Men’s Final Four: Gonzaga is big favorite to win title

LOS ANGELES — With three games remaining in the NCAA Tournament, this much is indisputable: college basketball can go strong to its left.

For the first time, every school in the Final Four is located not necessarily on the Left Coast, but west of the Mississippi River. Seven of the teams in the Elite Eight fell into that category.

With the exception of UCLA — and that reputation was forged in the John Wooden era — the blue-blood programs are out and the new bloods are in, with Gonzaga, Baylor and blast-from-the-past Houston rounding out the Final Four.

Watching from the couch are familiar programs such as Duke, North Carolina, Kentucky, Kansas, Michigan State and Louisville. Of those schools, North Carolina, Michigan State and Kansas made the tournament, with only the Jayhawks winning a game.

“This is a renaissance for West Coast basketball,” said Fox analyst Steve Lavin, a former UCLA coach. “People forget that the West Coast was the epicenter of college basketball for decades.

LONG ODDS: Gonzaga is bidding to become Division I’s first undefeated team since Indiana in 1975-76 and is pegged as a 14-point favorite over UCLA, according to BetMGM and Pregame.com. That’s the biggest point spread for a Final Four game in 25 years. The Zags, who covered the spread their first four NCAA Tournament games, are -225 favorites to win the national title. Baylor is +375, Houston +600 and UCLA +2500, according to BetMGM.