fans might have heard of: UCLA.
In a strange twist that typifies a strange year, the legacy program with more national championships than anyone is a plucky up-and-comer this time around. The Bruins are listed as the biggest underdog at the Final Four in 25 years — 14 points — as they head into Saturday night’s game.
And tiny Gonzaga — enrollment 7,300 with a dozen or so very talented basketball players sprinkled among them — is the behemoth nobody can seem to touch.
UCLA is the fifth 11th seed to reach the Final Four, and joins the 2011 VCU squad as the second to get this far after starting in the First Four, the preliminary round the NCAA added when it expanded the bracket to 68 teams a decade ago.
Heading into Selection Sunday, the Bruins (22-9) were viewed as slightly better than a bubble team, but the First Four placement identified them as one of the last four teams in. That placed a chip on their shoulders, but with Gonzaga (30-0) looming, this is no time for outside motivation, according to coach Mick Cronin.
“I give them pointers and try to be honest and tell them how hard it’s going to be because of who we’re playing,” said Cronin, who has led UCLA within two wins of the program’s 12th national title. “I’m not the false-motivation guy, because none of that is going to help you when you’re trying to stop Jalen Suggs in transition.”
Suggs, a freshman who will likely go in the NBA lottery if he leaves after one season, is one cog on a team with the
nation’s best offense (91.6 points per game), the nation’s best shooting percentage (54.8) and the nation’s most impressive margin of victory (23.1). The Zags have won 29 of their first 30 games by double digits.
The winner advances to Monday’s final to face the winner of the Houston-baylor semifinal.
Gonzaga is two wins away from becoming the first undefeated team since 1976, when Indiana did it en route to the national championship. If the pressure of making history is weighing down the Zags, coach Mark Few certainly can’t detect it.
Baylor vs. Houston
Somebody will be doing a joyful Texas two-step after Baylor and Houston meet Saturday night in the Final Four.
It could be Bears coach Scott Drew, who built his now-mighty program from the ashes of one of the worst scandals in sports history. Led by guards Jared Butler, Davion Mitchell and Macio Teague, they’ve have rolled to their first semifinal since 1950 with the kind of joie de vivre nobody thought possible two decades ago.
Or it could be Cougars counterpart Kelvin Sampson, who has spent more than a decade trying to outrun the “cheater” label hung from his neck during his days at Oklahoma and Indiana. He might finally have done it with this bunch, a mish-mash of overlooked prospects and transfers that have fans fondly recalling the halcyon days of Phi Slama Jama.
Either way, the first Final Four game involving two programs from the football-mad Lone Star State will produce a hoops finalist that stands on the verge of its first national championship.
That may be true these days. But it certainly wasn’t true when Grimes and every other player stepping on the floor inside Lucas Oil Stadium on Saturday night were beginning their basketball journeys.
It’s been 71 years since the Bears reached this point. Seven coaches tried and failed to replicate the success. The last of those, Dave Bliss, brought the program to its nadir: the 2003 shooting death of player Patrick Denney, his teammate Carlos Dotson pleading guilty to the murder, an NCAA investigation and attempts by Bliss to cover it up.
Into that cesspool came Drew, the squeaky clean son of Valparaiso coach Homer Drew, who set about rebuilding a program hit hard by NCAA sanctions. In five years, he had the program back in the NCAA Tournament, and trips to the Sweet 16 and Elite Eight became commonplace until finally breaking through this season.
It helps that in a season challenged every turn by COVID-19, Drew has had a team full of veterans to help stay the course. Butler, Mitchell and Teague earned All-america votes, Mark Vital will go down as one of the winningest players in school history and many of the backups would be starters on other NCAA Tournament teams.
Meanwhile, the Cougars are conjuring up images of “the Glide,” “the Dream” and “the Silent Assassin” in their first Final Four since Clyde Drexler, Hakeem Olajuwan and the rest of Phi Slama Jama led Houston to back-to-back title games.
Much like Baylor, it relies on its steely backcourt: sweet-shooting Grimes, defensive whiz Dejon Jarreau and all-energy guard Marcus Sasser. The Cougars also rely one of the nation’s best defenses, brutally efficient offensive rebounding and the kind of grim determination borne of a coach whose father once went toe-to-toe with the Ku Klux Klan.